By now I’m sure you’ve read the much-hyped analyst note written by 15-year-old intern Matthew Robson, published by Morgan Stanley. It indeed makes for fascinating reading, but what surprised me is that this sort of thing isn’t seen more often.
I’m no City-boy, but as someone working in the media industry this stuff makes much more interesting reading than the usual, dry analyst notes we’re used to. Granted, he didn’t take an overly scientific approach with hard figures to back up his piece, but it didn’t matter – it was honest and insightful.
We knew that teens now expect content for free online, but understanding their new patterns of behaviour and consumption, spoken in stark terms, really puts things into perspective.
From an online angle, Robson suggests, “Most teenagers enjoy and support viral marketing, as often it creates humorous and interesting content.
Teenagers see adverts on websites (pop ups, banner ads) as extremely annoying and pointless, as they have never paid any attention to them and they are portrayed in such a negative light that no one follows them.”
The onus, therefore, is for the online marketing industry to improve tools and technologies – fast – so this generation doesn’t grow up thinking all ads online are a nuisance.
This teaches us that relevancy and, just as importantly, creativity in online marketing may be key to ensuring this generation can still find the content they love for free, while offering content creators fair compensation for their talents.
Let’s just hope other interns working in the City this summer are not all feeling the pressure of getting an FT front page for their work. Robson has just laid down the gauntlet.
