Andrew Watson

Morgan Stanley: Online PR case study

Posted on 17. Jul, 2009 by Andrew Watson in Online PR

Matthew Robson, 15 and 7 months, perhaps not your everyday teenager was asked by analysts at investment bank Morgan Stanley to detail how he and his friends consume media. Whilst many seem to have focussed on the fact that either Matthew Robson was 15 or that he said that he and his peer group had little time for TV, newspapers or Twitter and preferred to listen to music – few seem to have actually considered the impact of the ‘thought provoking’ piece of work.

I have lost count of how many times I have heard that it is thought provoking ? Exactly what does it provoke thought on ? Most articles I have read, just regurgitate the report and the way it was delivered to the UK media – few (actually haven’t found one?) assess Matthews comments – and really a quick glance at the report (the Matthew Robson, Morgan Stanley report is only 3 pages in length) shows some glaring ‘typical teenage’ comments:

• As former teenagers – which of us spent time watching TV, reading newspapers or on Twitter? I don’t remember many of my friends trading chasing girls or working out which pub would serve those under-age with watching TV or reading a newspaper ?
• In regard to Matthew’s comments about radio: Radio 4 enjoyed record listening figures in the final months of 2008 with the Today programme attracting its largest audience for 7 years. So whilst teenagers may not listen to the radio, personally I find more and more of my peers consume a great deal of radio… and as teenagers rather than having Last.fm or Spotify we had a Walkman’s and/or a Boombox ?
• In regard to Matthew’s comments about TV: ‘ The majority of teenagers I speak to have Virgin Media as their provider, citing lower costs but similar content of Sky.’… wow how many teenagers have a house? More people (who have a house) consume Sky not Virgin Media – latest viewing figures show Sky subscribers at 9.3 million views compared to Virgin’s 3.65 million
• In regard to Matthew’s comments about newspapers: ‘No teenager that I know of regularly reads a newspaper, as most do not have the time and cannot be bothered to read pages and pages of text while they could watch the news summarised on the internet or on TV.’ – doesn’t that apply to most of us. Certainly my peers read newspapers much less often than our parents did… and even our parents consume more news via the internet etc
• Gaming – mostly view points that have changed little over the last 20 years – apart from voice chat and I may stand aside here as I wasn’t aware that voice chat in console games had become so common place ?
• Internet – Very little written is thought provoking – apart from the comments regarding Twitter… but is this more to do with the way Twitter is perceived ? Yes there are those who use it as a communication medium… but there are those of us with a busy life, (car, house, family) who love to catch bite sized news snippets and latest offers from Dell Outlet etc.
• Directories – is this not the same for everyone ?
• Viral / outdoor marketing – is this not the same for everyone ? Just one question – the Benetton Baby ads ran 1990/1991 – Matthew would have been 5 years and 7 months old ?!? If they left an impact – doesn’t that show an awesome piece of outdoor marketing ?
• Music – same for former teenagers – I and my peers still prefer the touch of a CD, vinyl even cassette… and listening devices were dependant on wealth from cheap walkman’s to the very top end with remote controls, portable CD players and portable mini disc players ?
• Cinema – same for former teenagers… all right we didn’t have the ability to download films – but the dichotomy of quality v legality has always been with us.
• Mobile phones – I can see that the consumption of this media is indeed different – mostly due to technological innovation, and it is thought provoking to consider how consumption of mobile internet will increase as the price point moves down… but once again I see this as something that affects the majority of mobile consumers, not just teenagers…
• Televisions – once again I have missed a trend – most teenagers are upgrading to HD ? Just one comment on this – the UK should be very proud of our active teenage workforce…
• In regard to Matthew’s comments about games consoles:- ‘The Wii’s dominance is due to younger brothers and sisters, they have a Wii and parents are not willing to pay for another console’… sorry Matthew I think you’ll find a fairly small percentage of the the dominance of the Wii is due to parents not willing to pay for another console… including price point, appeal to new audiences and innovation…

As I said at the start of this post – I am a little lost by the amount of talk regarding the ‘thought provoking’  nature of Matthew’s report… I just hope that bank don’t react on this type of information. Having consumed and digested the information from the report, I can decisively conclude that it has done an great job of marketing the Morgan Stanley name to a whole new teenage audience – an audience that one day will no doubt consume their services.