Posts filed under 'Consumer Electronics'
Studying teenage behavior reveals a lot about the future. While teens tend to be replicants of their parents, it’s their unconventional, non-biased nature that makes teenagers so appealing to marketers. So, are they truly the multitasking, non-brand-loyal, technology-savvy neo-conservatives as everyone paints them to be?
We know that kids are growing up faster. Mattel coined the term “KAGOY” – Kids Are Growing Older Younger” – to describe this phenomenon. That’s why so many news reports focus on the early ages at which teens begin to use cosmetics or dress “inappropriately.”
The latest teen malapropism? Taking naked pictures of themselves on their cellphones and sending them to boyfriends and girlfriends. Last year, 18 students at a Castle Rock, Colo. middle school sent around nude photos of themselves. Other cases have been reported in New Jersey, New York, Alabama, Utah, Pennsylvania, Texas and Connecticut, notes USA Today. Here are a few more contemporary, young-adult phenomena:
- DWT – A Liberty Mutual study of more than 900 teens released in July 2007, found that nearly 50% of teens admit to driving while texting. And with about 73% of teenagers owning cell phones as of 2007, according to Tween & Teen Lifestyle Report, expect the incidence of DWT to merely rise in the future.
MyDeathSpace, a tribute to deceased members of MySpace, features a growing number of examples of teen victims of “DWT” – driving while texting. More than 50% of teens report texting while driving, although a growing number of states are outlawing the practice.
- Multitasking – On average, teens perform about three to four other tasks while surfing the Internet and two to three others tasks while watching television, a study commissioned by Yahoo and the OMD ad agency reported in 2005. Some 73% of TV-online multitasking kids are engaged in “active multitasking,” defined as content in one medium influencing concurrent behavior in another, a 33% increase in active multitasking since 2002, notes a 2008 Grunwald Associates social networking study.
- Neo-Conservatism – U.S. teens appear to be more conservative than many of their global counterparts, including teenagers from India, China, Germany and France, according to a February 2006 Energy BBDO GenWorld Teen study. About half of U.S. teens qualify as “Red Teens” with strong conservative views, while the remaining half, Blue Teens, emphasize individuality and tend to reject tradition. Red Teens are more likely to believe in God (89% vs. 55% globally) and that abortion is never justified (40% vs. 12%).
- Advertising – Cultural differences also influence marketing. The Yahoo/OMD study found that teens in developing countries are more receptive to advertising than teens in developed countries. More than half of teens surveyed in Mexico and China and 68% in India agree that advertising is a good way to learn about trends and things to buy. Thirty-five percent or less of teens surveyed in France, Germany and the U.S. think so.
- Sexual Practices – In 2005, the National Center for Health Statistics released the U.S. government’s most comprehensive survey of sexual practices and found that more than half of all teenagers ages 15-19 have engaged in oral sex, including nearly a quarter of those who have never had intercourse.
If the names no longer sound familiar to you, you’re too old. Zac Efron, the star of Disney’s megahit, High School Musical, is the current female teen heartthrob. Miley Cyrus, Disney’s Hannah Montana star, displayed her teen spirit in a Vanity Fair photo that created a publicity storm, Britney-style.
- Alcohol/Drug Use – A 2007 National Institute on Drug Abuse annual survey found that the proportion of 8th graders reporting use of an illicit drug at least once in the past 12 months was 13% in 2007, down nearly half from 24% in 1996. But by the time teens become 10th graders, drug use rises to 28%, although that figure is down from 39% in 1997. Among 12th graders, drug use rises to 36%, a decline from a peak of 42% in 1997. There was a significant increase in the use of OxyContin among 12th-graders, with 10% of 12th-graders reported using the painkiller Vicodin, while 6% reported using OxyContin in the past year. Also noted was the significant increase in the use of sedatives and barbiturates among 12th-graders since 2001. Nearly half of America’s 5.4 million full-time college students use drugs or drink alcohol on binges at least once a month, according to a March 2007 study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University. Alcohol remains the favored substance of abuse on college campuses by far, but the abuse of illicit drugs, rose from 31% in 1993 to 37% in 2005.
- Cigarettes – The good news is that cigarette smoking among teens is down. But who has time to juggle a cigarette when you have to update your Facebook profile, shop online, play videogames, or use your iPod while IMing on your phone?
