Young people have a lot going on in their lives at any given time. Getting their attention means competing against many other factors. 

Futuri recently hosted a webinar that addressed exactly this topic of how brands like yours can become not just relevant, but essential to younger audiences.  You can see for yourself with our on-demand webinar led by Futuri’s Charlie Maxx and Sabrina Carlo.

After seeing a high level of interest in reaching younger audiences and low level of confidence in the ability to do so, this webinar was intended for media executives and others who wanted to see what could be done in this area of engaging younger audiences and making your brand essential to them.

Here are a few key takeaways from the webinar, many of which are discussed at length in Furuti’s Future of Audience and Revenue Study 2021. 

Declining Trust in Media

In general, young people no longer have very much trust in large institutions anymore. This lack of trust in large organizations extends to the mediasphere as well.

The Future of Audience and Revenue study surveyed different age groups on the credibility of major TV outlets. While the other age groups scored the major TV outlets at a rate of 30-50% credibility, the younger audience scored the credibility at only in the mid-20%. 

This is bad news for major TV outlets, however not so much for local radio, television, and newspaper brands. In fact, local radio and local newspaper brands ranked highly with respect to clarity and facts. So while it would seem that young audiences no longer trust the media in general, the problem is a lot more nuanced than this. 

In particular, younger audiences distrust large, national media brands, but are more likely to trust their preferred local radio, television and newspaper brands.

The Younger Audience Has Defined Media Preferences

When you’re trying to market your brand to younger audiences, it is important to take into account what kinds of content they are actively seeking. The most sought-after kind of content for 18 to 24-year-olds, the Future of Audience and Revenue study found, was… scary content. Spooky, right?

Emotional and sad content was also reported to be popular with 18 to 24-year-olds.

On the flip side, it’s important to make sure that you don’t market your brand based on the types of content that young people aren’t interested in or actively avoiding. Surprisingly, The Future of Audience and Revenue Study found that informative, current events, and dramatic content just weren’t as popular with 18 to 24-year-olds.

It would seem to me that the media preferences of young people involve more emotional and scary content, rather than factual information about important, timely matters in society. By knowing the content preferences of young people, your brand can be better marketed towards them.

Vital to Long-Term Health of Media Companies

By now you’re starting to feel better informed about how younger audiences trust smaller, local news organizations rather than major media networks and prefer more emotionally stimulating content over cold, hard, factual information content. This is all great to know, but after learning so much about younger audiences, you might be wondering how all of this connects to the success of your company. 

The young audience of today become the patrons of tomorrow. If you connect with them now and build loyalty and trust — two things that are hard to win with this age group — your company will be in a great place as far as long-term health goes. 

Takeaways and More Ideas

Knowing how to engage with younger audiences is critical if you want your media brand to survive in the current landscape of media. 

Still hungry for more on how you can make your brand essential to younger audiences? If so, we would highly encourage you to request the white paper from our website so that you can read up on the study for yourself and be sure to check out the on-demand webinar.