GenDigital

They're Recession Proof...For Now

We wrapped up our February immersion that supports our monthly Insights report last week. The main subject covered in the immersion centered on the economy. Without a doubt, there is a lot of trepidation among marketers, especially those in the retail, technology and packaged goods areas. The latest news of economic doom and gloom is practically a daily occurrence in the NY Times or any of the cable news channels. It seems like most analysts and pundits who follow the economy all say the same thing: there are inflationary fears based on high gas prices and higher food prices. Couple that with a messed up housing market and reduced corporate spending and investment and that spells real trouble, in the form of a recession as the most likely outcome. With the Feb immersion, our most basic objective was to get a read from our panelists whether the current economic environment has resulted in a changed in their spending habits and/or any near future travel plans, i.e. spring and summer break. Our takeaway was that any troubles in the broader economy has yet to really trickle down to the market, at least in any sizable numbers. However, that said, just because the majority of the market is yet to be directly effected, it doesn't necessarily mean they are oblivious to the world around them. Among those panelists included in the Feb immersion, 67% said "the current economic environment has not had any material impact on their discretionary spending levels or shopping habits." We attribute the positive results to the market's..excuse the football analogy, "triple threat" like sources for dollars. No doubt you know the first two sources being dollars earned from a part-time job and the dollars received from Mom and Dad, but do you know the third, much less talked about source, and the source we feel is their secret weapon to financial bliss? It's the baby boomer grandparents of Gen Y. The grandparents of today's teens and college kids are increasingly playing a more active role in doling out monies to their prized second generation offspring. In greater numbers, they're taking away a huge financial burden from their own kids by paying for their grand children's higher education. They're stepping up to the plate in big numbers and purchasing big ticket items like cars, computers and other digital electronics devices, not to mention they're sending cold hard cash on a regular basis so their grandkids can continue to gobble up the latest fashions and dine out. It's really a fascinating trend this whole notion of the triple threat, but when all is said and done, perhaps the "greatest generation" will be known for more than just WWII and the Korean War, they might go down as the demographic segment that conquers the recession of '08.

Q1 '08 Top Ten List Round Up

So we just released results of our Q1 '08 Top Ten List report earlier this week. We added two new categories to the list: favorite stores and favorite sports. The Top Ten List Report acts as our popular culture "pulse" of the market. The results were based on surveys completed the week of February 11th. No real changes from Q4 '07 with "Family Guy" remaining on top among males and "Grey's" securing the top spot among females...for the fourth consecutive quarter btw. I think if we delayed this wave of Top Ten to early March, we would see a stronger showing for "Lost" which teens and college students greeted with great enthusiasm when the series returned with new episodes only two weeks ago. That said, "Lost" came in 5th among males and tied for fourth among females. Moving on to the movie and DVD category, "Juno" as we expected captured the top spot among females while the DVD release of "300" last year's number one movie among males, edged out another hit from last year "Superbad" to secure the top spot. The award winning "No Country For Old Men" finished tied for third among men along with "American Gangster." On the celeb front, don't call it a comeback, but there seems to be some sort pity/I feel sorry for you mojo surrounding Britney. For the first time in a year and half, she made the Top Ten List among females, coming in a surprising tie for third place alongside Katherine Heigl and Kate Hudson. Among the male respondents, we can still see the lasting effects of "American Gangster" with star Denzel Washington taking the top spot followed closely by Scarlett, Jessica Alba and Super Bowl hero Eli Manning. To wrap up, do you want to take a guess at who finished number one in the web site category? Yes, it's still about Facebook, and, despite the fact they have been taking somewhat of a drubbing in the press, we think it is noteworthy that their share of first place responses actually increased from Q4 '08. Finally, the number one retailer among the guys was Best Buy, who barely edged out Wal-Mart, while the young women chose Forever 21 as their overall favorite followed closely by Target, Urban Outfitters and Victoria's Secret.

CollegeHumor Turns To Online Video

CollegeHumor has become the latest online content provider to launch a video channel on the fledging Joost network. The new channel, dubbed CHTV: CollegeHumor Original Videos, will feature a series of short videos including "Street Fighter: The Later Years," "The Michael Showalter Showalter," and "Prank War," among others. What's more, there is also a rumor circulating around some of the more well known tech and media blogs that the CollegeHumor crew, now part of the IAC family, has landed a television deal with MTV. If it turns out to be the case, that would be really interesting. According to the most recent Top Ten List Report for Q1 '08, CollegeHumor was the fifth most popular web destination among college men twelfth most popular among college women. The Q1 results were the strongest to date for CollegeHumor, which in typical Internet rags to riches fashion, was started by group of college students in their dorm room back in 1999.

Quarterlife To Get Unique Dual Play on Broadcast & Cable

It is not a precedent, but this is definitely unique. Two networks are partnering to air the same series (at different times). The new series is called "quarterlife," and if it might sound a little familiar to you. You may remember that "quarterlife" got its start as a web-based series airing in 8-minute short form increments. Along with Michael Eisner's "Prom Queen" webisodes, "quarterlife" was a top traffic performer on MySpace's fledging video channel over the past year. It's now about to enter a whole new life as an hour long series airing on both the broadcast network NBC and cable network MTV. From the looks of it, this seems like a win win all around. NBC under a new programming regime, is actively out in the development marketplace scouring for the next would be hit. At the same time, MTV is experiencing a huge resurgence in popularity thanks to the recently completed third season of "The Hills" (the strongest performing to date) and the rookie season of the racy "A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila." "quarterlife" features a bunch of twentysomethings working and living in the big city. The story concept might not be that unique, but the distribution is noteworthy. On the afternoon of 2/26, "quarterlife" will make its debut on MTV and later that night it will premiere on NBC. It is expected to move towards more of a regularly weekly schedule in early March. The show was created by a duo of Emmy-winning writers whose previous credits include former cult favorite "My So Called Life" that acted as the launch pad for Claire Danes entry into stardom land. It's great to NBC employing non-traditional strategies to goose its line-up and the extra air-play probably won't end up hurting MTV either. This relatively new form of "double distribution" could act as a catalyst for other broadcast and cable networks to follow.

Microsoft Launches Intellecutal Property Youth Initiative

If young people are aware of the laws over Internet file sharing and downloading, they are less likely to download content illegally. So basically you could say if there is more education and awareness of IP laws, less kids would download stuff illegally, or so the prevailing thought goes from Microsoft according to their press release. Microsoft is working with a company called Topics Education to create a pilot program dubbed Intellectual Property Rights Education they hope middle schools and high schools will adopt and educate their students. To help with the pilot program, Microsoft launched a corresponding web site that enables users to develop their own intellectual property and assign their own usage rights. I have to say, the site is pretty cool, especially for Microsoft and I can certainly see them extending the program to other areas. With all that said, it should be noted that the practice of illegally downloading unlicensed content by teens has actually been in steady decline over the past two years according to our tracking data from our youth Lifestyle Reports. There is a growing consensus that notes a marked shift in attitude among young people that you can't simply download anything you want for free anymore, a considerable difference from a couple of years ago during the heyday of Napster and Co.