Youth, Media & Technology: The “Experts”
Bruno, a 19 year old Economics student at Manchester University, gives his views about what was discussed by the ‘expert’ panel at at this year’s Youth, Media and Technology event…
The second panel at MediaTel’s Youth event started with a short presentation by Channel 4’s Neil Taylor, explaining his work on the research project UK Tribes. UK Tribes attempts to identify and categorise 16-24 year olds into different groups depending on their cultural preferences.
According to the research, there are five separate groups which a person can fit into – mainstream, urban, alternative, aspirant mainstream and leading edge, each with their own sub-categories, which add up to a total of 23 different groups.
My initial reaction was that there are problems attached to putting ‘youths’ into one of these groups. Some people don’t like to be labelled a certain type and why is it that we have to fall into just one category? Is it not possible to have different characteristics from different groups? I consider myself to have certain features from the groups – the casuals, sport junkies, ravers, gamers and even geeks. Being labelled just one of these would be a big mistake in my opinion.
The expert panel consisted of Robin Hilton (director of ResearchBods), Tim Pritchard (social media manager for Everything Everywhere), Nicolas Roope (founder and executive creative director of Poke), Jen Topping (online business manager for Channel 4) and Liz Cunningham (head of commercial programming for KISS).
The panel gave a quick response to the youth panel, which I was on, and correctly pointed out that even though we don’t like adverts, we are open to new advertising and clever branding – and free was the winning formula.
Roope went on to say how today’s youth has more choice than previous generations and that teenagers having less money made them more resourceful. This is all true – and because of it I imagine that building brand loyalty is harder than ever.
Comparison sites make it all too easy to find identical products elsewhere at cheaper prices, so there is little reason to stick with a more expensive product or service just for sake of ‘brand loyalty’, especially as the best offers tend to be for joining rival companies.
Pritchard said that brands are trying to encourage brand loyalty from a young age, using advertising targeted to a younger audience. However, what I like currently and the brands I buy are very likely to change as I grow up, through changes in lifestyle choices and trends – and even better deals elsewhere.
Another point discussed during both panels was the need to adapt advertising to offer an experience and/or rewards instead of interrupting to gain our attention. I consider this to be a good idea.
None of the youth panel liked the GoCompare adverts to the extent that when asked where we would go to get insurance, we all agreed that GoCompare.com would not even be an option.
An advertising campaign that has appealed to me and enticed me in has been LoveFilm’s 30 day free trial along with a £20 Amazon voucher advertised on the side of the Amazon’s homepage. The idea of being compensated for watching films and playing video games was too good to miss!
One of the reasons I don’t stick to the same brand is because I feel that I am treated equally whichever brand I choose. Receiving non-personalised replies to questions or complaints I may have makes me feel like I am just another customer going through a conveyor belt system – and that I don’t really matter to the brand (even if they say they do care). The only notable exception I have experienced recently is Apple’s customer service, whereby my emails are replied to within a couple of hours and it was clear that each had been written personally by someone who took my case on for me. This does of course come at a premium at the time of purchasing.
This idea of having a personal experience is true with social media as well. I am more likely to follow someone or a brand on Twitter if I know that they are going to be answering questions and honestly sharing their true thoughts, rather than corporate style jargon. Cunningham made this point very well by highlighting the fact that it is important to make people aware that there are humans behind the social media wall.
Overall, I felt that the expert panel got most things right and really had an idea of what I tend to like and dislike about different aspect of media. They understood that we now have more choices on how to consume media both legally and illegally, so finding the way to grab our attention needs to change.
Advertising designed to disrupt our viewing or gaming experiences have become too easy to avoid – and are easily forgotten when we are constantly being bombarded and targeted by so many different ads on so many different platforms.
I would argue that best way to get my attention is to simply to offer the best deal while rewarding me for choosing your brand – accompanied by a short, simple, yet effective message. Too much information will easily make us bored and turn the other way. Introducing games or making ads and brand messages interactive will keep us interested for much longer than just an image or video. Keeping ads fresh and innovative goes a long way!