Five Insights From What Teens Want

Every month 800,000 young people in the US enter the teen age bracket and join a constantly changing teen population numbering 33.9 million, the largest teen group ever. Of that group, 83% are online. And they have tons of cash, lots of information, and some pretty bold ambitions. The new American Dream? It includes a huge house AND Angelina Jolie virtues. Probably before age 30 if possible…

In the year since I last attended a What Teens Want East conference in New York, the world is surely quite a bit more educated about youth trends, particularly in technology. Media coverage has surged on these topics. I think the typical Ypulse reader is probably pretty in tune with the basic comings and goings of social networks, the general characteristics of youth culture, and the fact that brands need to be authentic etc. So going into this conference I was really looking for new insight. Lucky for me, it was a great conference overall. I tried to capture the moments where I was inspired and thought something was said that resonated with the audience and pushed the ball a bit farther down the youth marketing court for us all. I've written about the what I think are the five best insights that surfaced (and I've compiled a collection of research and stats at the end as well as a few good quotes). Enjoy and discuss.

1. Integrity and attitude as key social network traits in the long run (and the rise of Facebook)

When asked how Facebook will evolve as the social networking category matures, Chris Kelly (Chief Privacy Officer) of Facebook said with a certain nonchalance that they see themselves as building the underlying social graph that will enable the development of new and great social applications on top of it. We know they've made huge leaps on this strategy recently with Facebook Platforms, which has immediately helped boost most valuable asset, their community loyalty, and has done a great deal to provide utility to their community, and reinforce its values and commitment. I read that there are over 1000 developers getting started on Facebook applications each day now. There is so much goodwill for this site right now. Kelly told us that over half of their users return every day.

Facebook has the right attitude. Danah Boyd has recently said a few good things about the importance of this in social software. They have loads of integrity and their young users feel it. Kelly's points came in some contrast to the presentation by Michael Barrett, Chief Revenue Officer of Fox Interactive that kicked off the conference. He relayed some great research (shown at the end of this post), but at times managed to make social networking feel a bit like accounting. MySpace is still booming. Sometimes it seems like all the talk lately about MySpace being on the brink of a decline is like all the talk over the last five years about hip hop dying, so I’m a little skeptical. But the teen panel that ended the conference really confirmed what everyone is truly feeling — there is a sea change happening from MySpace to Facebook. Their eyes all lit up with the mention of Facebook, and many had recently switched.

Kelly was also on point when talking about communities. He listed the single most important strategy of Facebook as starting where social networks already existed — colleges. Sounds obvious, but people often talk about creating communities. I remember reading something recently about how when asked by a brand manager how they could create a community online, Mark Zuckerberg simply replied "you can't." He said you must simply tap into, connect and enhance an existing community.

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2. Teens aren’t buying much music. Can brands fix the music industry?

"The music industry is *$&$ed, and we will stay *&%$ed until we un-%$%$ ourselves." (said tongue in cheek, I should add)
- Jason Flom, Chairman and CEO of Capitol Music Group

The idea Jason Flom presented is to sell the exclusive rights to an unreleased album to a brand, and have them market it and do with it what they'd like. He referenced iPod commercials and their ability to boost rising bands like Jet. I might add the case study of what Sony has done for Jose Gonzalez and even The Knife. It was an idea he kept inserting throughout his talk (which was pretty hilarious and riddled with the f-bomb). He even offered up his email address and challenged the audience to do a deal with him while he was still on stage. He pondered whether there is something more in that concept for the future of music distribution. I think there is, and I think we'll see some real happenings in the brand/advertiser supported music space this year (witness the forthcoming RCRD LBL site from Peter Rojas).

The music session was basically all about "youth don't buy music, what do we do now?" So what do you do? The presenting group soon acknowledged that it's about branding and content, not records, something Kevin Liles had touched upon earlier in his talk about the Scream Tour. Co-presenter Fred Goldring acknowledged that Disney has gotten it right with High School Musical and Hannah Montanna, in that they’ve realized they are in the branding business across many platforms and industries.

3. Consumer-generated-media (CGM) is the key approach to drive brand advocacy with youth

Max Kalehoff of Nielsen BuzzMetrics gave a perfectly smart and concise presentation on why CGM matters and how it can be used. I saw a connection between his session and that of Robert Mathews of Nintendo, who spoke about the strategies behind Wii and DS marketing.

Mathews spoke about how the single, simple objective they had with the Wii was to create advocacy and have teens talking. That was it. Besides what they did in terms of TV, print and all the fundamentals of being in the right places was really enable an outpouring of CGM. He urged marketers to let go of their brand, and to let their fans have fun with it. Where the rubber really hit the road here for Nintendo was with the strong online tools they gave their fans. They put together great packages of game character artwork people could be creative with, and compelling contest and microsites behind them. Nothing groundbreaking here, but they did it really well. There are over 100,000 Wii videos on YouTube. There are over 37,000 mentions of Nintendo on MySpace, well beyond their competitors. The Wii experience site connects Wii fans globally through short videos.

