School’s in, but who’s out?
With exam results recently deciding the future of millions of school and college leavers, Kantar Media’s Anna Gunn takes us through the latest TGI findings to examine what is an increasingly complex group of young people – and one who marketers need to handle with care to win the reward of a lifetime of loyalty.
The latest Kantar Media TGI Great Britain survey shows that in the last 12 months just over 1.5 million people in Britain left school or college. A higher proportion of this group are slightly younger, with 41% aged between 16-17 (and thus leaving education before A-levels), compared to 35% aged 18-19. Just over a million young adults are going on to further study.
Demographically, there is a 60 / 40 gender split amongst these school leavers, revealing quite a significant male skew. Regionally, this group predominates in Greater London, with 23% of school and college leavers residing in the capital.
This group of young people are a very determined bunch, with 36% of them desperate to get to the top of their career, making them three times more likely than the average British adult to want to do so. Clearly this group of aspirational adults are incredibly motivated and driven. Consequently, marketers would do well to pander to this sense of ambition in order to reach them effectively.
These young adults are over three times more likely than the average to wear designer clothes. With the label comes the price, though this group of fashion forward label lovers are clearly prepared to shell out the cash for the sake of fashion.
Furthermore, they are almost twice as likely as the average British adult to spend between £150-£199 on footwear or accessories in the last 12 months. Interestingly, 255,000 of these school or college leavers have spent £400 or more on any outerwear garments in the last year.
Their attitude to spending on clothes reveals that 38% view a clothing budget as important, demonstrating this target’s style conscious attitude along with willingness to spend. Clearly they are more concerned with being on-trend than out of pocket, which is music to many a marketer’s ears.
Their rationale behind purchasing mobile phones mirrors their attitudes to clothing and accessories, as just over 19% of school leavers rate brand image as one of the most important factors when choosing a mobile. Looking at mobile phone spend, 25% have an average monthly spend of between £20-£29. This group spend slightly more than adults overall, who are more modest spenders.
Not only are this group prepared to spend money on designer labels and stylish phones, but their desire to be fashionable means they are also willing to purchase new products, with over 50% agreeing they love to buy new gadgets and appliances.
However, this savvy group don’t just buy anything shiny and new – reviews are a very important source of information which shapes their purchase decisions. For example, when purchasing mobile phones, they are twice as likely as the average adult to agree that consumer and user reviews inform their purchase decision.
Importantly, getting people talking about products is vital; TGI demonstrates that 70% of school and college leavers have talked about games and consoles in the last 12 months. Similarly 69% of this group have also talked about websites. Clearly this target group responds well to consumer reviews whilst simultaneously having the potential to be a valuable mouthpiece for brands, providing informal consumer reviews which may heavily influence their peers.
In order for marketers to reach this key target, amongst the most appropriate media channels is cinema. They are 134% more likely than the average British adult to be amongst the heaviest one-fifth of cinema goers. 15% of this group go to the cinema two to three times a month, whereas only 4% of all adults do. In the last six months, Kantar Media TGI can reveal that this group are nearly six times as likely as the average to have seen teenage comedy films at the cinema. Proving especially popular amongst this group was Men in Black 3.
Internet use amongst school leavers is also heavy, with 36% of them updating or checking their social networks more than once a day. Kantar Media’s TGI Clickstream study, which incorporates a robust sample of metered internet usage alongside the full range of offline TGI consumer insight, reveals that just under a million people who have finished school in the last 12 months have used Facebook in the last four weeks, meaning that the vast majority of school and college leavers are regularly checking or updating their Facebook profiles.
Going further, through Kantar Media’s Ad-Vantage initiative, the cookies to reach this exact offline target audience online could be generated and the target reached efficiently online on key sites.