GenDigital

2012 Youth Macro Trends, Predictions & Insights

With 2012 on the horizon, we're pleased to present our annual Youth Macro Trends, Predictions & Insights report for the coming year as well as revisit a handful of trends and predictions from last year's report to see how they have played out over the course of this year. Rather than providing an exhaustive list of rather meaningless trends, our main objective is to provide a select number of actionable views that have multiple implications across various industries and product categories. If we did our job correctly, there should be something in here for everyone, and we hope that something results in a conversation starter, a strategy meeting, or if nothing else, a definitive edge on the why behind the what for all things youth-culture related.

2012 Youth Macro Trends, Predictions & Insights

The Gamification of Youth Marketing & Media

Check In & Buy

The Future of m-Commerce

Tablets Everywhere

Moving Towards The Cloud

Twitter As An Exclusive Social Alternative

Digital Entrepreneurialism

Mining Social Influence

Visual Gratification

2011 Recap: Convergence Everywhere

2011 Recap: Fashion Gets Personal & Athletic

2011 Recap: Purpose-Driven Cause Marketing

2011 Recap: Social Shopping: Click, Shop, Talk & Buy

2011 Youth Macro Trends & Predictions

Out with the old and in the new. With 2011 now in the horizon, we're pleased to present our annual Youth Macro Trends & Predictions report for the coming year as well as revisit a handful of trends and topics from last year's report to see how they've played out over the course of this year. Instead of providing an esoteric and rather exhaustive list of trends, the main objective with Youth Macro Trends & Predictions is to provide actionable views that have multiple implications across various industries and product categories. Ultimately, there should be something in this report for everyone. That something will hopefully result in a conversation starter, a strategy re-visit and an indelible edge on the why behind the what when it comes to all things youth-culture related. You can view the table of contents here

Q1 2010 College Top Ten List Report Highlights

Another quarter is almost complete and that brings us a new wave of Top Ten. College is the first to come out this week followed by Kids and Teens next Monday. For some reason, may be it's just the simplicity of the report, Top Ten garners more press mentions than any other YT report, go figure, but I think the concept of ranking against a particular topic is something that most everyone can relate to pretty easily.

Moving onward here, the Q1 wave of College Top Ten was tweaked a bit as the celeb category was broken out by more general Hollywood celeb personalities and sports-specific personalities. We'll also continue to rotate between most socially responsible companies/brands and favorite sports-related activities. When all is said, we covered a total of 12 individual categories including favorite TV shows, magazine titles, musical artists, movie & DVD titles, male Hollywood celebs, female Hollywood celebs, sports celebs, video game titles, web destinations, clothing retailers/brands, footwear brands and sports-related activities. To read the full background and view the table of contents, click here. For non Youth Trends subscribers, Top Ten can be downloaded/purchased for $399.

Some topline highlights:

- TV: relatively unchanged at the top compared to Q4 '09, White Collar debuts among males and American Idol makes a surprise appearance among females

- Mag titles: six of the top ten titles among females are trending downwards on a sequential basis, sorta sums of the category's picture fairly well

- Musical artists: goo goo for Gaga and welcome to the list NeedToBreathe

- Movies & DVDs: V-Day performs as expected, no let up for The Hangover

- Hollywood/sports celebs: Jessica's back at the top, LeBron is still king and Elisha debuts for the first time

- Video game titles: COD Modern Warfare 2, 'nuff said

- Web sites: check out Sporcle, it's legit...

Q4 '09 College Top Ten List Highlights

The Q4 '09 wave of College Top Ten is out and available to download. You can view the report background and full table of contents here. Top Ten provides an authentic top of mind look of what's most popular among young people (college students in this case) with respect to pop culture topics including TV shows, musical artists, video game titles, web destinations, celebrities and other lifestyle-related areas.

A few brief highlights: in the realm of TV, for the third straight wave, The Office was the top pick among college males, while Grey's was once again the top show among females. Glee debuted as the third most popular TV show among females, while MTV's Jersey Shore came in 9th among males and 6th among females.

For the second straight wave Taylor Swift was the most popular musical artist among all students, while Breaking Benjamin, Lady Antebellum and Justin Bieber appeared for the first time. Twilight stars continue to dominate the celebrity rankings with Robert Pattinson leading the way along with Taylor Lautner and Kristen Stewart.

On the retail front, fast fashion is still where it's at as evidenced by the performance of Forever 21, but Urban Outfitters is picking up momentum as well as premium yoga wear retailer lululemon. Finally, we included a new measurement for the Q4 wave as college respondents provided their choices for the most socially responsible companies or brands. Leading the socially responsible pack was Ben & Jerry's followed by Burt's Bees and Coca-Cola.

To learn more about Top Ten, you can visit the Youth Trends site.

2010 Youth Macro Trends & Predictions

With 2009 nearly in the books, it's time once again to take stock of what has been a highly eventful year in media, marketing, entertainment and technology. As we prepare to say goodbye to 2009 and welcome in 2010, we are pleased to present the lone qualitative deliverable within the Youth Trends portfolio: the annual Youth Macro Trends & Predictions report for 2010.

The 2010 Youth Macro Trends & Predictions hones in on 12 large scale consumer trends that will shape youth behavior in the year to come. Here's a quick look at the 12 featured in the report. Visit the Youth Trends store to learn more or download a copy.

