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Listen to the consumer...

Alan Rutherford, Global Media Director of Unilever, spoke at the MTV Generation XY conference last week. He gave the attendees a whirlwind tour of some of the global issues facing brands who wish to connect with the youth market.

However, the most critical piece he shared was in many ways the most obvious: Never forget the consumer; if you fail to do this, then brands (and agencies) fail full stop.

Such a message is not new, but was definitely ready for another outing. Some years ago, when the BSE meat scandal hit the UK, McDonald's immediately switched their beef supplies to non-UK suppliers before the government ruled on the fitness of the meat. Burger King waited. The outcome was McDonald's minimising the drop in sales as the understandable public fear of eating beef hit in the UK.

One UK company has recently brought it's call centre back to the UK from abroad, having listened to their customers complaining about the service levels of the non-UK based call centre. Meanwhile a batch of petrol bought at the UK supermarkets Tesco's and Morrisons was found to be contaminated, Cars have broken down with the cost of repairs for those cars affected being covered by the supermarkets. However, the two companies did not immediately offer compensation, putting out statements that they found nothing wrong with the petrol. It could have been touch and go with regards reputations, but they seemed to have reacted quick enough to avert a PR disaster.

So Alan was right to call for a greater focus on the obvious: Never forget the customer. Every time a brand does, it will do so at it's peril. Old lesson for us all, but still a good one.

V is for Very Simply Put

Alice Taylor, founder of gamer friendly wonderlandblog and builder of bridges between the traditional TV channel and the digital channels gave one one those rare conference speeches which mixed knowledge, modesty and turning complex into simple.

Sweeping through a quick tour of the world of MMORPGs (see previous posts) she shared some recent research from the US. It was found that amongst youth the average time spent on MySpace was 21 minutes whilst on World of Warcraft it was a whopping 197 minutes spent per day.

TV stations and brands are focusing so much attention on the myspace/bebo phenomenon, yet connecting with the gaming experience is still in it's infancy. Yeah, but the research was from the U.S. I hear you cry. That might be true, but in my straw poll of two (One 30something in the U.K. and a young 22 year old czech person), 2-3 hours on World of Warcraft is not unusual.

Alice herself is a big gamer, and highlighted the point that whilst many young women are gamers they get ignored as a viable market. So a missed opportunity, or will 2007 see both the gaming industry and brands review their approaches to gaming from their 'it's a boy thing' perspectives? Alice suggests that Wii has already made a move for the female gamer, so maybe things are going to change.

Alice stressed that Gaming and MMORPGs are in direct competition for the time of the young person across a number of countries. In the U.S. the average TV consumption is 28 hours per week, whilst in MMORPG households, TV consumption drops to 7.7hours per week, over 70% of TV viewing gone! Meanwhile in these MMORPG househols, playing the games takes up 21 hours per week. A sign that such gaming eats away at TV viewing time.

It is clearly time that gaming is looked at more by brands, if only to understand better how young people tick, wherever they live.

More on MTV Circuits of Cool

Andy Davidson of MTV Europe delivered a fascinating presentation at the GenerationXY? conference last week. Delving into his box of tricks, otherwise known as the MTV Circuits of Cool research, he shared little nuggets including:

1 Technology helping to build friendships, not alienating kids.
2 Digital fills the void for adolescents who are too young to go out and too old to stay in
3 Youth are never separated from their friends. They are connected all the time. Marketers need to be aware of this when connecting. There is no point in pushing to the individual when the tribe is more important to youth.
4 Online usage is chaotic and random. They don't go to youtube, but go there from a clip sent to them from a friend.

Andy summarised with some advice to brands who wish to connect with youth.
Be relevant
Don't talk about technology
Understand their needs
Take account of cultural and climactic differences
Entertain kids and connect the adolescents
Use the right channel for the job

All of this in forty minutes. Normally we are lucky to get a sliver of such insight and comment in a conference.

Mum what is a social network?

I chaired the MTV/CSquared Conference in Prague last week, and was treated to some great speakers. First up was Andy Davidson, Research Director of MTV Europe. He gave us a peek into some great fresh research from MTV called Circuits of Cool. This piece of research aims to understand the digital generation, answering such questions as how digital impacts on youth, why new platforms have been so popular and how best to engage the digital generation.

First up he made the salient point that young people do not live in a world of digispeak (hello folksonomies!). Taking Poland as an example, only 39% talk about 'blogging', 16% refer to 'social networks', whilst only 8% mention 'multi-platforms' or 'web 2.0'. Shock horror! Andy rightly stressed that young people are interested in what the technology can do for them, NOT the language itself.

The classic chart where we find out that youth love their friends, family and music more than anything else appeared again. All fresh and up to date, yet ultimately stating that some things do not change for youth with technological advancement.

In the Top Ten things youth love doing, being with the boy/girlfriend, hanging out with friends and spending time with family came out as the top three, followed by 'Listening to Music'. Also in the top ten were 'going to music gigs' and 'chilling out/relaxing'. Music, friends and family...still critical to youth.

Furthermore, the research has found that the impact of technology on youth depends on where you live. In Japan, they have become tired of technology, whilst in India the mobile and ipod is a status symbol. Meanwhile in China, the land of one-child families, kids were found to have an emotional attachment to the net in their search for peer friendships.

Andy also drew attention to the impact of climate on youth trends, which got me thinking: if young Morrisey was born in Puglia, would his melancholic genius have been channelled into opera?

More from Andy coming up...