GenDigital

YT Cares Beta Launch

We are extremely excited to announce the beta launch of YT Cares. YT Cares is a disruptive innovation in the care packages space. With the help and support of various partners, our panelists created their own care package designs and then voted on their favorites. For far too long students and their parents have been getting ripped off and paying upwards of $60 or $70 for a package that really only costs about $15 to produce. It's time for a change.

YT Cares is not only cost efficient but charitable as well. The net proceeds of each package will be donated to a charity of the buyer's choosing. Unlike other recent product innovations we've launched, we're not looking for profits, rather just happy students and happy parents. None of this would be possible without all of the companies who provided the snacks, drinks and other goodies that went into the packages.

The beta version is live today at http://youth-trends.com/cares with six package combinations available. The launch theme is relieve the stress for finals so in addition to all of the snacks and drinks, each package includes stress balls, pocket games and other procrastinators.

Fall '09 Teen Internet Life

The latest wave of Teen Internet Life is now available. Teen Internet Life is one of the lead components from the semi-annual Teen Lifestyle deep dive which is based on interviews conducted with a nationally representative sample of teens ages 13 to 17. The Fall '09 wave is based on interviews completed the week of September 14th with a margin of error of +2/-2 percent.

Teen Internet Life is a comprehensive 30+ slide look at what teens are up to online whether it's social networking, video consumption or e-commerce. Online activity incidence is detailed by categories including news and entertainment, search and communications, music and video, social networking and community and academic endeavors. Two macro trends under consideration for the annual Macro Trends & Predictions report come to light with social gaming and mobile Internet access/usage showing huge gains. You can read more about the report here.

Fall TV Performance Check Up

Ok, so now that we're a few months into the new season, we recently executed a quick follow up with panelists in order to get a better read on the top performing new series. The most watched new fall series among male panelists to date is "NCIS: Los Angeles," which was the 4th rated series among male panelists in the Fall TV Preview Report. Following "NCIS: Los Angeles" was "FlashForward," which was the 3rd rated new series in the Fall TV Preview Report. Rounding out the top five most watched new TV shows among male panelists were "White Collar," "The Cleveland Show" and "Castle." Noticeably absent from the top five most watched new shows was "Bored To Death," which was the number one rated TV show among male panelists in the Fall TV Preview Report along with the NBC comedy "Community."

Among female panelists, the most watched new TV series by a wide margin is the ABC comedy "Modern Family." Following "Modern Family" was the new CBS comedy "Accidentally on Purpose," which just missed out on making the top five in the Fall TV Preview Report. The number one new show in the Fall TV Preview, "The Vampire Diaries" secured the third position, followed by two ABC series: "FlashForward" and "Cougar Town."

Most Watched New TV Shows:
(By Gender)

 

Males

1. NCIS: Los Angeles: 17% (CBS)

2. FlashForward:  14% (ABC)

3. White Collar:  13% (USA)

4. The Cleveland Show: 11% (FOX)

5. Castle: 8% (ABC)

 

Females

1. Modern Family: 27% (ABC)

2. Accidentally on Purpose: 18% (CBS)

3. The Vampire Diaries: 16% (The CW)

4. FlashForward: 13% (ABC)

5. Cougar Town: 11% (ABC)

The Relevance & Staying Power Of Twitter For Teens & College Kids

Lately, it's a rarity for a day to pass without someone asking us about Twitter and the youth market. The questions range from the straightforward and simple (do they use it?) to something more strategic in nature (how do I integrate Twitter into our social media marketing plans in a relevant way that will attract and engage our target audience?).

For starters, in terms of registrations, Twitter's growth among teens and college students has been impressive through the first nine months of the year. At the start of the year, only about 5% had registered for a Twitter account compared to 19% at the end of September. Of course, that's only one data point. The more impactful findings are things like frequency of access, frequency of updates and the number of people the individual is actively following. Basically, how sticky is the platform? From our perspective, these are the more meaningful metrics.

Frequency of Access:

- among the 19% with a Twitter account, only about a quarter (23%) have posted 5 or more updates during the past week and about one in five (19%) said they posted less than 5 updates since first registering an account

Followers & Following:

- teen and college student Twitter users have an average of 57 followers and they follow an average of 61 people, companies and brands

- the most commonly followed non-people are news & information centric: ESPN (net sub-brand mentions), CNN, Fox News, NY Times (net sub-brand mentions), Google (net sub-brand mentions) and Xbox (net sub-brand mentions)

- the most commonly followed "notable" people/personalities are the one's you'd expect them to be: Dave Matthews, Jason Mraz Taylor Swift, John Mayer, LeBron James and Dane Cook

- more than three in ten (32%) say they are at least somewhat interested in using Twitter more to follow updates from friends, brands/companies

So, what's the net here? Well, we think it's a fair assessment to say Twitter, at least among the teen/college segment is still pretty niche in terms of stickiness. It's not necessarily a bad move strategically to include Twitter as one element within a broader social media plan, but in that same breath, probably not the most pragmatic play to make it your sole element.

The updated and expanded  Q4 '09 Youth Social Media Marketing & Insights report will be available to download/purchase the week of November 23rd.

