London biz world not so tough to impress

A 15-year-old Morgan Stanley intern is the talk of the London business scene after publishing a report detailing the media consumption behavior of his teenage circle of friends. Among the "astonishing" observations: Teenagers aren't regular listeners of radio, preferring sites streaming music; they're watching less TV; they don't read newspapers. Edward Hill-Wood, the 35-year-old head of Morgan Stanley's European media team, told the Financial Times that the report by Matthew Robson was "one of the clearest and most thought-provoking insights we have seen. . . . We've had dozens and dozens of fund managers, and several CEOs, e-mailing and calling all day." Aside from generally understood behavior of teenagers today, don't any of these people have first-hand knowledge from sons or daughters or grandchildren? Robson writes that while most teens he knows have signed up for Twitter, "they realize that no one is viewing their profiles, so their tweets are pointless." As for advertising, Robson argues: "Teenagers see adverts on Web sites (pop-ups, banner ads) as extremely annoying and pointless, as they have never paid any attention to them." He does say his friends enjoy viral marketing because it often creates fun content. Frankly, I found the fact a 15-year-old could land an internship at Morgan Stanley more impressive than any of his obvious assessments of teenage media behavior.

—Posted by Noreen O'Leary

July 14, 2009 in Morgan Stanley, O'Leary, Twitter | Permalink