A research report written by a 15-year-old Morgan Stanley intern that described his friends media habits has generated a flurry of interest from media executives and media geeks.
The US investment bank's European media analysts asked Matthew Robson, an intern from a London school, to write a report on teenagers' likes and dislikes, which made the Financial Times' front page today.
His report, that dismissed Twitter and described online advertising as pointless, proved to be "one of the clearest and most thought-provoking insights we have seen - so we published it", said Edward Hill-Wood, executive director of Morgan Stanley's European media team.
Hill-Wood also says that the report prompted calls from dozens of fund managers and CEOs, and the volume of responses was five or six times greater than Morgan Stanley's usual research
How do teenagers (in Britain at least) feel about media? Below are excerpts from the teens feed back and his entire review can be seen here.
Radio - ...with online sites streaming music for free they do not bother.
Television - ...adverts come on quite regularly (18 minutes of every hour) and teenagers do not want to watch these, so they switch to another channel.
Newspaper - ...cannot be bothered to read pages and pages of text while they could watch the news summarised on the internet or on TV.
Twitter - teenagers do not use twitter. Most have signed up to the service, but then just leave it as they realise that they are not going to update it (mostly because texting twitter uses up credit, and they would rather text friends with that credit). In addition, they realise that no one is viewing their profile, so their 'tweets' are pointless.
Internet - Every teenager has some access to the internet
Directories - Teenagers never use real directories (hard copy catalogues such as yellow pages). This is because real directories contain listings for builders and florists, which are services that teenagers do not require.
Viral Marketing - ...teenagers enjoy and support viral marketing
Music - very reluctant to pay for it (most never having bought a CD) and a large majority (8/10) downloading it illegally from file sharing sites.

Comments (1)
I will say the look on that... (Below threshold)1. Posted by LaMedusa | July 15, 2009 2:21 PM | Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
I will say the look on that kid's face is quite eerie.
1. Posted by LaMedusa | July 15, 2009 2:21 PM |
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
Posted on July 15, 2009 14:21