- Social Networking – A survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in Fall 2006 found that 55% of teens ages 12 to 17 used social networking sites. The survey discovered that older girls are most likely to have used social networking sites, with 70% of teen girls, ages 15 to 17, maintaing profiles on social networking sites, compared with 57% of boys in that age bracket. More than one in four (27%) of all students surveyed are heavy users of social-networking sites and services, reports a Grunwald Associates social networking study. That same study found that 71% of online tweens and teens connect to a social network at least once a week.
Three in four teens and tweens own at least one console or portable gaming system and plan to buy 3.1 games in 2008, up from 2.5 last year. The videogaming world is becoming tightly meshed with teen reality, making pop-culture icons out of such as videogame stars as Nintendo’s Super Mario.
- E-commerce – Nearly six out of 10 U.S. teens surveyed have made a purchase online, according to a June 2008 study conducted by OTX and The Intelligence Group. Responding online buying teens said they spent an average of $46 every month. Total spending among 13-to-21-year-olds was estimated at $120 billion in 2007, according to Harris Interactive. Apparel can be an important focus for status-conscious teens. Some of the most popular apparel sites visited by MySpace users are American Eagle, Hot Topic and Hollister.
- Texting – Several studies suggest that heavy-texting teens are more prone to disrupted sleep, restlessness, stress and fatigue. Meanwhile, the report “Writing, Technology, and Teens” shows that 38% of high-school-age students have used abbreviations like ‘LOL’ in school assignments, notes Richard Sterling, professor at the University of California Berkeley and contributor to this report.
Is it any surprise that our future social dialog will be heavily influenced by text messaging? David Crystal, a University of Wales language historian, believes that the written language will resemble text messages by 2020. “The Internet is fostering new kinds of creativity through language. It’s the beginning of a new stage in the evolution of the written language,” says Crystal. Leave it to our tech-savvy offspring to take us there first.
Ubertrends: Time Compression, Digital Lifestyle, Unwired
Value Propellants: Multi-Functional, Speed, Convergence, Connectedness, Freedom
July 3rd, 2008
The texting revolution is reshaping the social dialog. Americans already send 30 billion text messages each month. In first quarter, Verizon Wireless delivered nearly 58 billion text messages in the U.S.
AT&T reported that a record 78 million text messages were sent during this season of “American Idol.” Globally, some 7 billion text messages are exchanged each day. As the conversation shifts to this burgeoning communication medium, trends are emerging:
- DWT– Remember that old joke about walking and chewing gum at the same time? The modern version is sending text messages, or checking e-mail for that matter, while driving. Unfortunately it’s no joking matter. DWT is the new DUI (“Driving While Texting” has become the new “driving under the influence”), reports The Wall Street Journal. A bill halfway through the New York State Legislature would make it illegal to type, read or send text messages while at the wheel. New York would join two other states, California and Minnesota, that have introduced similar legislation. These DTW efforts picked up steam in the U.S. following the release of a Nationwide Mutual Insurance survey that found one in five drivers texting while driving.
The DWT trend is not limited to the U.S. In the U.K., Rachel Begg, 19, entered prison on July 20 for four years after causing the death of Maureen Waites, a 64-year-old grandmother. Begg used her phone nine times during a 15-minute ride before ploughing into Waites’ car at 70mph.
- Text robbers – San Francisco once again became a trendsetter when two robbers who had stolen a mobile phone, texted someone in the stolen mobile phone’s address book and then robbed the text recipient’s iPhone.
- Medical texting – The NBC Today Show reported on June 5 that patients are now being reminded to take their medicine via SMS.
The Boston police department now accepts anonymous crime tips via SMS. Expect more services to be delivered via text message.
- luv ur nam – Some parents are inspired by cool SMS and e-mail spellings, and are naming children with unusual abbreviations and hyphenations.
- SMS capital – The Philippines is the SMS champion of the world. Fifty million Philippino subscribers sent 1 billion text messages each day in 2007. By comparison, China, with more than 10 times the texting fans, sent 1.6 billion text messages daily last year.
Nearly two-thirds of 700 students surveyed said their e-communication style sometimes bled into school assignments, according to a study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. “I think in the future, some e-mail conventions, like starting sentences without a capital letter, may well become accepted practice,” notes University of California, Berkeley Professor Richard Sterling. LOL!
