GenDigital

Sigg, The Latest "Must Have" Accessory On Campus

We've picked up on an interesting trend that helps illustrate a number of different attitudinal shifts we've been tracking for quite some time now. We all know that teens and college students consume bottled water more than any other beverage type including carbonated soft drinks, energy drinks and even milk or juices. At the same time, eco-friendly students talk a big game when it comes to all of those empty water bottles. Take a stroll around your local campus any chances are you might see a student carrying a slickly designed aluminum bottle that's reusable of course. Most likely that bottle is a Sigg. Funny thing is, Sigg isn't just the latest sustainable and eco-friendly manufacturer to pop-up, rather they've been around for nearly a hundred years based in Switzerland. Only recently has the company made a big push into the U.S. market and it probably couldn't have come at a better time. For anywhere from $18 to $31 consumers can purchase these fashionable reusable bottles and customize some of the designs to their preferences. Wow, they are eco-friendly and can be personalized, that's two grand slam home runs for this audience segment. How long will it be before brand marketers customize their own Siggs and use them as giveaways or GWPs when they market on campuses? Their line of kid-targeted bottles are really catchy. Talk about being in the right place at the right time.

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.

2008 Market Trends: Multiculturalism Spreads its Wings of Influence

One the unique characteristics of the youth market is their diverse ethnic and racial make-up. Simply put, this generation of young people is the most culturally and ethnically diverse in history. Nationally, Asian Americans represent only about 4.5% of the population compared to about 10% of the youth population while Latinos represent 15% of the national population and about 19% of the youth population. It's taken some time but with pervasive communications technologies, first and second generation tweens, teens and college aged kids are introducing some of their culture-specific elements to their group of friends. To date, the categories of influence included mostly music and entertainment. Illustrations would include the reggaeton music genre and manga comics. Over the next few years we anticipate a "ramp up" of influence against a wider net of product categories ranging from food and beverage tastes to the retail and shopping categories. Music and entertainment is just the start. Moving forward, we will refer to this lifestyle paradigm shift as multicultural trend currency. 

Pop Culture Still Reigns Five Years Later

The media build up over the last week for today, the 5th anniversary of 9/11, has been nothing short of overwhelming. Be it the controversy surrounding last night's airing of ABC's "Path to 9/11" or the countless interviews with the first responders, construction workers and electricians who are in really bad shape (physically and mentally) and for one idiotic reason or another are struggling with the incredibly stupid insurance companies the city government, the federal government and really anyone else standing in the way of these people getting the treatment and care they need. That whole thing to me is just utterly pathetic, let's not help the people that worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (and that's not bullshit, I worked downtown and made several 10 block walks down to the Trade Center area during the weeks after 9/11) because some of them didn't wear their masks. Switching gears, the coverage today has been for the most part all about remembrance, which brings me to this piece in today's LA Times. Written by Patrick Goldstein, a well known entertainment writer for the paper, the article details our nation's still on going fascination with all things celebrity after many thought the entertainment industry would change forever after 9/11. Mr Goldstein makes an interesting point about our population of technophiles and information overloaders (guess what demo segment fits that mold better than any) saying "the world of technology, which in many ways is the most strikingly different part of our post Sept 11 universe, has made us so over-connected that we have trouble processing real, traumatic tragedy. He goes on to say "It quickly becomes over-analyzed that it loses it potency by losing its singularity." I couldn't agree with him more, and wish I was as smart as Mr. Goldstein to have been able to point that out to my readers and our clients first.