Today’s kids are tomorrow’s prospective college students, right?
That’s why “The Kids’ Social Networking Study,” a study conducted by Grunwald Associates LLC and released earlier this week, could be particularly interesting as higher ed institutions start to work on their next marketing strategy to face the upcoming decrease in the prospective student pool.
The study is comprised of three parallel national surveys with Kids ages 9-17, Parents and School District Decision Makers. Carefully constructed, nationally representative samples of 1,200 teens/children, 1,000 parents and 250 school districts.
Unfortunately, this kind of intelligence comes with a relatively hefty price – for smaller institutions, at least – as data licenses start at $5,000. This is probably why most of licensees listed in the study marketing literature include big corporate names such Disney, Warner Brothers, Scholastic, Nickelodeon, Pearson, Discovery, Apple, Nestle, Leo Burnett, Starcom, AOL, Leapfrog, Facebook, Barnes & Noble.
Fortunately, the good folks at MediaPost Publications managed to share some interesting findings pertaining to TV and Online use in “Study: Kids Are Master Multitaskers On TV, Web, Mobile,” an article written by Tanya Irwin:
About 64% of kids go online while watching television, and nearly half of U.S. teens (49%) report that they do so frequently–anywhere from three times a week to several times a day.
[…]
According to the study:
- 50% of 9- to-17-year-olds visit Web sites they see on TV even as they continue to watch,
- 45% of teens have sent instant messages or e-mail to others they knew were watching the same TV show,
- 33% of 9- to-17-year-olds say they have participated in online polls, entered contests, played online games or other online activities that television programs have directed them to while they are watching.
At the same time, it is clear that online activities are the primary focus of TV-online multitaskers, and an increasing determinant of what they choose to watch:
- 47% of kids say they focus their attention primarily online while multitasking between TV and the Internet,
- 42% of kids say they focus on TV and online activities equally,
- Only 11% of kids say that TV holds their primary attention while multitasking,
- and 17% say they have chosen what to watch on TV based on what they are doing online–up from 10 percent in 2002.
But, what does it mean for your institution?
Don’t even think about launching a TV advertising campaign targeted to prospective students without a strong online component.
With this generation, it could be the difference between a hit and a miss.
So, how do you integrate the Web into your TV campaigns? Tell us by posting a comment.
A TV campaign? Hmmmm. I’ve heard of those, but have never had a budget to do one of any significance. The last TV campaign we did was a scrolling text ad at the bottom of the “Local on the 8s” segment of the Weather Channel to announce our campus name change.
But I digress. Good data about the multitasking generation. I think this spells trouble for traditional TV advertising. But I think traditional TV advertising has been in trouble for some time now anyway.
Interesting info, and yes, a hefty price tag for a small school on a budget.
For anyone who is interested in this sort of research, Harris Interactive offers regular teen-related research free of charge at http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/newsletters_k12.asp This link even has an archive of back-issues.
They do have a newsletter, so you can sign up to receive new releases without effort :)
Thanks for sharing this resource, Rob!
Andy, as incredible it might sound, a lot of money is still thrown on TV ads ;-)
But, I guess it depends on the ticket of entry (which will vary considerably with the size of your TV market) and the depth of your institution’s pockets.
I looked very quickly but not extensively: Do these folks have details regarding their methodology publicly available? I can’t imagine trusting their publicly released information or paying for their data without details about their methodology.
Kevin, they offer a free preview including some of the data.
You just need to request it via an online form available from the study page. But, my post is not an endorsement — I don’t have the 5 grands to check out the study.
For $5000 I suggest having your own child. I have three, and they are priceless when it comes to bouncing ideas around. Someday I plan on replacing them with grandchildren.
As for a TV campaign, it sounds expensive. Guessing you could do something really cool online with a budget like that–something that would force the multitaskers to tune out the competitions expensive TV spots while they’re on your site.
Todd, I’m pretty sure that your suggestion (i.e. having your own child) is actually going to be more expensive than the study, but I get your point :-)
As far as TV is concerned, I agree with you. I guess what I meant is that if you’re going to do TV, better do it correctly.
If your sister, cousin, etc., has a teenager, spend a week at their house. Cheaper than having your own kid, and gives you a bit more of an outsider perspective ;)
Thanks for your coverage of our Kids Social Networking Study. Our studies are essentially calling cards for our custom market research; we conduct them sparingly since they are so expensive to finance. Unlike a lot of other research firms, we put a lot of thought into these studies, and specifically the implications for education; I’d encourage your readers to take a look at our site for some background. http://www.grunwald.com
I did want to clarify one issue: while we list some of our largest corporate licensees in our marketing, we’ve actually licensed to a number of non-profit and educational organizations. And our $5,000 license fee floor is for corporate licenses; we can craft a license for non-profit/educational institutions with a substantially lower license fee.