Ubertrends: Time Compression, Unwired
Value Propellants: Multi-Functional, Speed, Connectedness
June 12th, 2008
Last June, I lined up with about 500 other aficionados at San Francisco’s main Apple Store and picked up the much-anticipated iPhone. In its 10 months on the market, Apple has raised the bar for the mobile phone and the retail world. Now history is about to repeat itself. Apple is set to launch its highly anticipated “3G” model, which will be available on July 11.
The iPhone groundswell has swept over the smartphone market like a veritable tsunami. At the Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple reported that 6 million iPhones had been sold to date, more than half of its stated goal of 10 million by year end 2008.
Pandemonium in San Francisco. Harry Potter movie? Celebrity picture signing? No, it’s “iDay”: the Apple iPhone line on June 29, 2007. Expect a repeat performance this July.
While RIM now has more than 14 million BlackBerry users worldwide, its share of the U.S. smartphone market declined from 45% at the end of 2006 to 40% today. Most of that change was due to the 17% share the iPhone grabbed in its first six months.
The new BlackBerry 9000 will make the hearts of 14 million “CrackBerry” users pump faster. The BlackBerry cult, which has been responsible for such trends as “blirting” and the “BlackBerry prayer,” will positively swoon over the hi-res and high-speed 9000 or “BlackBerry Bold.”
AT&T will subsidize iPhone sales with a $200 rebate, lowering the price of entry to $199, which could result in a doubling of sales, if the 110-million-sold Motorola RAZR is any indication. Motorola saw RAZR sales rocket once its initial $500 asking price was cut to $150 in 2006 and $100 later.
The potential market is huge. Of the 2 billion mobile phones sold in 2007, about 125 million were smartphones — a number that analysts expect to soar. In fact, worldwide smartphone market shipments jumped 60% in the last three months of 2007 compared to a year earlier, according to IDC.
The iPhone is teaching consumers how to surf the Internet on their mobile phone. In February, Google reported to The Financial Times that iPhone users perform 50 times more searches than any other mobile handset.
The path to success for any programmable device is paved with developers, an area where Apple excels, with more experience than any other phone maker. More than 250,000 SDKs (Software Development Kit) have been downloaded since Apple released the iPhone SDK in March.
While R.I.M. opened the BlackBerry to outside Java developers in 2001, its add-ons have been simpler and more primitive than what is due to hit the iPhone. Even using the Safari browser interface that current developers are limited to, has resulted in some very cool applications, like Schmap.
That users are impressed with the iPhone’s pacesetting interface is underscored by a ChangeWave study of 3,600 professionals, which found that 72% of iPhone users said they were “very satisfied” with their devices, compared to 55% of BlackBerry users.
The ascendancy of Apple as a global consumer brand was underscored by the company’s dropping of “Computer” from its name. Not only has the iPhone become a major consumer retail hit since, but the company’s stores have also redefined retailing. From packaging to “Genius Bars” to roving sales associates who wirelessly ring up sales, Apple stores are a study in retail innovation.
Apple is not only revolutionizing the consumer electronics business but it is setting the standard in retailing and packaging too. The more than 170 Apple Stores, once dismissed as a flawed strategy, now ring up $4 billion in sales each year.
It’s evident that Apple is doing for the mobile phone what it did for computers, which will lead to a major shift in the way the Internet is accessed. By the early part of the next decade, mobile phones will double the size of the Internet, leading to yet another explosion in productivity. Now that’s worth getting in line for.
Ubertrends: Unwired, Digital Lifestyle
Value Propellants: Connectivity, Convenience, Convergence, Freedom, Speed
June 9th, 2008
In 2003, The Yankee Group predicted in a report – entitled “The Death of the 30-Second Commercial” – that 11%, or $5.5 billion, of the $50 billion spent on TV advertising would be wasted, thanks to Digital Video Recorders (DVRs or PVRs).
“I think [TV advertising] really starts to be less effective as PVR penetration takes off, which we’re anticipating will occur over the next two years,” Aditya Kishore, The Yankee Group’s analyst who authored the report, was quoted as saying.
This week, The Nielsen Company said that playback from DVRs is actually increasing the amount of time people spend watching television, with viewing increasing 3% at 9:00 p.m. and 5% between 11:00 p.m. and midnight.
