Mobiletribe

Morgan Stanley has released a report by by Matthew Robson, the 15 year old intern, that is making headlines worldwide. The reason is the “relevations and drastic new insights” that teenagers don’t use twitter. That they do not want to pay for news etc.

Stop. Breathe. Count to 10. Read report and comments again.

The only conclusion I find in the report is that disposable income has a major influence over consumer spending. Almost all findings in the report are evidence of consumers looking for the lowest cost or best price/performance. That ought to be old news.

Some commentators highlight the fact that teenagers don’t use Twitter as if this would be a major shock. Well, it cost too much to use it from the mobile phone and teenagers are not glued to a computer 8 hours/day as the core users of twitter are. And if the latter group are using twitter on their mobile phones a company is most likely footing the bill anyway.

Halfway through the second read of the report I had a vague hope  it was a joke. Maybe a wakeup call to sanity check the world. I think I might be guilty of wishful thinking here. This is for real. How did the reasoning go at Morgan Stanley though? Morgan Stanely is not building any brand value by spreading this report. It is a well produced little summary of the current state of things, but pushing it as “thought provoking insights” borders on insulting.

The positioning of and the reactions to this report serves as a big warning signal to me. If this really is news, no wonder media companies and others are suffering and feel lost. The fact that it has become a popular read in the City is shocking. I’ll place bets on stocks myself thank you very much.

I also object to the method of extrapolating the teenagers’ behaviour as a template for the future of the entire media industry. In many cases I think we see the future in the youth. But in this case the key message is as I mention above, that disposable income has a big influence over consumption of non-essential products and services. Put me on a similar budget as even a well off teenager and you would see very few tweets from my mobile phone and I would be an avid file sharing user. As the teenagers grow up and take different paths in life they will end up in various segments of the market for media consumption. Low and behold but some will even pay for a printed newspaper. One of the rare ones still being in circulation that is.

If I focus on the mobile world, which is the media arena I know best, the report is a good summary of the state of the industry:

- Cost of device and access are key drivers of behaviour.
- “Free” is the expected price point among a growing part of the population.
- Willingness to pay grow with exclusivity, directness in access and self expression.

Mobile internet services have only started to take off since flat rate internet options became an option. This coupled with better handsets at affordable prices has built the first stepping stone for a sound mobile media market. We still have to figure out healthy revenue streams for the publishers. Advertising alone will not carry the business case.

Just becuase we put words like “new”, “mobile” and “social” in front of the word media, gravity and other basic laws do not stop to apply. Yes, there are many disruptive forces involved but a great experience delivered in a smooth way at a total cost that triggers mass consumption are still the key success factors for any media product. How is that for “insightful and thought provoking”?