Young "Internet Natives" Devour Media, both New and Old - Brad Fay-Keller Fay

The transformation in our media landscape is breathtaking no matter who you are but it holds special import for the socalled quotInternet Nativesquot who are consumers young enough to have no memory of a life without web browsing cell phones texting and highdefinition videoThis digital generation born during the last two decades was the subject of this month39s panel discussion at the iMedia Video Summit organized by Jack Myers author of Hooked Up A New Generation39s Take on Sex Politics and Saving the World Jack39s book provided the premise for the discussion describing this generation as quotthe small band of impatient empowered multitasking curious confident confused sexually liberated sometimes bingedrinking and often fragile kids who were the first to be born into the Internet AgequotIn preparing for the discussion I spent some time digging into my own firm39s database of consumer brand conversations to understand how today39s 13 to 22yearold consumersamp8212all born since 1990amp8212differ from the older core of the primetime viewing audience ages 30 to 49 Here39s some of what I found and shared Media Mavens The Internet Natives are highly engaged in conversation about media and entertainmentamp8212TV shows movies websites etc Whereas their older counterparts talk about media brands on average 7 times per week the Internet Natives do so 18 times per week and those who watch TV on Hulu talk about media brands 24 times per week BrandOriented Across all consumer categories brands are a conversation currency They talk about brands 120 times per week compared to 70 times per week for their older peers This brand engagement helps to make them more influential in spreading recommendations and makes them an attractive target for advertisers Engaged with Advertising When the Internet Natives talk about brands they are much more likely to refer to something they39ve seen in the mediaamp8212whether that message has been paid earned or owned Twothirds of their conversations refer to media compared to half of the time for older consumers All Media Are Social Yes digital media 25 drives more conversation content for this generation than TV 19 or magazines 8 but for virtually every form of media amp8211 both new and old the younger consumers outperform their older peers in leveraging content for conversation In fact they are nearly twice as likely as their older peers to refer to content from magazines radio and direct mail when talking about advertiser brands FacetoFace As one might expect Internet Natives have twice the proportion of conversations online as the older group 14 vs 7 But the surprise is that facetoface still dominates as their preferred mode of conversation in threequarters of conversation similar to that of their older peers Rather than stealing from facetoface digital tends to steal share away from an older technology talking on the telephoneWhen one takes all these results together we see a quotlean forwardquot generation who views media as a participatory activity rather than as a passive one The sharing of ideas and information has become instinctive for these consumers Using digital media to seek out additional information in response to marketing is second nature Technology is an enabler but this is a generation that lives as comfortably in the real world as they do in the digital worldIn the 1960s the communications guru Marshall McLuhan described media as quotan extension of ourselvesquot With their active use and sharing of media in all its forms the Internet Natives are proving how right McLuhan really wasBrad Fay is COO of the Keller Fay Group a research company and with Ed Keller he is coauthor of The FacetoFace BookRead all Brad and Edamp8217s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at WOM MattersCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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Young "Internet Natives" Devour Media, both New and Old - Brad Fay-Keller Fay

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