Marketing to a younger demographic

MarketingProfs.com had a fantastic article on how to market to digital natives. These digital natives can be youths who were raised with these new communication mediums to web workers who are immersed in the various technologies and tools.

The article links to this great analysis of how digital natives think differently from others. The presentation by Marc Prensky of San Diego State University looks at the following distinctions.

• Twitch speed vs conventional speed they are used to a high level of speed that "real life" often does not provide
• Parallel vs linear processing multi-tasking is the norm and that learned capacity can be tapped.
• random access vs linear thinking natives are used and drawn to the random presentation of information
• graphics first vs text first we are moving from "message is medium" to text as an aid to the message. In other words, style is triumphing substance.
• connected vs stand alone there are many sources of information, not just one. Being connected to these sources is key to accessing and sharing them.
• active vs passive lectures and meetings are passive. What will happen when Natives enter managerial positions?
• payoff vs patience a video game can hold a person's attention for 5-9 consecutive hours. How can current learning utilize this enraptured attention as well?
• fantasy vs reality fantasy elements pervade their lives. How do we leverage this interest to attraction attention?
• technology as friend vs foe technology is more than just a helpful "thing", is part of their social fabric