From an Advertising Age article on building a “hipper brand”:
When you talk about trends and who sets trends, it’s very much that 14- to 29-year-old key demographic.
We are fast approaching a time when we as broadcasters should question why this demographic is so fundamentally “unsellable.” What are we doing so wrong that this audience is so fundamentally undesirable? It doesn’t seem so undesirable to other media, does it?
It is this “unsellability” that causes stations to shimmy up the demographic ladder in what is generally a one way trip.
It is this “unsellability” which removes content from the air or prevents content from ever being conceived that might be of interest to this age group, thus speeding their departure from the radio altogether.
“If it’s young we can’t sell it. We can’t sell it because it’s young.”
Such are the makings of a self-fullfilling prophecy.
Increasingly, younger demos will be “unsellable” because we don’t possess them. And the money will follow the demo to where that demo lives.
Perhaps another one way trip.
Habits acquired while young are lasting.
Just ask a smoker.