The Biggest Talker

Just about everyone engages in word of mouth marketing whether they know it or not. Either we trust the word of a friend or extend our knowledge out to someone else. However, there is one specific group of people that take part in this practice much more than anyone else. These are today’s kids.

A study done by MTV and Nickelodean called "Circuits of Cool/Digital Playground" proved what many could have guessed. Kids are more accepting of new technological trends and therefore have more opportunities to interact with more people on a global scale. The most intriguing statistic found that supports this is that 100% of respondents in the study said that they communicate every time they go online. This study involved 18,000 participants between ages 16 to 24 from 16 different countries. That is a lot of communicating going on that would happen if they didn’t have the internet.

This makes kids a very valuable target for marketers. In fact the most groundbreaking conclusion drawn from the study is that these people believe friends are more important than brands. On average kids have 94 numbers in their cell phone, 78 people on their instant messenger buddy list, and 53 friends that they communicate with regularly. These kids don’t necessarily love the technology, but the interaction they are getting out of it. Therefore, marketing within this interaction is much more important than marketing within the technology.













http://www.womma.org/research/011170.php
http://www.marketingcharts.com/television/youth-and-digital-tech-viacom-microsoft-global-study-challenges-assumptions-1076/
http://blogs.mediapost.com/spin/?p=1103