Every week I get a little box flashing on my screen notifying me that I have an IM that says “Hey, what r u dng?” from my much younger sister .  She belongs to a new generation that, instead of passing notes around class when they decide to not listen to the teacher, is using her smart device to text, IM and browse the internet.  It’s hard to fathom, but there is now a generation of young adults who don’t remember when all computers had  for fun was paint and minesweeper, a time when any information you needed was in your pocket.  As a result of this constant download of information to their sponge like developing brains, they are quite susceptible to “internet hype”.  They have taken viral marketing online to a level I could never imagine.  The other day  “Hey, what r u dng” IMed me from class asking me to pay for her to join a service at $15 a week to get as many friends as possible on MySpace.  I kindly told her “no”.

There’s a whole other aspect though.  This generation of constant co-signers is now old enough to vote (and how cool is it that in their first election there is a viable candidate who looks like them?), they’re going away to school, and looking for employment and most importantly buying things on their own.  You’ve got two seconds to connect.  Everything is available online and/or is mobile and they can access it right NOW.

Planning layouts, image choices, wording, everything has to have impact and meaning and everything has to connect with the user, or they’ll bounce.  The NOW generation grew up with flashing glittery GIF images and interactive flash ads, they know how to tune out what they aren’t looking for.  They don’t just ask “what r u dng” they also ask “what’s n it 4 me?” and if you convince them that there’s something in it for them they will ask “how can I be a part of it…and show it off?”

What mediums are they using to do this?  Big research said in May that, “minorities have a higher regular usage of new media than Whites across all media types”, and blacks are more likely to use cell phones, text messaging and video games.   In another study in June from Big Research, they determined cell phones and text messaging are much more likely to trigger an online search for young consumers than all adults. Basically, if the point wasn’t made in Black & Mobile that this is the next frontier of innovation, in terms of brands and media, to bridge the gap that is exciting minorities populations.  And if anything the rise in consumer generated content shows that people are eager to engage and studies like the ones Big research did and Radio One just completed show that black people want to play too.  There just hasn’t been a real playground specifically for black people created yet.

In fields that traditionally took months or years to get new consumer buy-in, the timeline has been compressed by the internet and smart devices are compressing it even more.  The first generation to grow up with the internet, affordable smart devices, unlimited text messaging, online gaming and wifi access is changing the way the game is played everywhere and everyone has two seconds of their time to get them to buy-in starting NOW.