GenDigital

Tween & Teen Lifestyle Report Highlights: Part One

It's been a little while since the last post, please excuse us, it's been as busy and crazy as ever...which is a good thing. We recently released the results of our comprehensive semi-annual Tween & Teen Lifestyle Report to our clients and wanted to share some of the highlights of the latest report in series of posts over the next week. I'll start in the media category. First off, the notion that teens don't watch that much television and instead play video games or surf the web isn't exactly accurate. In fact, television consumption among teens has actually increased slightly over the past year to an average of 11.9 hours. Teen boys still watch more television than teen girls averaging about an hour and a half more (13.2 hours). Among the younger set, tweens ages 8 to 11, the average amount of television consumed during a typical week is 12.2 hours with tween boys watching considerably more at about 14.5 hours. Remember this report was completed during the school year, so it's hard to say these consumption numbers are that shabby given the fact that these kids are at school five days a week for six or seven hours. Now, moving on to everyone's favorite television-related topic: what they're watching for those 12 or 13 hours each week. Beginning with teen males, three of their top five favorites are all animated shows led by Family Guy followed by The Simpsons and South Park. Somewhat surprising to us was the biggest gainer over the past year is Gen X skewing The Office which moved up nine slots to the third most popular show among all teen males. Go figure. Teens males really get a kick out of Steve Carrell not to mention Rainn Wilson and John Krasinski. Unless you've been living under a rock the past three months or haven't had the great pleasure of flipping around a recent copy of US Weekly or People, you probably know that Lauren Conrad and her infamous gang are shall we say super hot....so super hot that MTV's bonus season of The Hills propelled the show into the number one position for the first time in any Lifestyle Report among teen females. The Hills is ahead of former number one Grey's Anatomy, House, and even American Idol, which dropped four places to sixth. Beyond The Hills, the biggest mover since last year is ABC Family's Greek, which came in tied for eighth. Among tween viewers, the biggest story is that American Idol is no longer number one. Hannah Montana rules the roost among tween girls landing in the top spot for the first time and by a somewhat significant margin while AI dropped about 15 percentage points. Also among tween girls, ABC's Dancing With The Stars moved up four notches to land in the fifth spot. Finally, among tween boys ages 8 to 11, it's all about SpongeBob and Zack & Cody right now. The biggest mover over the past year among tween boys was the ABC comedy The George Lopez Show which shot up an impressive ten spots to secure the seventh spot. More to come next week...have a great weekend.

ESPN Formally Enters High School Sports Space

It was only a matter of time...right? Going back to last fall, it seemed like we received an email or press package on a weekly basis from either a start up organization or major media company that decided to enter to the online arena to cover high school sports. While many of these upstart properties received favorable media attention and lots and lots of venture dollars thrown their way, for the past six months or so, the space seemed to cool down considerably as many hunkered down and tried to execute their business plans and secure ad dollars to validate their respective strategies. I'd have to think one of the cautionary points listed in all of these business plans was an aggressive move by the true undisputed king of sports media, ESPN, of course into HS sports. The caution is now a reality. Last week, ESPN quietly announced the formation of ESPN Rise, a new multimedia franchise for the home of high school sports. Unlike many of the other players in the space, ESPN enters with a slew properties and buying options for advertisers. Later this summer, ESPN will unveil ESPNRISE.com, its online hub for HS Sports featuring social networking applications and content from several brands and partners including Scouts. On the magazine front, the worldwide leader in sports has put all of its niche titles including Gridiron all under the Rise franchise and will have a reported combined circulation of one million. On the on-air front, Rise will work with ESPN's college outpost, ESPNU with an expectation of a possible spin-off if there is traction. With almost immediate scale and the backing of the leading sports media brand, the inevitable shake out in the HS sports space probably just got moved up by a year and the emphasis will be shifted back to the upstarts like Takkle, beRecruited and others to show some immediate results.

Soft Spending Expected Among Kids This Mother's Day

Mother's Day is right around the corner and although the overwhelming majority of tweens, teens and college students still plan on purchasing a gift for Mom, the amount of money their earmarking has declined substantially compared to a year ago. Could this be one of the first indications of the trickle down effect of a rough economy. I'd say it's a safe bet to say "yes." Based on our recently completed April '08 immersion, 81% of panelists surveyed said they plan on purchasing a Mother's Day gift which is down from 86% in 2007. The decline is marginal, but the real story is more about the amount of money they plan to spend. Only 24% of panelists said they plan on spending $50 or more on their gifts for Mom, which down considerably from 37% a year ago. Perhaps it's not about the money these kids have in their pockets per se rather they're heeding advice passed on to them from none other than their Moms. The resounding theme we saw over and over again from panelists was simply their parents, especially their mothers, were telling them to "take it easy" and not to "go crazy" buying anything extravagant this year. Perhaps that's because the majority of purchases these kids make are made using a credit card or debit card which ironically the parents are responsible for. All that said, the items kids are snapping up for Mom include the staples like flowers and plants as well as those cool little digital photo key chains--so Mom can carry around pictures of her children every time she gets in the car, spa or salon gift certificates and small keepsakes like jewelry boxes and picture frames.

A Comeback Of Sorts For Major League Baseball

After several years of steady viewership declines and live attendance, Major League Baseball appears poised for bump upwards based on our latest Insights immersion among teens and college students. It's a welcome sign for America's pastime as professional and college football and basketball remain as popular as ever while new outposts, led mainly by mixed martial arts as well as action sports to a lesser degree have done a much better job of marketing themselves to the core 13 to 24 year old male target. So, why the up tick all of the sudden for stodgy old MLB. Very simply, it looks to be their interactive offerings. The newly fashion MLB site is considerably more robust in terms of its interactive offerings and applications than all previous versions put together. Clearly, MLB's digital media team was spot on. The site recently eclipsed the NBA's online outpost to become the second most visited professional sport's league site, behind only the NFL.  38% of teens and college students consider themselves to be a fan of MLB, up from 35% last year. 36% say they have a favorite MLB team, up slightly from 34% last year. Based on respondent feedback, we also expect an up tick in viewership during summer break. 22% said they plan to watch at least one MLB game per month this summer, up from 20% last year and 14% said they plan to watch five or more games this summer, up from 11% last year. In terms of live attendance, 12%, up from 9% last year plan to attend at least one game and 6% say they plan on attending three or more games this summer, up from 4% last year.  Though it pales in comparison to fantasy football, participation in baseball fantasy leagues is up slightly to 9% after two straight years of no growth. Finally, in terms of the most popular MLB players, no real surprises here, with Yankee star Derek Jeter taking top honors receiving the most number of mentions, followed by another Yankee, Alex Rodriguez with Albert Pujols, Josh Beckett and David Wright rounding out the top five.