Grown Up Thinking

HBO’s new hit show True Blood, a show about vampires, just got renewed for a second season. The show was no doubt spurred by an innovative marketing campaign that took a lot of chances and is now reaping the rewards. Rather than a traditional approach of plastering showtimes and trailers in attempt to broadly reach as many potential viewers as possible, True Blood chose to focus on creating deeper engagements built around intrigue and buzz.

And what better subject to create an illusion of mystery around but vampires? HBO created a fake blood based beverage, vampire dating site and vampire blog all of which have a surreal feel causing the viewer to at least pause and think and most likely discuss with friends. Just as Vampires infiltrate and integrate with human lives, True Blood infiltrated the crowded consumer consciousness and is now likely integrated in many viewers’ lives.

Monday, the New York Times launched TimesPeople—a social networking add-on to its website the publication hopes will evolve the media giant into a more robust community of readers in a web-obsessed world.  Obviously a response to the increasing takeover of micromedia channels and alternative media sources, TimesPeople is NYT’s declaration that they’ve joined the party.  But having seen the new feature set in action—perched pleasantly atop nytimes.com—I have to ask: is this just 2.0 lipstick on a 1.0 pig?

(more…)

Though the price of an average mobile phone call keeps dropping, as does the number of land lines, the phone industry has seen no shortage of income thanks to the purchasing ferocity of their youngest market segment .  A recent study released showed that by the age of 17 at least 91 percent of girls and 78 percent of boys own a mobile phone, the majority of which use it for more than just making and receiving phone calls.  Mobile providers are embracing teenagers in every possible way, through youth centric promotions, applications and model designs.   Like any brand, the goal is to win consumers early, and create an affinity that will continue on, even after their parents stop paying the bill.  They have done this by constantly adding or offering more to each device and mobile plan, placing a higher importance on features over functionality, quickly phasing out the traditional cell phone and cell user in the process.

(more…)

I still find it funny every time I find myself reading status updates or wall posts from people I haven’t known since high school. One of my 256 Facebook “friends” I haven’t known since pre-school! She added me and commented on how we used to be in the same play group and now I find myself knowing everything about her from who she is voting for to her love of her new iphone to even seeing pictures of her kids who are about the same age as she was when we last knew each other.

The NY Times Article, The Brave New World of Digital Intimacy, explores just how profound a shift Facebook and other technologies have and will have on how we communicate with others. Almost through osmosis we now are able to connect with people and get a feel for their lives, a phenomenon that social scientists have termed “ambient awareness”. Clearly the world has changed and this enormous; yet still brand new, form of communication brings us closer to a much larger number of people. With 256 friends, it only takes 100 people to potentially reach 25,000. Just think what 10,000 could do.

The music industry died just a little on Tuesday, Sept 16th as MTV Networks announced the discontinuation of Total Request Live, a decade old staple of the music network.  What does this development portend besides the decline of glitter and poster board sales in the Times Square area?  Well, for one thing, I think we can understand TRL’s slow and steady demise as definitive proof that young consumers no longer respond to the show’s reliance on “the mainstream.”  We here at Mr. Youth have been saying it for a while—niche is the new norm.  In a 2.0 world, top 10 just doesn’t cut it.

(more…)

Twitter has teamed up with Current TV  to allow viewers of the presidential and vice presidential debates to Tweet  their opinions and have them appear live onscreen, giving the TV audience unprecedented access to commenting on the nation’s political discourse.
(more…)

It’s no surprise that the online and offline worlds keeps merging into each more and more as technology enables us to keep connected at all times (especially here in the Mr. Youth office as admitted brand-lovers and tech geeks who gleefully exchange iPhone apps).

While the economy plummets and looming tension builds to keep everyone in the meatspace all a-twitch, the offline universe is evolving and adapting to reflect a space that is still thriving and positively teeming with great ideas: the online world. This month’s TrendWatching report focuses on the online/offline cross pollination that seeds offline content with a digital approach.

(more…)