The periods compared were November 2005 and November 2007, during which time the DVR penetration level in Nielsen’s sample nearly doubled from more than 11% to nearly 22% in U.S. households.
TiVo, the company most identified with the DVR trend, has been unable to capitalize in any significant way on surging DVR sales. But its vaunted interface recently launched on Comcast cable TV in the Boston area, bringing hope to TiVo aficionados everywhere.
While Nielsen has yet to specify how much advertising DVR users are skipping, it appears that rumors of TV advertising’s imminent death may be premature.
February 14th, 2008
While it seems that every self-anointed sage and her brother had a list of predictions for 2008, savvy trendwatchers know that trends don’t adhere to calendar years. There’s one trend, however, that will reshape the U.S. market in the next year: HDTV. Most trends are initiated by human- or technology-related events, but this decade’s biggest media revolution is propelled by none other than the U.S. government.
The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) mandated that U.S. analog television broadcasting cease by February 17, 2009. Worried that unwitting consumers might be caught unprepared by this digital switch, the FCC also instructed stations to air ads to notify viewers of the impending change.
As a result, consumers will not be able to watch TV without hearing about the digital TV transition, and the remote possibility of losing reception after the switch.
A few days before the start of the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Warner announced that it would support the Blu-ray format exclusively, virtually sealing the fate of HD-DVD and unlocking more hi-def sales. This will help such new players as the Philips BDP7200, which ships any day now for $400.
We say remote because the transition will only directly affect the 12% of U.S. TV households, about 13.5 million homes, that receive over-the-air broadcast signals, according to The Nielsen Co. The Consumer Electronics Assoc. (CEA) reported on December 28 that 50% of U.S. households, or 56 million, already own a digital TV set, virtually all of whom likely receive TV via cable or satellite.
Households that potentially could “go dark” have an option: continue watching an older TV with analog tuner and buy a converter box. The U.S. government will help people pay for converters, offering all households as many as two coupons, worth $40 each, to cover some of the price.
It’s a trend that perhaps arrived with the supermodels but thin is in. One big flat-screen phenomenon this year is the “thin bezel.” As the Toshiba XF550U shows, thinner bezels result in more attractive sets that offer far smaller footprints, another major motivation to upgrade.
So, it’s a safe bet that sales of digital TV converters will explode by year-end. Yet despite the fact that most U.S. households will be insulated from the February 2009 digital switch, the sheer noise generated by the media about the impending “death of analog” will lead many to consider buying a new digital TV or upgrading existing gear.
Surveys show that less than 20% of Nielsen’s 112.4 million U.S. TV households, some 18 million homes, actually watch HDTV today, either due to the complexities involved or because HDTV owners believe that watching DVDs constitutes “HD.” The media’s educational campaign is likely to help change that scenario, which is good news for marketers and broadcasters alike.
Marketers will profit because they will finally have an incentive to produce all their commercials in HD. Despite the fact that it’s not a technology player, Target was the first company to broadcast a TV commercial in native hi-def on January 23, 2005 during an episode of Desperate Housewives. Apple followed with an iPod ad in February, proving that being a trendsetting company does not a pioneering marketer make.
Next year, Pioneer plans to sell plasma displays that borrow ideas from this prototype shown at the Consumer Electronics Show this past January. The next-generation Kuro shown was 9mm deep, 2mm thinner than the iPhone.
The Super Bowl points to the shifts taking place due to HDTV’s growing popularity. The 2005 Super Bowl featured 28 high-definition TV commercials by our count. A year later that figure rose slightly to 30 HD spots, according to SPOTBOWL. In 2006, HDTV-native advertising made up 45% of Super Bowl advertising. By contrast the 2008 Super Bowl featured only four national TV spots broadcast in SDTV, out of a total of about 60 network TV commercials shown.
Surprisingly, one of the laggards included Victoria’s Secret, a company that could have materially benefited from an HD spot, given its superb placement in the final moments of a close game. A new U.S. consumer survey discovered that 5.5 million households purchased an HDTV set for the first time during the 2007/2008 holiday and Super Bowl season, boosting U.S. household penetration with at least one HDTV set to 25%, or 28 million.
Welcome to the real trend of 2008.
Ubertrends: Digital Lifestyle, Voyeurgasm, Generation X-tasy
Value Propellants: Experience, curiosity, convergence, indulgence, performance, reality
February 4th, 2008
