Thursday, March 10, 2005

Toshiba and generation Y big technology spenders

Lifted from the Bleeding Edge Web site - an excellent technical site (with some off beat quirky satire thrown in!)

Bleeding Edge spent today at Toshiba's Mobile Xchange conference - an event dedicated to the proposition that if a lot more Australians were engaged in flexible work practices, which is what we used to call tele-working or tele-commuting - Toshiba would sell a lot more portable computers.

For all that, however, it produced some interesting facts and theories, among them the fact that while Australia might be ageing, in fact Generation X and Y (23 to 40-year-olds and 5 to 22-year-olds) outnumber Baby Boomers (26 per cent) and their parents, aka "Builders" (17 per cent), which means technology companies are going to have a lot more customers for new toys than they ever had in the past.

Indeed companies like Toshiba feel positively giddy with joy at the prospect of Generation Y getting older and earning more money, because they've never seen a demographic that's more determined to deploy their credit cards and overdrafts in the pursuit of gadgets.

As social researcher Mark McCrindle put it, this most digitally literate demographic buys technology not just because of their work or entertainment needs, but also because they regard it as a fashion item.

Their entire social standing is apparently dependent on their ability to buy and use mobile phones and digital cameras and PDAs and MP3 players, etc.

Apparently they can sicken and die if they're caught using technology that's not classified as acceptable (ie, slightly out of date).

What's particularly dangerous, as far as the rest of us are concerned, is that they are apparently spreading this disease to their parents, friends, and indeed anyone they come in contact with. They are carriers, God help us, of consumerism.

There's even an International Journal of Advertising and Marketing to Children, which studies their behaviour. They call them "kidults", and their wallet-loosening powers as "kidfluence".

When you think of it, they're probably a national calamity, given that they're probably the ones who are driving our current spending binge.

Bleeding Edge's advice, if you happen to have contact with this generation - you'll probably be able to recognise them by the fact that they have white earphones attached to their heads - is to have them humanely put down. We don't really mean that, of course. Just don't talk to them. And don't let them near your credit cards.


Posted by: Jethro | 12:40 AM |