Youth and the Media: Appealing to a New Generation

Today I attended "The Future of News Media, In Their Words: Teens as Media Consumers and Predictors," a City Club of Cleveland forum. The program was the final in a four-part series about the future of media and featured three high school and college-aged panelists' opinions and predictions of where mainstream media must go to appeal to younger consumers. Because it featured an open question-and-answer period, the discussion had a chance to go interesting places and the audience members, each with their own agenda, brought up some thought-provolking questions.

The panel itself was an articulate group of "teens." In fact, to my knowledge, only one (maybe two) of the participants were actually teens. Two of the panel members were majoring in Communication/Media-related fields and worked in college news media. As one audience member aptly pointed out, their opinions and answers are far from generalizable to the mainstream youth population. From a research standpoint what we learned at this forum wouldn't even equal the validity of a qualitative study, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't valuable information. A few trends emerged in the panelists responses to a multitude of questions.

Youth consumers prefer brevity.

These youth all expressed a need to get their information quickly and on the go. One member of the panel criticized television news as "taking too long to deliver the information." Their preferred method of media consumption was in print and online. These panelists prefer to read short media briefs online and then research whatever aspects of the news interest them by searching other media sites and websites for further information. As opposed to a more traditional preference for all the information you need contained in one source, they expressed a desire to know a little about a lot instead of a lot about one subject. They discussed MTV news shorts (remember Kurt Loder?) and breaking news blurbs as being important to them.

Youth consumers need relevance.

The panel was unified in the idea that relevance was a driving factor in their media consumption choices. What did they find relevant? Local issues, youth issues and not surprisingly local music and events.

On a local news media level they want the news to start covering more local and youth issues. They look to CNN and other national outlets to provide this national coverage. Instead they would like to see local television and print media covering the issues "on their block." Additionally, relevance to them means coverage of the local music and event scene. One panelist gave the example of being able to turn on the television on Friday after school and seeing a quick run-down of all weekend events, movies and music. She also mentioned the possibility of a weekly restaurant-review on the broadcast news and suggested that she would be a regular consumer of both the run-down and the review. All the panelists agreed that learning more about the "hidden gems" in the art/music scene of Cleveland was appealing to them.

On a national and international level, relevance is still important. One member of the panel said that if national and international news could be come more relevant to her life, she would be a more avid consumer of both. She discussed politics and the recent Ted Strickland State of the State Address saying that she would be more likely to pay attention to coverage of this event if it made the "youth connection." She wants to know how the state of Ohio effects her life directly and with baby boomers being a large target audience, sometimes the up-and-coming youth is forgotten. In addition, the panelists discussed international media as difficult to consume stating that "there are so many names that I don't recognize, I mean, how does this affect my life?"

Youth consumers like the net.

Of course they do. We already know that right? The panelists cited the webs ability to act as an interactive news outlet that allows for comment and discussion as one of the top reasons that sites like myspace and facebook are so popluar. Even that wasn't really a surprise to me as a young consumer of media myself. An interesting question raised when talking about the web was a question asked by the panel's moderator: "How do you decide what's credible?" The answer was surprising, especially from the high school student. "I usually just guess." While the college aged panelists discussed their tendency to trust information from established media sources, and their tendency to check those messages against other media sources, the high school student suggested that if it seems credible and not commercial, he buys into it. He wasn't really interested in tracing information to a credible source. This is an important thing to consider from a marketing standpoint, but more on that later.

MP3 players and Podcasts aren't as big as we thought.

Surprisingly, at least to me, none of the panelists had mp3 players or iPods. None of them felt that their friend-base or acquaintances used podcasts regularly for news media consumption. While most of them are aware of the functions of mp3 players and iPods, they report that their friends are more likely to listen to cd's or NPR in the car. While these devices are wildly popular and this group of panelists may not be representative of the larger youth population, I would speculate that the cost of iPods and other mp3 devices keeps podcasts and other pod media from being widespread among people ages 13-23. If you broke into the 24-35 age group, I bet you would see a surge in people who subscribe to podcasts as a media vehicle.

So, what did I learn as a Marketing Professional?

I learned that, in order to reach the youth, local news and media programs need to narrow their focus to encompass only relevant local events and pepper their coverage with youth-related news while national and international outlets need to create relevance to youth in their presentation of the news. Both local and global news outlets need to present news in short segments with excellent video/graphics. This means as a marketer I need to consider marketing to youth with relevance and brevity in mind in the most visually engaging format possible.

As youth begin to bypass traditional forms of advertising and marketing by using the internet, a venue where ads can be effectively ignored, as a source for their information and by using devices like tivo and mp3 players instead of radio, the marketing/advertising world needs to begin to adapt itself and find ways to continue to reach youth consumers (and consumers in general). To me this means a more common-practice use of public relations (staging events, becoming part of the actual news broadcast as a newsworthy subject, engaging in community education and public speaking) and a decline in media buying as a way to reach consumers. Viral marketing and grassroots internet marketing become more and more important in a world where we can choose to watch the commercials or skip them. Interesting, funny and informational videos/texts spread like wildfire through online communities like myspace, facebook and blogger. Marketing professionals need to harness that power to get a message out to the youth consumer. Some youth do not differentiate between credible news sources and commercial efforts, and while the ethics behind it are objectionable to me, this does present an opportunity to sell opinion as fact to young consumers.

Youth are ready to give their opinion and like to see their opinion in action. The panel, one of the members in particular, suggested that she found research to be very important in discovering the trends and changes in youth media consumption. She used research to learn what the college-aged youth at her university wanted to see in the campus paper and suggested that the response was excellent to the research and that students have enjoyed seeing their opinions appear in the publication. This generation of youth assigns a great deal of value to their opinion and both the news media and marketers would be wise to implement research as a tool when considering marketing to youth. Additionally, because of the high level of interaction and communication in local circles, research helps to keep up with an ever-changing mindset fueled by technology and online ingenuity.

This was a fantastic panel to get my wheels turning on the state of news media and marketing in relation to youthful audiences. Sometimes I forget that I'm no longer a part of the youngest generation of consumers and sometimes I forget how far removed I am from someone who has had instant messenger since kindergarten. We would do well to consider the future of media through the eyes of youth and keep marketing efforts current abreast changes in the media that will eventually change the way we consume media and the way we promote through media.

Posted By: Julie A Powell
Project Manager at DecisionPoint Marketing & Research