Issue 16, vol. 2 - November 2006

Every year, Youthography fields one macro quantitative survey in America to keep in touch with all that’s shaking with tweens, teens and young adults in that inarguably important market. Our recent fielding (deriving an aggregate sample size of 1,962) took in-depth looks at psychographics, values, brand consideration, consumer self perception, media habits, issues and the like.

In light of the recent primary elections in the States, and the ascendant focus in America on the “blue” and the “red” states, we took a statistical deep dive into core values (from a battery of 50 value criteria we like to call the “Valuemeter”) and examined them through the prism of which political party they support.

While young attitudes were, for the most part, fairly uniform across a wide swath of values; regardless of political proclivity, we DID see some vast divisions in terms of some integral personal values.

Here’s the synopsis:

Young Americans who indicate they would support the Democrats “if a national election were held right now” drive the following value statement responses:

Meanwhile, young Americans that demonstrated their faith in the Republican Party within our survey tend to drive these types of value statements:

The two largest gaps, by far, between these two political viewpoints exist in terms of “tolerating different viewpoints and cultures” (gap of 21.6%) and “being environmentally friendly” (gap of 17%).

If anything, this is further demonstration that the predominantly two-party system in America continues to define not only the way two clear camps look at how they would like to be governed but also, and perhaps troublingly so, how they look at contemporary culture and their role within it.

From a marketing perspective, this is obviously data that should be internalized and acted upon when carrying a macro strategic message on a national basis; there may need to be tweaks in tactics and even the entire tone and delivery of a message dependent entirely on whether you’re working within a “blue” or “red” state.

On a macro perspective, of course, this type of data provides a whole lot of reasons for soul-searching on a national basis; it appears that the chasm between Republican and Democrat supporters shows signs of increasing and, even worse, continuing through into the next couple generations of young Americans.

Youth Power 2006 - San Diego, CA (December 4-6, 2006
Loyal Youthography Forward and Playlist subscribers, We just wanted to make you aware of a pretty great youth marketing conference that’s happening in San Diego in early December.

The conference is called Youth Power 2006 and it’s looking to be a fantastic opportunity to learn about some great youth and young adult marketing success stories, hear from some youth culture and youth marketing experts (including us) and meet said people at the same time. All in 2-3 days down on the Pacific coast near Tijuana!

We’re actually the chairperson sponsors of this event and proud to be a part of it. Our president, Max Valiquette will be kicking off each proper conference day with some potent insight (and no lack of pop cultural humour - of course) and a variety of our partners and team members from Canada and the States will be there as well. So come on down, learn some stuff, have a beer with us and come back with that much more context!

Best of all, if you mention you were made aware of this conference by Youthography you will receive a 30% discount on your registration fee. Not bad. Not bad at all! youthpowerx.com