Young adults look to new space to play Tanya Ryan-Segger
New research from urban market specialist Lifelounge, which surveyed 1700 young adults, claims MySpace is losing credibility while brands such as Billabong, Smirnoff, Nokia and Motorola are major influencers.
The qualitative and quantitative study focused on the attitudes of Australians aged 16 to 30. The company estimates this group contributes $45bn a year to the national economy across their core interests of music, sport, fashion, entertainment and travel.
Although MySpace remains the top social networking site, the study claims it is losing integrity with its core audience because of material posted by corporates that lacks the ability to engage and interact with the youth market, forcing young people to search for alternative communities such as Bebo and Friendstar.
“No-one has control over social networking so the only way to gain credibility again is for the corporates to back away … or to get involved in a credible way,” Dion Appel, Lifelounge’s chief executive said.
At digital agency Proferro, group account director Stuart Edwards commented that part of the fun of social networking is there are no rules to control the content.
“We have seen strong movement to sites such as Bebo with feedback that it is more credible with a nicer layout and use of password protection but then again it is also used by corporates.”
Brands that received respondents’ seal of approval differed depending on life stage. Taking female fashion as an example, 16-19 year-old females favoured surf brand Billabong, 20-24-year-olds preferred Sportsgirl, while 25-30-year-olds said they avoided fashion brands.
One consistent winner across males and females of all ages was Smirnoff, apart from 25-30-year-old males who preferred beer brand Coopers. “Perhaps the fact that Coopers is a unique, family-owned and run business might have something to do with its popularity with the 25-30-year-old males,” Appel said.
