TV vs. Video: What do the Numbers Mean?

Nielsen reported monthly hours of viewing for all age groups (see below) in May 2008 in it's "Third Screen Report". You'd have to be blind not to notice the age differences. Based on this and other TV viewing reports, I have a theory about what is happening to TV viewership among Millennials. It goes like this:

1. Appointment-style primetime TV viewing habits are pretty much dead, even for 'destination shows'. According to Millward Brown, nearly half of Millennials (45%) use a DVR 'regularly' or 'fairly often' and another 25% say they are considering buying one in the next year. The Heroes season opener derived 33% of its viewership from time shifted viewing.

2. Primetime viewing is largely social. According to Knowledge Network, 39% of Millennials watch primetime outside of their own home at least once a week, compared to just 11% of young boomers and 21% of Gen X'ers. I presume outside of home means other people's homes, a gym, bar or other social gathering place. 55% watch primetime with other people in the room, vs. 41% for young boomers. This suggests other technologies have a stronger claim on Millennials' 'alone' viewing time than primetime TV, another signal (pun intended) that TV is becoming marginalized for 'right now' viewing.

3. Internet video is becoming a reasonable alternative to TV for personal viewing. Over one quarter (27%) of Millennials go to websites to watch video vs. only 9% of boomers (Millward Brown). According to Nielsen, 18-34 year olds spend an average of 3-4 hours a month watching Internet video. My college-age daughter loves Masterpiece Theatre, but does not feel compelled to watch the latest episode at 9:00 on Sunday night when she can view it anytime on the web. My high school age son is as likely to watch a movie he downloaded to his laptop as TV or a DVD. I can't recall the last time he purchased a DVD. He is very interested in Apple's iTV. (Is that the next 'must have' Christmas item?)

4. The so-called 'third screen', mobile video, may move to second place soon. Nielsen reported that as of May 2008, 18-34 year olds with video enabled phones viewed video this way 3-4 hours a month, a figure similar to that of video on the Internet. Younger people with video enabled phones watched even more.

While the changes now are mostly confined to Millennials and their younger siblings, you only have to think of the explosion in text messaging to know it won't be long before their parents follow. If these patterns hold, we are moving toward a model where the venue is less important than the content. Soon, it will all be simply 'video entertainment', with viewing devices presenting alternative formats for watching the same stuff. Each format will offer different advantages in the user experience, but the same content. In that world, does it even matter that Heroes and SNL are on NBC? From a branding standpoint, channels simply won't matter. It will all simply be 'video'.

Gen Y: The End of the Home Ownership Dream?

What a great time for first-time home buyers, right? They have the good fortune to buy at what may be close to the market low (we hope) without having to sell at that same low point. Well, as usual with Gen Y, it's not that simple. While the average age of first time home buyers is 26, realtors shouldn't expect waves of Millennials to be knocking on their doors. While the under 30 set may enjoy high incomes and high hopes for future earnings, both their attitudes about homeownership and the reality of high debt are certain to impact their likelihood rushing in to snap up real estate deals.

First is attitudes. Millennials do not aspire to the homes many grew up in. They see a big backyard and lots of square footage as a maintenance nightmare. Smaller living spaces and open space floor plans are likely to be their preferred way of life, for environmental as well as lifestyle reasons. The NewsObserver recently interviewed several Gen Y members on their dreams of homeownership. Here's what they said about the desirability of living in a big house:

Stephen: No. I want a smaller space so it's easier to take off and go. A house that's low-maintenance is good. Generation Y traveled a lot in college and will continue to do so through life. So a big yard isn't a plus, either.

Ryan: No. I think that seeing so many of our generation's parents divorce makes us understand that family togetherness is important. So as we start having kids you will see us avoid homes with a living room, family room and finished basement rec room in favor of open-plan homes where the family can share space.

Carrie: Definitely not. The huge space thing as a status symbol is gone. Well-used efficient space is best. I want a house that reflects who I am and where I've been. In big houses, people buy meaningless stuff just to fill them up. Living in a cookie-cutter subdivision with vinyl siding and no trees is not palatable to me.

Second is finances. Even if they aspire to home ownership, it's harder now to amass the necessary down payment of $30,000 or more. It's been widely reported that the average college debt is $20,000. Many struggle to pay it back, while making ends meet. Many still accept support from parents. Higher income Millennials in our focus groups, those with MBA's and good paying jobs, tell us of staggering college debt loads -- $60,000 or even $80,000. While these civic- and community-minded young adults are motivated to dontate to their college and other causes they believe in, they sheepishly admit it just isn't possible right now.

Add inexperience in budgeting and planning, credit card debt and the uncertainty of the job market, and the picture becomes even more grim. Consider these statistics from MSN (Why Gen Y is Broke):

The median credit-card debt of low- and middle-income people aged 18 to 34 is $8,200

People between the ages of 25 and 34 make up 22.7% of all U.S. bankruptcies (but just 14% of the population at large).

