Talking technology is par for the technology industry’s course. It’s an industry that will pay an engineer (in the guise of a partnership manager) $150k a year whilst at the same time the lowly customer service team in Hyderabad or Gurgon will be lucky to reach $1.5k.

I’ve already laid bare my position on customer service earlier in this series, so no point treading old boards there.

What all good technology CEOs need to be addressing are many of the industry’s upheld beliefs about young consumers.

I had recently had the opportunity of sitting through a presentation by a renowned “blogger” on Web 2.0 issues who claimed that Web 2.0 was key to attracting young consumers to mobile operators and then went on to dismiss their importance to operators due to their low monthly ARPU.

Key Youth “Myths” a CEO needs to know

A number of myths perpetuate in our industry. So here are a few that CEOs need to take stock off in order that they are able to address their impact on internal company dialogue:

* “Youth care about our widget”. Time for a reality check. No young consumer wakes up in the morning with your company, your product or your brand in mind. Let’s face it, like everyone else, they only care about themselves and your role in that is to help them perpetuate or improve their social situation. All young consumers want are tools to help them be more significant or belong to their peer group. If you can provide that, then they care but until then they have no interest in your latest product line, the fact that you are “the leading provider of X” or that you are cool enough to include 50 cent in your marketing.

Young consumers don’t care that you know, unless they know that you care.

Caring today means going out beyond saying “we listen to our young consumers” to proactively engaging them on their terms. When companies support the values and causes that resonate with young consumers, they care. When a brand unconditionally supports the peer group through social activities, events and sponsorship of their upcoming “heroes” without first trying to impress upon them their monologue, they give you a chance to show you care. When a CEO comes out in public to confess that “they messed up”, they know you care.

* “Youth want technology and the ‘new’ new” . There was a spate in our industry (probably around the launch of MMS) when we really lost the plot. One Ericsson VP went public on the fact that “Youth love MMS” and it was the equivalent of “SMS on Steroids!”. Every VP selling his wares in mobile conferences, from vendors to operators went long on the idea that youth want “fun, cool and personalization”. And what better to deliver this then a latest technology or “killer application”.

Smack of Web2.0 today? Possibly. What we do know is that the blind can easily lead the blind and our industry often loses perspective. When we go out on the streets to do our video research of young consumers today, almost all (without exception) fail to describe to us what exactly a “killer application” is.

When youth aren’t interested in technology, we as an industry fall back on our only other straw to grasp - that with technology out of the equation it must be “cheap” that youth want. Youth want everything, and they want it cheap!

Spend any time with youth and you’ll see that it’s not technology they want, but what the technology can do for them. Nintendo’s Pokemon did not become an $80billion global franchise on the back of a smart piece of technology. When creator Satoshi Tajiri was tasked with inventing a new game for Japanese tweens to fill a gap created by a contracting market, he looked no further than his own childhood and remembered well that of all the activities he loved, he was most fond of insects, trading cards and beating up his friends - as any good young boy would have been.

What Pokemon achieved was the upgrading of existing behaviours through new technology. The technology facilitates peer group interaction - allows players to be significant (through defeating opponents) and reinforce peer group bonds. At no point did their customers demand the technology, they demanded its benefits.

* “Youth are cynical and distrust big brands”

Youth distrust untrustworthy brands and love trustworthy ones. In a recent survey, Apple rated “most trusted” with 60.9% of consumers stating they trusted the brand. Jet Blue registered trust with 46.4% of consumers and Adidas 31.8%.

Youth are also cynical because they are not listening to you. Why should they? Every other product on the market is “good” so what makes yours any different?

Being good is simply the prerequisite of getting onto the playing field these days. What wins over young consumers is being “relevant”. So, it’s all too easy to write youth off as “cynical” when they show little interest in that great widget your tech department has slaved over out in Romania for the last 2 years.

As for distrust of brands, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Youth trust brands that are highly relevant to them. According to Golin/Harris (2003) 83% said they would give the company the benefit of the doubt or listen to them before making a judgement on their behaviour if they trusted the brand - hardly a “cynical” standpoint as purported by our industry. Brands that work on trustworthiness (discussed later in this series) through transparency, clarity of values and offering find their young consumers less cynical than those who don’t. In many cases, it’s the same consumers in question.

So when your marketing department comes back and tells you about your cynical youth consumers, take stock - are they cynical because that’s their nature or is that an easy answer to a problem that lies perhaps in our backyard?

Talking tech again

One of the most profound changes a CEO can implement is to challenge his own team’s assumptions about young consumers. Often what are perceived as inherent problems with this demographic are actually weaknesses in the company’s own strategy -

• are technologists engaging in a tell-sell to the consumers?
• do consumers distrust the company because their contact details are hidden away on the website?
• are we focusing on social benefits or technological features as our key compeititive advantage?
• are we more concerned about Web2.0 than good customer service?