Technology has started defining the lifestyles of teenagers, believe marketing experts and company executives.
This fact came to light when the ‘What Teens Want’ conference was held in Manhattan last month. Those participating in the conference discussed how a tech-savvy and globally connected generation is remaking the image of the typical consumer.
"Technology is starting to define what’s cool in a way that fashion used to define what’s cool," the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Tina Wells, chief executive of Buzz Marketing Group, as saying. For teens, "as long as it’s technology, it’s what’s hot".
Technology has also turned advertising upside-down, with companies scrambling to adapt to internet video, digital video recorders, mobile media devices and online social networking.
Jeremy Wright, global director of mobile brand strategy with the European handset maker Nokia, feels that it’s a fast-moving, tech-heavy world that teens take for granted. "They’re just so receptive to new technology in ways that we find hard to understand. They’re the early explorers in mobile technology," he said.
Jordan Berman, executive director of media innovation for AT&T Mobility, the wireless division of the San Antonio, Texas communications giant, said, "Teens have adopted text messaging as a second language." Over time, people have stopped calling tech-savvy kids “nerds” and “geeks", say marketing executives.
"As times have changed, (the techies) are really cool kids. They’re the ones who know about an iPhone 18 months (before it arrives) and they teach a preppie how to use it," said Tina, who studies trends with a global network of about 9000 young people dubbed "BuzzSpotters".
She even referred to an unfinished online survey that included about 680 US participants and said that 65 per cent of American teenagers had plans to purchase one or two tech items this summer before heading back to school.
According to Tina, more than half say they will buy tech items when they can afford them and only one in 10 is happy with the tech gadgets he/she has.