Today’s twenty-somethings have migrated to the smartphone as their screen of choice. The next generation will know of no other alternative.
By Alex Brown and Graham Richmond
The term “mobile first” has now been used in two broad contexts, to describe social networks that emerged first as mobile-apps, as well as to describe the millennial generation, which spends more time on a mobile device than other devices.
Instagram, Vine and the plethora of messaging apps are mobile-first, and examples of the former trend.
Many reports recently have highlighted data that shows that the millennial generation is always connected. This latter phenomena has occurred ahead of the most optimistic forecasts, and has caught many marketers flat-footed. That being said, there is a more interesting application of the term “mobile-first” which is likely to have significantly broader consequences.
The generation that is coming up behind the millennials, those who are hitting their early teenage years, experienced the internet, and media, for the first time via a mobile device. Their expectations for media consumption have been set by the device; they are truly the “mobile-first” generation.
If we, as marketers, are scrambling to adjust to the current millennials’ consumption habits (the latest trend appears to be to unbundle apps. to keep things clean and simple), we need to really think hard about how to adjust to a generation which has never been tethered to a personal computer.
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