2010 Youth Macro Trends & Predictions:

- Media & Marketing: Quality over Quantity

- Media Consumption: The CDC (context, distribution and customization)

- Mobile Mainstreaming

- Crowdsourcing

- Values-Driven Discretionary Purchasing

- Controller-Free Video Gaming

- QR Codes

- Exclusive Lifecasting

- All Packed Raring To Go

- Quarterlife Crisis

- Subtle & Softer Fashion

- Eco-Instant Gratification

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.

Q1 Video Game Round Up

For the most part it looks like the video game category seems to be holding up relatively well despite the marked decline we've seen in teen and college student discretionary spending. Among the 84% of the teens and college students who own at least one video game system, nearly a third, some 32% purchased at least one video game title during the first quarter of 2009 with an average purchase price of $47.

The most commonly purchased titles continue to skew rather heavily towards the Wii console system as well as the Xbox 360. The PS3 seems to be picking up the scraps of what's left, but clearly they're not performing nearly as well. In our minds, the bigger story playing out is the sizable increase in online video game play via subscription services with Xbox Live leading the way. The percentage of teens and college students who subscribed to an online video game service increased to 14% during the first quarter compared to slightly less than 6% on a year over year basis. On title by title basis, the top ten new games purchased during the first quarter included:

1. Madden NFL 09

2. Resident Evil 5

3. Wii Fit

4. Call of Duty: World at War

5. Mario Kart

6. Halo Wars

7. Rock Band 2

8. MLB 09 The Show

9. My Fitness Coach

10. Halo 3

 
In terms of visibility for the rest of year, teen and college student video game system owners plan to purchase an average of 1.7 game titles over the next six months, compared to 2.2 titles last year. 

The Latest Math on GTA IV

Happy Friday. The parent company of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, Take Two Interactive came out with their latest quarterly report yesterday, which included sales data through May 31 for the latest installment: GTA IV. In a word: unreal. Since the release of GTA IV on April 29, the company has sold a whopping 8.5 million copies which amounts more than a quarter a million a day...let me say that again...a quarter million (actually it's more like 257,576) copies of GTA IV sold every single day since the release. That's nuts. It's no wonder why the company reported net income of $98.2 million reversing a loss $51.2 million posted a year earlier. In essence the video game industry is quite similar the move studio business. One blockbuster new release or DVD release can make or break a quarter, or sometimes even a year. As we get ready to put out the Q2 wave of our Top Ten List report, I have to think that GTA IV will come in number one across the board for teens and college students in the video games over taking Q1 number one Halo 3.

Records Will Be Broken With GTA IV Release Tonight

Last year's top selling game title, Halo 3, holds the record for first-week sales, at nearly $300 million. All indications lead us to believe that the record will soon be broken starting at midnight tonight when Grand Theft Auto IV hits stores shelves. Expect long lines outside gaming retailers like EB World and Gamestop. Along with the Wii Fit from Nintendo (which won't be released until May 21...more on that later), GTA IV is already the top pre-ordered title on Amazon. GTA IV will be released for the category leading Xbox 360 console, which 17% of teens and college students own and Sony PlayStation 3, owned by 5% of teens and college students. There is little crossover console ownership. Only 14% of Xbox 360 owners also own a PS3. Much like the buzz and anticipation leading up to last year's release of Halo 3, the buzz surrounding GTA IV has been nothing short of non-stop since early February. Here's the killer stat: more than half of Xbox 360 or PS3 owners, which representative of some 1.6 million teens and college students plan on purchasing GTA IV and nearly a third of them, about half of million say they plan on purchasing it the week its released. Just doing some quick math, it works out to $100 million in sales for GTA IV, and of course that does not take into account the hard game charging twentysomething demo. Video game tracker NPD Group releases its April game title sales data on May 15, expect to see GTA IV take the crown from Halo 3 as the most successful release of all time.

Video Game Industry Rips Through March...More Good News Coming

What a difference a couple of years make...The video game industry has been on a tear of late and there is no reason to think that will change anytime soon as more highly coveted titles, including the much anticipated release of the new Grand Theft Auto series drops in a couple of weeks. NPD Group, which tracks the video game category reported a blow out out month for gaming software companies as well as sales of console systems, led again by Nintendo's Wii. All told, sales of video game titles soared 63% in March on a year over year basis to nearly $1.0 billion. Much of the gain came from the release of the new Super Smash Bros. title, "Brawl" which sold nearly three million units during the month. Sales of Wii systems in March reached 700,000+ more than the combined sales of Xbox 360 systems and PS3 systems. Based on all of our tween, teen and college gaming research data, the Wii continues to be the console of choice for the youth market and again will more than likely end up in the top position on this year's Holiday Gift Wish List Report. It's just absolutely amazing what the Wii has done so far. I'd even go as far to say what the iPod did to the digital music industry, the Wii is having the same effect on the gaming category, it's just out of this world. For Nintendo, not to be outdone by sales of its category leading Wii system, also registered a healthy up tick in sales of the DS portable system which grew to nearly 700,000 units, up from under 600,000 the prior month. We've seen DS be especially popular among tween girls, ages 8 to 11, which represents a demographic that's relatively new to the category overall. As the release date of Grand Theft Auto IV draws closer, I think it is pretty safe to go out on a very sturdy limb and say they'll sell more than 2.0 million copies by the end of this calendar year and will certainly be one of the top three titles for the year. I'm sure the consumer watchdog groups will love to hear that. On that note, Happy Friday!