Coming atcha live from the Grand Ballroom in the downtown Hilton New Orleans from the 2009 AAAA Conference… again. 

This morning the panel discussions turned to demographics as three distinct focus groups took to the stage to discuss their media consumption habits and how technology or just life in general have shaped/evolved those habits. 

There were a few surprises but for the most part, the groups played to their pre-existing stereotypes: The Gen-Yers are online, using Facebook, testing out Twitter, watching Hulu, texting eachother and think music online should be free. The Boomers get up in the morning, read the newspaper (the actual physical inky fingered kind), and listen to drive-time radio. The female panel was perhaps the most diverse and well-rounded of the groups admitting that while they do in fact watch WE, Lifetime and HGTV (apparently with a passion) they also go online for their news, text message their friends, have Facebook Profiles to keep an eye out on their kids and some even ventured into Twitter territory because they saw it on CNN.

The surprises? The Boomers are old. Ok, maybe that shouldn’t come as such a surprise but I was amazed to hear just how not tech savvy this group actually was. These are the people the Onion directs their biting sarcastic wit towards when jesting that Google is releasing “The Google” for old people. 

Another surprise, despite their desire for free music and free content and their perceived short attention spans, the younger panel all expressed satisfaction with how advertisers were reaching them online, in particular many of the panelists were avid perhaps even addictive Hulu users and all claimed that they felt it was a completely fair trade to sit through 3 :15 second commercials to watch an episode of Psych. 

The other surprise was just how well-rounded the Female panel was. They seemed to represent the perfect cross-section of form and function and revealed in that the future of advertising, in this country at least. They were poster children for integrated campaigns as some were online, some read print, most watched TV, listened to the radio in their cars and half the panel said that they have received and responded to offers via text message. In fact, most expressed a preference for text message communication over anything else. When asked why one panelist responded that it was just more to the point than the other mediums. 

Advertisers, marketers, brands and companies…. take note… the panelists wanted engagement, they wanted information in an authentic way, they wanted you to be meaningful and relevant but more importantly, in a world where media is more convoluted than ever, they just want you to get to the point.