In part, this can serve as a case study to Kalehoff's reasons why CGM matters:
- It's the most trusted form of commercial messaging
- It links to behavior. There's been a huge rise in the importance of word-of-mouth recommendations over the last few decades
- It can audit and explain behavior. An example being Nintendo seeing what was happening with their fans online and creating a TV spot that built on this new cultural development

One of the more interesting and progressive ideas Kalehoff spoke to was the opportunity that exists in the consumer affairs department, and how much sense it makes to move it from a cost center to a profit center. He talked about how companies are often talking about finding and connecting with their influencers to help drive advocacy, but the fact is that these same people are often already knocking at the door of their consumer affairs department and being let down. So why not turn that into a strategic communications touchpoint that can help drive word of mouth and advocacy?

4. As a marketer, if you’re not creating utility you’re pretty much just crashing the party

Samantha Skey of Alloy touched on a welcome concept in the engagement and privacy session when she said the types of media they are seeing as the most effective are those that provide “portable utility” that is branded. What she's referring to is branded widgets (think the VW Rabbit widget). I was hoping to hear more about the concept of branded utility throughout the day, especially with what is going on right now with Facebook applications.

Michael Barrett of Fox kept used the term “crash the party” when talking about what they try to avoid with branded programs in MySpace. During the mobile marketing session, Mimi Chan of the AT&T wireless youth marketing (which is a client I work on, I will add), talked about the music program they had run, which looked at the MySpace unsigned artist community and said "what can we provide them that would be mutually beneficial?" The result is a program that lets bands upload a song, which is converted into a ringtone, and sold to MySpace users on the profile page, providing a cut of the sale to the artist (again disclosure: I work for the agency that was behind this). I think it's a good example of utility and bringing something to the party.

Another example that came to light, while not a perfect example of branded utility, was Scion cars in Gaia Online. They had launched that morning, and for the Gaia audience, I would imagine this fun and functional addition to the world was very well-received (well yeah, there were 40,000 users of the cars within the first three hours of release, so yes, success).

5. The general view of privacy is shifting from anonymity to control

More great words spoken by Chris Kelly of Facebook. He talked about how we are moving from a time where people associate privacy with anonymity, to a time where privacy will be based on certain levels of control. He attributed this to identity, understanding and verification, and determining access to what and by whom and when. There is a middle ground where controls make all the difference, and Facebook is really doing a great job of this.

Bruce Henderson of Ogilvy added that education is the most important way to create better understanding of privacy. He said sometimes he thinks it's the adults that need education on the issue of public vs. private. Addressing certain negative reactions people have had to Google Street View he quoted a colleague who said, “The public is called the public, because it is public not private.” I agree. I think people are coming around to the idea that making certain personal information public at certain times to certain people can be of tremendous benefit to their lives.

A Few Quotes from Teens:

"I'm grounded right now, but normally I spend about 89% of my time on MySpace when I'm online."
- Female member of the teen panel

"I would describe my style as awesome, because I am the ultimate man."
- Male teen from the The N research presentation in context of Millennial high confidence

"The whole IM language has gotten out of control. The other day my friend said LOL to my face and I was like WHAT!?!?"
- Female teen from The N research

And some stats:

It’s like crack for youth marketers isn't it:

From Radha Subreamanyam of the N (who it's worth noting gave a killer research presentation):

• "Chill" is the top attitude/lifestlye teens associate with at 40%. Others include Urban (23%), Prep (23%) and Hip Hop (19%)
  
• African Americans and Hispanics use social networking sites more than whites (both at 84% vs. 81%)
  
• Music as defining their identity (44%), with family a close second (39%)
  
• Surprisingly high disdain for brands. 56% see them as creating negative stereotypes. But it's totally love/hate: "infatuation tempered with contempt."

From Michael Barnett of Fox Interactive:

• Fox’s eight week old The “Never Ending Friending” study can be found online
  
• 20 million teens 12-17 are online. That’s 83% penetration which will grow to 88% in the next few years
  
• 75% of teens that are online use social networking sites
  
• MySpace is the #18 ranked youth brand, ahead of iPod and Nike
  
• MySpace teens spend more time online (9.8 hrs) than watch TV (9.2 hrs)
  
• Combined use of SNS sites beats highest cable TV and magazine audience with teens
  
• If those 14-18 had 15 mins of free time, they’re most inclined to use an SNS site (21%) over cell phone (19%)

Alloy multicultural research:

• 46% of Hispanics in US are under 25
  
• There are 800,000 new teens each month. The total teen population is 33.9 million (12-19 yrs)
  
• Purchasing power from 1990 to 2001 amongst teens has increased 189% in total. But between ethnicities, there’s been a 457% increase among Hispanics, 431% among Asians, 251% among blacks, and 176% among whites.
  

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