Youth and gaming

An observation is that the computer is becoming an extension of the brain. The internet is blurring the boundaries between the real world and the web and it is becoming harder to discern the difference. This is particularly so for gamers where the game is reality for a time at least.

The research we are doing in Asia and in Australia on Youth identities is revealing a distinct persona that makes them suitable for the emerging gaming environment in Singapore and Australia and, the much more advanced markets of Korea and Malaysia.

There are a number of trends that are driving interest in multiplayer games and affinity communities. Gaming can fill a desire to escape his/her own shaky and unappealing identity into another identity – be it to feel part of “my sports team” or “my band”. Gaming too potentially becomes another means of slothing off the identity imposed by their day to day lives or jobs.

Providing the opportunity to experience different identities in different gaming communities in one single night, meeting people from all over the world online and even adopting a different number of roles using MMORPS has potential appeal to their escapist tendencies.

Gaming offers a safe way of meeting people and interacting – from your own bedroom – enabling them to try out different personas and feel better about themselves. If played out in more aggressive ways, it also potentially provides a degree backlash against societies that stereotype you because you don’t have the best career prospects, best designer clothes and the widest circle of friends.



The female market is the key market for role play games - MMORPGS. Fantasy is clearly better than reality for many – with make-believe now more possible, there is little doubt that this trend will continue to emerge.

For girls in particular, there is also a tendency to sentimentality. The past provides a more comfortable stage of being where there wasn’t the same pressure to be popular and cool – attractive to boys.


Also see my blog on metaphors - www.insidemetaphor.blogspot.com

Youth - Decoding the Psyche

The past two months have been very busy spending time escalating our learning about how Youth’s sense of self or identity relates to their choices of packaging, certain ad appeals and some brands. This has involved many hours interviewing Young people 16 to 24 years.

On May 30th and 31st I am conducting an IQPC course in Singapore to the Asian marketing community where I will be also presenting our latest research on Asian Youth. (You can find this course on IQPC course website www.iqpc.com.sg/AS-3317/2020.)

This is a unique research study as it goes deeper into the hidden aspects of how Youth are biologically pre-programmed to respond in different ways to certain packs, ads and some brands – and what makes them tick.

This research covers:

How to connect with 16 – 24s at a deep level by identifying your target as one of a number of somatically defined identities.

How you will know them when you see them – from their different looks, body languages and key words.

How they will know you as one of them when they see and experience your ads, packs and other marketing activities.

This is totally unique research in that is goes into the arena of body language very deeply and how these insights relate to marketing implementation and positioning.

It will help marketers in your choice of talent for ads plus assist in the selection of the shapes, colours, sounds and kinetics of your packaging. Helping to better target your activities and better activate choice through packaging, the brand and product experience.

This study is based on innovative qualitative research techniques eliciting somatic metaphors.

Latest discoveries in neuroscience are showing that our identities (or senses of self) originate in the body and are somatically defined (see Damasio – Somatic Marker Hypothesis). In other words, much of what we experience as humans goes back to the bodily experience – and this can be applied to our experience with packs, products, ads and brands

Our somatic or bodily experiences are not only the building blocks of our senses of self/identity but also of our emotions – and finally our dispositions and choices. All of which are of key relevance to marketers.

In my blog on metaphor (
www.insidemetaphor.blogspot.com ), I discuss more about metaphors and in particular somatic metaphors and their potential relevance to marketing.

Youth and art trend

I believe art has always fascinated Youth from early but for this generation of Youth art is something more to them. This because there is more access to means of artistic expression than ever before and greater possibilities for reach. There is also some new possibilities to innovate and for Youth today to express their own unique identity.

Why is visual art so important to Youth? I believe it is about identity formation, expression and experimentation. Last night for the first time I saw a graffiti artist in action in a nearby park – first time for me as I’ve only ever seen their prolific output in Australian streets. And yes perhaps not surprisingly they were around 17 male - not a grandpa, grandma, baby boomer or Gen X’er.

I am not the first one to say…Youth for the first time has the time and tools to be an artist. Everyone can be a film maker, designer, publisher whereas only a small elite population could be artists in any previous times sponsored by a patron or living in poverty. Then there is the ‘must have’ Carl Zeiss lense Nokia phone that can make everyone a film director.

Our ongoing research project on Youth in Asia and Australia is about Youth identities and one of the identities is a performer at heart – this is all about being able to experiment with and play different characters..

This type of Youth persona can be recognised by the colours they choose to express themselves with, the packaging shapes and styles they likely to choose to identify themselves with.

The colours to watch are Red, Fuscia, Sky Blue, Brown/grey.

The desire to express yourself over objects, take ownership by writing your name or overlaying your designs is a strong one when identity is forming. I recall when I was 14 or so I came to school one day to find all my heavily doodle’d class books and possessions (previously labeled with my name) suddenly with someone else’s name on them. It caused anuproar at the school with the teachers, an unfamiliar pain for me and the identity thief was whisked away from the school for a while.

There are now more and more brands tapping into the major appeal of art for Youth - recognizing how Youth is embracing art. Perhaps more from the point of view that art is cool than from the point of view that art is identity formation though.

In Shanghai Coke has a whole shop that I visited which is dedicated to the ‘Coke is Art, Coke is Innovation’. Here you can see you favourite iconic Coke bottle shape with a myriad of visual designs by young artists.

Nokia has united 10 of the world’s artists to invest in their Connect to Art Project – inviting downloads new technology for free in the exhibition.

Yen magazine is featuring Connies ‘out of respect to the special shoe in your life...teaming up with artists including The People’s Republic of Animation presenting your favourite Connies with their own unique artistic treatments and positioning them as…’Connies have always been more like a best friend than a regular pair of shoes that protect your feet from gritty streets’. (Doesn’t say it’s an advertorial just something nice from Yen magazine to Converse. Wonder who paid for this? Great for both Yen and Converse.)

Giving the power for the consumer to be the artist is the hard one for brands marketers - and making it work.