When you want to know what your customers think, ask them. Not so novel an idea, but when Morgan Stanley’s London office asked a 15-year-old intern, the outcome ended up capturing the attention of media buyers and CEOs worldwide.
They’re interested, as was Morgan, because of key observations like Twitter being for old people; among the teen’s colleagues “no one uses Twitter.” “Teenagers do not use Twitter.”
Matthew Robson is the lad and his paper is “How Teenagers Consume Media.” Robson says that the report reflects the collective thinking of about 300 of his peers.
Morgan Stanley called the report “one of the clearest and most thought-provoking insights we have seen,” according to the UK’s Times Online. His head teacher at Greenwich’s Kidbrook School, Trisha Jaffee, “is not surprised by his success” writing the media usage report for Morgan. After all, she said, “He’s a very reflective young man.”
The Times competitor, The Guardian, published “the full copy” of Robson’s report, which is a must-read for anyone marketing to this demographic. Here are a few snippets.
Radio — “Most teenagers nowadays are not regular listeners to radio.”
TV — “Most teenagers watch television”
Newspapers — “No teenager that I know of regularly reads a newspaper.”
Gaming — “Whilst the stereotypical view of gamers is teenage boys, the emergence of the Wii onto the market has created a plethora of girl gamers and younger (6+) gamers.”
Internet — “Every teenager has some access to the internet, be it at school or home. Home use is mainly used for fun (such as social networking) whilst school (or library) use is for work.”
Other media topics covered are: directories, viral/outdoor marketing, music, cinema, mobile phones, computers, game consoles, what’s hot, and what’s not.
One communications executive, with nearly 30 years in the business, offers an interesting and valuable comparison of the social media coverage of Sotomayor:
I’ve been following the Times’ Twitter and blog coverage (The Caucus) and the AP Twitter coverage of the Sotoymayor hearings. After reading the Times’ Tweets, you have to conclude that Twitter is not a good channel for an event laden with such complexity and subtlety as a Supreme Court confirmation hearing. The discussion is extremely hard to follow in 140-character morsels. The Times’ blog is much more effective in guiding the reader and has done well in providing explanation and context.
At the same time, the AP Twitter (AP_Courtside) is curiously compelling. I think that’s because its focus is broader than the hearing’s questions and answers. It’s doing an admirable job in making you feel as if you’re right there in the room. Tweets are great scene-setters. And AP’s Twitterers are very intuitive: If you were attending the hearing, of course your mind would wander occasionally and you’d wonder – for example – why are those Senate aides wearing earpieces? AP finds and tweets the answers!
[...] what about the audience? Is it as the Morgan Stanley teen analyst boldly stated: “No one uses Twitter…. Teenagers do not use [...]
[...] this strange evolutionary world you simultaneously you have Morgan Stanley’s London youth observer saying that “No one uses Twitter” any longer while an estimated 70% of American corporations [...]