Out of the mouths of babes...Pt. 2

Always one to beat a dead cause célèbre, I thought I call around a few marketers at high street banks to see what they thought of the recent analyst report from Morgan Stanley. The one that listed the media tastes of teenagers, written by a 15 year old intern.

The item in the report that most intrigued (and frankly didn't surprise) us was the statement that "Teenagers don't do Twitter."

As our editor Paul Penrose commented: "Banks that fail to tap new social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook are often warned that they are missing out on an opportunity to engage with the next generation of digitally-savvy consumers."

A marketer working at a UK high street bank had this to say about the Morgan Stanely report:

Finextra: Did anything revealed in the Morgan Stanley report surprise you?

No. I think he wrote very well but not much surprised me. The most important insight from his report concerned teens attitude to advertising and watching TV although that is not a new trend. Ignoring TV advertising is not exclusive to teens and is also something that is happening to all consumers as they adopt different patterns of consumption of pre recorded TV.

Finextra: Does your bank actively market online consumer products to young people?

What is you definition of young? We have current accounts that are available for 13yr old and upwards and savings accounts for parents to save into for their younger children. We also have a range of Mobile and SMS banking services that many customers find useful, including young ones.

Finextra: Do social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter play a part in that marketing?

No. We don't believe social network venues are places to market on in the traditional sense. They are networks that we can communicate customer service issues to customers or respond to their concerns and problems which is different. We don't target advertising to the under 18s in any case.