Some time ago a multitude of news was published about the impact of a report made by a fifteen-year-old. Analysts at the investment firm Morgan Stanley asked London schoolboy Matthew Robson to describe his friends’ habits regarding “How teenagers use the media” and decided to publish the study, given the quality of the information provided, in The Financial Times.
This report was a complete revolution in the London city. The quality of the information provided was not due to its statistical rigor, but rather due to the series of simple, close and apparently obvious conclusions. I say in appearance because it seems that it does not discover anything, because it was there, but that is the problem, sometimes it is necessary for someone to tell us that it is there, to show us the obvious.
The article published in “El País” in its day said “A simple idea without a doubt, but nobody had done it before” to hire a fifteen-year-old to tell us what they like and what they don’t like, when the usual thing is to hire super agencies to prepare super studies with super statistics to obtain super conclusions. I do not criticize the work of these Agencies, I simply say that we simplify, I do not need you to tell me “look how intelligent I am, what a great study I have carried out and what more complicated sentences I have elaborated in the report”, because after that I need another agency that I interpreted the report.
The report on “How Teens Use Media” Matthew Robson finds that:
- Teens are consuming more media, but in different ways and are not prepared to pay for it, especially for the music they listen to.
- They don’t use Twitter, they prefer Facebook.
- They are not so interested in television because they cannot see what they want when they want it.
- Teenagers are patient because they can’t change their cell phone until their next birthday.
- Teenagers want to choose content and when to consume it.
- The advertising that they like should be presented in an original way and directed specifically towards them.
- About radio he says that they are not so interested in radio, because they cannot choose what they want at that moment, they actually prefer online streaming being able to listen to the song they want.
- Regarding television, add likes according to the season, to see the content that you like the most, whether they are series or sports, and when it ends, the time they watch television decreases.
- About the press Matthew says that there is no one who reads a newspaper with those long columns of text. “I don’t know of any adolescent who regularly reads newspapers,” he wrote, “most don’t have the time or complicate their lives with pages and pages of text when they can watch the summarized news online or on television.
- Regarding video games, he concludes that his console is his mobile.
- PC games have little to no niche in the teen market.
- Many teens enjoy viral marketing as it tends to have fun and comical content.
- Very few adolescents buy a CD, most of the music they listen to is downloaded from the Internet.
- And more…
What is “in”?
- Anything with a touch screen.
- Mobile phones with a large capacity to store music.
- Portable devices that connect to the Internet.
- Very large televisions.
What is out?
- Anything with cables.
- Phones with black and white screens.
- Very large phones.
- Devices with less than 10 hours of battery life.
Surely a lot of information is obtained from this report for future business ideas, this is what London companies must have seen that did not stop calling dozens of managers and agencies requesting a copy of the report.