mobileYouth®

Screw the recession.

We @mobileYouth decided that either we sit on our derrieres and wait for business to come through the door or we get out there, hit the road and make it happen. Luckily, getting out there proved exactly the right thing to do and not only have we met a whole bunch of nice people around the world, we’ve also learned a lot in the process too.

From seeing first hand how kids in Soweto are using their mobile phones to piece together their communities to learning how great brands like Red Bull roll by immersing myself in their events and culture to spending time with the next generation of great youth brands like Theadless to experiencing first hand fashion trends in the back streets of Harajuku in Tokyo – a lot can be learned by taking a break from Google and the PC and getting out there and living it.

So how do you top that?

2010 is going to be a year of change. Here’s what you can expect from the mobileYouth foundry for 2010:

* A new player in town? can’t reveal much at the moment but expect to see the world’s largest distributed network of youth research specialists launch as a new player in the  youth space. No more messing round with bloated agency overheads, stale ideas and organizational politics. We’ll bring to the market a new way to both source insights and activate your youth marketing strategies across the globe. Watch this space…

* Youth marketing events in your city: we’re going global and already planning a series of grass routes events in the Americas, Africa and Asia. Watch out for the Young Ideas Salon hitting your town in 2010. Our aim is to make these events a meeting of minds in the youth creative space – an opportunity to share ideas and learn something along the way. And a lot of fun too! It’s going to be invite only as we want to start small and snowball it up rather than overpromise and under-deliver. If you’d like to work with us on organizing a Young Ideas Salon in your city at this early stage – contact us here.

* Youth trends report: I’ve been thinking a lot on how to follow the success of our youth marketing presentations in 2009. (You can download a number of these on http://www.mobileYouthnet.com) We have the answer – a youth trends report released in January that will share insights gathered from our partners and travels from the 4 corners of the Earth. Find out about how youth in Africa are using mobile as their preferred banking system or the surprise breakfasts that are taking Finnish students by storm… more to follow!

* mobileYouth report: The mobileYouth report – our annual research into how IT companies engage young customers (aged 5-29 yrs) -  is in its 9th year now. I can remember distinctly back in the Xmas of 2001 when we had just started mobileYouth and back then times were hard (end of the dot.com bubble etc). Not a good time to start a business. And it was this time 9 years ago we got a call from our first prospective report buyer – a faint Australian voice on the end of the phone. Some joker trying to sell us equity in his company to buy the report (it was common back then for people to pay for services with equity rather than hard cash). Common sense prevailed, we refused as equity wasn’t going to feed Tiny Tim that Xmas. Luckily, he raised some investment and bought the report the following year to become a good client for a number of years. Unluckily for us, however, he later sold his start up to Nextel (and later Sprint) for a few hundred million dollars. That Aussie voice was certainly no joker – he was Peter Adderton, the founder of Boost Mobile. We’ve got over that missed opportunity (just) and the report’s gone from strength to strength. Released Q1 2010. Speak to Josh Dhaliwal for a preview of what’s on offer.

* What Youth Think Tour: 2009 was a milestone year in terms of travel – notching up 250,000 km en route to some fantastic destinations. Of all my years of travel, this was the first I managed to cover the 7 continents (N & S America, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia and Australasia – I’m sure some Geog student is going to pull me up on my definition of “continents”). Anyway, we’re repeating this feat again so we can learn more about the global youth culture, meet our clients and share insights and solutions to challenges with you. Our tour this year is scheduled to cover USA, Canada, Mexico, EU, Dubai, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, China, Japan, New Zealand and Australia. We’re booking in 3-4 months in advance so if you’d like mobileYouth to share our global findings with your team get the ball rolling now and make contact.

* We’re hiring. It’s a big call for our team so we’re on the hunt for new blood – an outstanding individual who can make this happen. Find out more here.

* And a book… How could I forget? It has a home here but won’t be published until end Q1 2010. There were too many stories and insights from around the world to stay in our heads so we decided to share them. coming soon… Customers Are The Brand.

And on top of all that, time for a break. So until the New Year – I bid you all an enjoyable festive season and Merry Christmas from mobileYouth HQ here in London.

See you on the flipside.

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