SUBTLETY WILL GET YOU EVERYWHERE!

A study of 1,700 young adults has found that marketers wanting to successfully engage with Australia’s $68.56 billion youth market will need to master the art of subtlety.

This year’s Urban Market Research by Lifelounge Group, in conjunction with Sweeney Research, reveals ‘interruptive’ marketing tactics are out, in favour of a more ‘discovery-led’ approach that allows young people to unearth new products, artists and fashion labels in their own time, and bank the street cred that comes with it.

For the first time in seven years, music has been knocked off its perch as the number one defining pillar. According to Dion Appel, CEO of Lifelounge Group, young adults are now looking to their friends to validate who they are, what they consume and what’s important in life, reflecting the monumental power of peer networks in today’s marketing mix.

“It’s really important for brands to distinguish between genuine and immediate friendship groups and broader social communities when developing strategies,” Appel said.

On the communications front, UMR 10_11 predicts email will soon be ‘dead’ as a vehicle to reach the youth market. Only 10% of respondents spend five hours or more on email, with social networking and texting trending strongly as the communication channels of choice.

While multitasking when consuming online and other media has been growing in recent years, it is now the norm. The research confirms life online is frantic, with over 80% of the youth market ‘doing other things’ while surfing the web and being active on social networks.

In response to this frenetic pace, UMR 10_11 reveals a new trend: the need to ‘pause and absorb.’

Young people are finding ways to balance their connected lives with more organic, offline forms of entertainment. Of significance, 56% of respondents spend at least one hour a week ‘pausing’ by reading a book (and 21% read for more than 5 hours a week) – continuing the trend we saw emerging last year. Dinner parties, going to the movies, visiting an art gallery and the theatre are also core elements of their socialising mix.

Appel explained: “It’s not about switching off, but pressing pause to alleviate the pressure. The challenge for marketers is to create a ‘pause and absorb’ moment – to cut through the clutter and catch the attention of the youth market – to make them stop and think.

“The winners won’t be the companies that broadcast their message the loudest,” Appel added. “Success is about cleverly branded content integrated across all channels, mixed with a good dose of imagination and old fashioned entertainment. Campaigns like the recent Old Spice ‘real man, man’ are the benchmark of how to get the balance right.”

Dr. Cassie Govan, the co-author of the report from Sweeney Research elaborated: “The pressure they are feeling is a result of their deep set need to stay socially connected and culturally aware. Falling behind isn’t an option. There’s an ever present undercurrent of anxiety around this fear of missing out or dropping off the pace. We call this ‘exclusion anxiety’ and it’s a function of wanting to avoid feeling socially aloof or culturally detached.”

Other interesting stats and facts to emerge from UMR 10_11:

• Spending power: Total spend across the five lifestyle ‘pillars’ including sport, music, fashion, travel and entertainment is at $68.56 billion this year. The biggest weekly outlay is on household expenses ($403.86), following by socialising and entertainment ($122.42) and clothing and accessories ($99.71).

• Home sweet home: Thanks to the First Home Owner’s grant the number of young people with mortgages has increased from 11.5% last year to 14% this year. There’s still no rush to move out of home though, with 47% of 16 to 30 year olds living with their parents (down slightly from 50.2%), 24% renting and 15% living in a share house.

• TV is not dead: TV is not dead to young adults, trending upwards from last year with 21% of respondents watching ten hours or more each week. Masterchef, the Simpsons and the Big Bang Theory are the favoured shows. TV is also the number one way young people access news and current affairs (68%). TV also offers the highest recall, with 48% of respondents who remembered a marketing campaign that particularly resonated with them remembering it from TV (the pay off to brands – of those who remembered something that really connected with them, 73% talked to someone else about it).

• Radio still has its groove: Radio is also far from over for the youth market and remains the biggest influence of music purchase. Triple J is by far the preferred radio station, followed by Nova and 101.9.

• What they can’t live without: An internet connection and mobile phone were rated the two top things UMR respondents couldn’t live without (30% and 20% respectively) over their car, TV, alcohol, favourite piece of clothing, drugs and favourite movies. Being connected is important.

• Ring ring: Mobile phone usage is almost universal with Nokia the leading brand (41%) followed by iPhone growing exponentially from zero to 22% over the last few years. Nokia will be lucky to retain its leadership position over the next 12 months.

• Sex, health & society: Young Australians can be a little blasé about sexual health with only 45% having had an STD test. While botox was once taboo it is now on par with breast augmentation in terms of acceptability (and both increase in favour with age of the females). In terms of getting a cosmetic treatment in the next five years, only 36% said they wouldn’t consider having anything done. When it comes to social issues, climate change is the big focus with the youth market believing their actions will have a bearing on the state of the earth.

WHO WE ARE:

This year’s report marks the evolution of UMR – the collaboration between Lifelounge and Sweeney Research. Lifelounge is Australia’s pre-eminent youth marketing and communications company. Sweeney Research is one of the country’s largest independent research agencies. Together, this gives you the best of both worlds – and a clear insight into the attitudes, behaviours and purchasing power of young adults.

WHAT WE DID:

The research approach was multi-dimensional. It included:

Quantitative Online Survey… An online survey of 1751 x 16-30 year olds across Australia. The survey consisted of questions about music, sport, fashion, entertainment, travel, communication, finance, sex, health, drugs, climate change, issues that they worry about and demographics/life-stage.

Qualitative Web Forums… Online discussion forums in a private, invitation only, chat-room style session. The forums allowed open discussion around issues such as climate change, body image, drugs, cosmetic surgery and advertising.

Qualitative Bloggie Cam Diaries… Participants were sent a “Bloggie Cam” (small, portable, digital video recorder) and asked to take it around with them for a week and record snippets of their lives for us.

Qualitative Journals… Participants were sent a journal to complete that focused on Music, Sport, Fashion, Entertainment, Technology or Communication. These individual personal reflection journals allowed for more reflection and detailed responses.

Qualitative MMS Tasks… Participants were sent a text message at various times across the week of their assignment that simply read “where are you and what are you doing? Send us a picture!”. They then snapped a picture of where they were and sent it back to us immediately. This allowed us to collect a wide range of pictures to help more fully understand their day-to-day worlds.

Qualitative Urban Influencer Interviews… Interviews with those at the cutting edge of the young adult market – those we’ve called the Urban Influencers. These include a nightclub owner, a fashion designer, a skater, and an online entrepreneur from New York – just to name a few.