While the facts are sobering, Millennials are cautiously optimistic rather than dismayed. They have the long view, and are confident in their skills and abilities. As one young potential home buyer shared with me, 'With so much for sale, we can afford to be picky right now and get a really great deal.'

Millennials to Marketers: I Want My SMS!

For most college students, text messaging has replaced email and talking as the preferred mode of communication. ExactTarget's 2008 Channel Preference Survey of 1,500 internet users ages 15 to 65 shows those under the age of 25 prefer SMS to both email and instant messaging.

Text messaging combines the mobility of a phone with the instant gratification of IM. According to an Opinion Research Corp study, those under 30 are 4 times more likely to respond immediately to a text than an email and 91% of text messages receive a response within one hour.

Who are they talking to? Friends of course, but according to a study by Sprint, 51% are texting their parents. Fifty-seven percent of 50-64 year olds have children in the 18-24 age group, so it's not surprising that Boomers are texting their college age students for a quicker response. (Certainly this is true in my family. My text messaging use has skyrocketed since my daughter left for college in August.)

But marketers should not expect to be making much use of texting as a medium for reaching college students with marketing messages anytime soon. Millennials are strongly protective of their text messaging lives. In our research, they repeatedly tell us non-personal messages -- even messages from their university -- are not welcome. Likewise, Exact Targeting says College Students "believe private communication channels (e.g., SMS, social networks) are off-limits for marketers. College Students want to keep personal and business affairs separate. Marketers should remember that email is the channel for "official" communications."

Big News! Millennials Disproportionately Influential

Okay, so it's not big news. The Obama win shows how influential young voters are in politics. Research from Rubicon Consulting group shows how influential they are in marketing. Rubicon's report, "Online Communities and their Impact on Business: Ignore at Your Peril" provides these statistics on just how important they are:

About 80% of the user-generated content on the web, including comments and questions, is created by less than 10% of web users, a group we refer to as the most frequent contributors (MFCs). The rest of the web community sits back and watches the interactions as a mostly-passive audience that only occasionally injects a few comments"

Half of all MFCs are under the age of 22.

MFC's look a lot like Millennials: They're more ethnically diverse; more technically skilled; more likely to be single; more likely to work in technology, entertainment, or communication companies; and more likely to be Democrats.

The Rubicon report emphasizes that far from being a problem to be solved, the fact that most web communities are dominated by a few active voices and a lot more 'voyeurs' is something marketers can leverage by targeting MFC's. There really are influencers - a lot of people are reading the opinions of MFC's and using them in their purchasing decisions across a variety of product categories, especially electronics, vacations, movies, restaurants and jobs. The chart below shows that this is especially true for Millennials. For nearly every category, the influence of online word of mouth is strongest for those 18-22.

Research Insights: Brands that Connect With Millennials

Understanding how and why brands connect with Gen Y is critical to Millennial marketing, but research on the subject can be hard to come by. Primary brand research is often closely guarded. That makes figuring out what Millennials want now and, more important, will want in the future a challenge for those without money to spend on getting out and talking to them. Here are three great, free resources on Millennial brands:

1. Outlaw Consulting Trend Reports: Outlaw specializes in researching Millennial trendsetters. They have been doing this longer than anyone I know and provide great content on their site in the form of their in-depth newsletters. These newsletters are full blown reports. Last year, they profiled the top 15 brands.

2. Businessweek recently shared their list of brands with global girl appeal ("How Brands Become Girl Approved", 9.18.08) as part of an overall survey of global brands. There were the usual suspects: Coca-Cola, Apple, Starbucks, and Google. But there are also a few surprises -- Ford, Citi, H&M, Motorola. Actually, I am not so sure about the surprises and neither are they. But what I especially liked was the slide show, the synopsis of what each brand means to girls and suggestions for what it could mean.

3. Graham Brown also has a long record of understanding youth culture, especially mobile marketing to youth. His blog, mobileyouth.org contains a wealth of data and links to slide presentation on youth culture and mobile marketing. For a sample, check out this presentation to Vodaphone on slideshare:

Mobile Youth Presentation to Vodafone by MobileYouth.org featuring trust, loyalty, net promoter score

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: mobile marketing)

I especially value the links to four slideshare presentations on the Gen Y appeal of four specific brands: Scion, Jones, EA games and Red Bull. He describes these as 'brands with uncommon sense'. Here is the Red Bull presentation.

326475 - Red Bull, "It's Not A Drink, It's a Lifestyle".

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: yagerbombs nightclub)

New Mobile Media Apps Keep Millennials Moving

In past blog posts I have pointed out that Millennials are big users of radio, the original 'mobile media' (9.09.08, Millennial Media: Radio and Magazine Deserve a Second Look). Last year, time spent with radio by 14-24 year olds increased 11% while time spent listening to iPods decreased 13% (Age Age, 10.20.08). Now I read that Microsoft's Zune is partnering with the radio industry to leverage the popularity of both FM radio and MP3 players. The idea, called 'song tagging', is very cool. An FM radio tuner is incorporated into a cell phone or MP3 player so when consumers hear a song on the radio, they can buy it right from their device. So far, it has rolled out to just 450 stations nationwide, but there is a push to sign up more.