Teen Top Ten List Report: Q3 2009

The latest wave of Top Ten for the teen segment is now available via the Youth Trends Research Store. This wave of Top Ten covers the top TV shows, magazines, web destinations, musical artists, video game titles, movies, celebrities and clothing retailers. The Q3 '09 wave was completed the week of August 17th using a sample of 1,011 teens between the ages of 13 and 18. The final wave of the year for Top Ten will be conducted in the next two weeks.

It's Halloween Time On Campus

In many ways Halloween is one of those under the radar holidays that lacks the general media coverage of something like back to school, holiday or even graduation. From the perspective of teens and college students, Halloween is certainly one of their biggies as evidenced from the findings of the latest Youth Trends Insights Immersion. For many college students in particular, Halloween is a multi-day holiday inclusive of parties, dances, costumes, decorations and contests. That said, like many other annual events on the campus calendar, Halloween also represents a great excuse to have a prolonged good time.

According to the latest Immersion, about eight in ten respondents (78%) said they planned to participate in some sort of Halloween-related activity, spending an average of $62 on costumes, decorations and candy. Suffice to day, Halloween isn't just a holiday for the little ones. Here's a real quick look at some of the other findings, including some of the top costumes being donned by students this year

- 76% plan to attend at least one Halloween party

- 34% plan to attend multiple Halloween parties

- 46% plan to visit a bar or club hosting a Halloween theme party/costume contest

- 37% say Halloween is their favorite holiday of the year

- 68% plan to be in costume

The top costume mentions included: Michael Jackson, a character from Twilight, a nurse/dr., a character from True Blood, a Roman soldier, a zombie, a character from Jon & Kate Plus 8 (love to see that one)

Guess you can't go wrong this year if you have anything vampire-related...

Sports Media Consumption Trends: It's All About College Football

The results of the latest Insights Immersion leads us to believe that between emerging digital and mobile consumption channels coupled with good ole fashioned school spirit, college football seems to be more popular than ever. 

On a year over year basis, all major activity measurements experienced an increase including live attendance, on-air viewing, online streaming, mobile updates and alerts and mobile app downloads. What's more, we're seeing a sizable increase in interest for consumption via online and mobile. Here's a look at the latest findings based on activity since the start of the new school year:

- Attended a college football game: 37%, up from 32%

- Watched a college football game on TV: 41%, up from 38%

- Streamed a college game online: 17%, up from 11%

- Read a college football-related blog or microblog: 18%, up from 8%

- Received a score update/alert via mobile: 19%, up from 7%

- Downloaded a sports-related mobile app: 14%, up from 3%

- At least somewhat interested in accessing mobile updates and video: 27%, up from 19%

 

- At least somewhat interested in streaming a game online: 35%, up from 22%

Mobile Social Networking Explodes

Based on the results of the latest Insights Immersion, mobile social networking experienced a huge jump in use and frequency of use over the past year. Nearly six in ten college students (58%) who own a smartphone device like a BlackBerry or iPhone accessed a mobile social network at least once during the past month compared to slightly less than a third last year. While the year over year growth is quite impressive, what's even more enticing is the current frequency of access. Among the 58% who used their device to access a mobile social network during the past month, more than half (56%) said they did so three times a week or more often.

The dominant mobile social networking platform used by students is Facebook Mobile. Among the 58% of student mobile social network users, nearly all of them (96%) say they use Facebook Mobile most often. Not surprisingly, the most commonly performed mobile social networking activity was status updates followed by picture uploads/sharing, and page search.

The mobile social networking category will soon get another boost in anticipation of the version 3.0 release of the Facebook mobile app for iPhone owners. The update features a slate of new and improved features and functionality which should greatly appeal to existing users and bring in new users. Version 3.0 features a new home screen and the ability to customize it. It also offers a more comprehensive news feed enabling users to see the status updates from all of their friends. Even more promising is the ability to RSVP to Facebook created events and the ability to call friends straight from the main profile page.

To learn more about the latest Insights immersion, visit the Youth Trends Research Store

Kids & Tween Pop Culture "Pulse" Now Available

What does iCarly, Taylor Swift, YouTube and Robert Pattinson all have in common? Based on the results of the recently released Q3 '09 wave of the Kids & Tween Top Ten List report, they're all top performers for their respective categories among the 8 to 12 year-old set.

The results were based on interviews completed the week of August 17 among a nationally representative sample of 976 respondents between the ages of 8 and 12. On an un-aided basis, respondents provided up to three of their favorites for each category. The categories for the Q3 '09 wave included favorite TV shows, TV networks, musical artists, movies and DVDs, male celebrity personalities, female celebrity personalities, websites and clothing retailers.

To learn more about the Q3 '09 wave of Kids & Tween Top Ten, please visit the Youth Trends Research Store.

Marketing Insights: Using Social Media To Redefine The Customer Experience

The latest wave of our ongoing series of youth marketing insights reports is now available to download and purchase. The wave explores the value of various social media technologies that can be leveraged to help redefine the increasingly important qualitative measure known as the customer experience. Here's a quick excerpt:

"As social media technologies increasingly become viable marketing solutions, there are significant emerging opportunities for companies and brands to rethink how they deal with their younger customers and users. With new tools, resources and learnings released daily, the notion of an improved and technologically enhanced customer experience strategy adds real and tangible value to the factors that influence a user action or transaction.

The report features an authoritative look at key customer experience strategy considerations along with a series of easily adoptable best practices and closes out with a look at three companies with high value experiences for their youth user and customer base.

To learn more go ahead and visit the Youth Trends Research Store