Digital Marketing: Targeting Gen Y

Making Sense of Gen Y Media Consumption

Forrester Research recently reported on media consumption among Gen-Y’ers (18-27 year-olds). This group, not very surprisingly, spends more time online than watching TV. In fact, according to the report, they “Spend less time watching television today than they did in 2004.” Reportedly, they spend more time playing video games, watching DVDs and checking out Web and mobile video content than the general population.

To make sense of it all in the marketing light, Forrester offers a few tips for marketers:

Find consumers in their preferred media channels. Are your consumers online or offline? How are they spending their time online? What channels do they prefer? This media profile will answer those questions with a view of today and a trend line showing how behavior has changed in the past four years.

Prioritize media channels and brands for advertising….One simple way to start is to compare your advertising spend against the time that your target customers spend with each channel and brand. For example, Gen Y’ers generally are more likely to be found on MySpace than Facebook, but perhaps your target market is more likely to use Facebook. Or it may be that your multichannel sports fanatic customer actually spends more time online than watching television!