Whether Apple adds FM and social tagging to the iPod and iPhone remains to be seen. However, according to digital media expert, Adam Broitman of Crayonville, new apps for the iPhone that leverage the social media capabilities of the PHONE itself are coming. Broitman writes this week in imediaconnection article, "The Best Branded iPhone App Available", that Obama Team hit all the core elements an iPhone App should posses: Added Value Content, Localized Content, Localized Social Networking and use of the phone's core functionalities like GPS and text. Here's what Broitman has to say:

"The Obama application allows users to call other people (from within the application itself) in order to urge people to vote for Obama. The application records the number of calls made and displays them in the app and on the web. It integrates your phone book right into the app, truly exploiting the most basic function of the iPhone—making calls. Seeing this application was and “ah-ha” moment, as well as “duh-why didn’t I think of that” moment. With the coming of Android applications and the growth in the social networking sector, we are going to see a great deal of innovation in the space—keep an eye on it." (Adam also blogs at amediacircus )

What, you may ask, is an 'Android' application? Android is a year old open mobile software platform that has been subscribed to by 34 handset manufacturers. I also saw it mentioned by Antonio Lucia, CMO of Visa. "...Some of the first reiterations of the user interface will be featured with Android." Android is the basis of the G1 "Google Phone" introduced last week by T-Mobile. I also hear Android mentioned in a report this morning on NPR and in an article about Visa in last week's Ad Age. Get ready for a flood of more articles showing how Android is supporting Millennials' desire for extreme mobility.

Millennials' Biggest Issue and What It Means

What is the most important national issue for Millennials? Harvard Institute of Politics posed this open-ended question in its 15th annual poll among 2,400 18-24 year olds in September/October 2007 and again in 2008. (Thank you! John Della Volpe at Social Sphere for sending this!) The answer (see chart) is the state of the economy (53%). The economy trumps the war (9%) and healthcare (5%) by a wide margin. This is not a surprise, given that the poll was conducting during the financial crisis and two economy-focused presidential debates. The surprise is how different things looked a year ago, when the war was the top issue and the economy was mentioned by only 5%. Admittedly, my priorities have shifted a bit as well, so this is not solely a Millennial phenomenon. But it's interesting to explore how this new awareness is affecting Gen Y, beyond the presidential election. In this regard, nothing has really changed: according to the poll, 18-24 year olds choices are pretty pretty much the same as they were before crisis.

I have firsthand evidence they are thinking about the crisis. I asked a young man I met in the Dallas airport last week who attends Farragut HS in St. Petersburg whether they were discussing the crisis in his economics class. He replied with a grin, "It's ALL we talk about."

My daughter who is a college freshman reports her friends are concerned about their parents ability to pay tuition and that scholarships and loan availability will be affected by the new economic reality.

On the job front, business schools are reporting an uptick in enrollment. According to a report, Grads Fear Gloomy Job Prospects, by Medill at Northwestern, there is additional pressure on students college career centers . (Check out the great video of students across the country talking about their job prospects). We are about to conduct a series of focus groups among recent alumni on behalf of Notre Dame's Alumni Services; I expect to hear there is extra pressure on young employees to perform, making the already stressful transition from college to work even more taxing.

Here are some other predictions:

High school students will begin to defer going to college in favor of jobs or to wait until older siblings have graduated. Applications may be down this year for the first time in many years, despite the demographic bulge for the class of 2013. Others who normally would go for a 4-year school will opt for community college.

We will see parents become even more important to young graduates. Already 50% of men and 33% of women 18-29 live with their parents. Look for this to increase, with no increase in raised eyebrows.

We may even be relieved from hearing more whining about Millennials' unrealistic workplace expectations over the next few years.

Finally, Millennials' civic mindedness may also combine with necessity to drive more to public service. Many may prefer underemployment that helps 'make a difference' to unemployment. The Harvard Institute poll I referenced earlier confirms other studies in this regard, and goes on to specifically outline what they might do to serve:

"Three-in-five (59%) of America’s youngest citizens (18-24 year olds) say that they are personally interested in engaging in some form of public service to help the country -- 19 percent very interested....In addition, the subgroups that seem most intense in their interest to engage in national service are African Americans (25% very interested) and Hispanics (24% very interested). Among the 59 percent who say that they are interested, following are the ways in which they would consider engaging: • 75 percent, part time in their community • 47 percent, work for the federal, state or local government • 32 percent, use the Internet to collaborate with government • 32 percent, get involved in a political campaign • 25 percent, join the foreign service • 23 percent, join national service program full-time like Teach for America or City Year • 17 percent join the military, and • 17 percent run for political office.

Those are some impressive figures. If Millennials follow through, there could be a silver lining to the crisis after all.