Announcing The Summer 2010 Cassandra Report

The Intelligence Group’s quarterly syndicated research study, The Cassandra Report, has been a critical decision tool for more than 15 years for companies, brands and organizations who are seeking to engage today’s hard-to-reach young audiences. The report affords a unique look into emerging trends in popular culture and what you need to know about how young people live, think and act today.

For the Summer 2010 Cassandra Report, we interviewed more than 1,000 14- to 24-year-olds, and drew upon our ongoing interaction with nearly 5,000 hand-recruited young consumers, to identify the trends that are impacting their world. The results reveal Gen Y’s newfound fascination with science and natural history, making them more likely to “study drop” and expand their left-brain thinking with hard facts rather than abstract opinion. You’ll discover evidence that what was once a tidal wave toward social communication is shifting toward reserving information for private eyes only as young people become more concerned with their online privacy. And you’ll find that Gen Ys are currently putting their lives on shuffle by finding ways to infuse randomness and elements of surprise into lives they feel are becoming overly predictable.

Throughout this report, we also examine Young Latinos, or “YLs,” as we call them. Their story continues to be that their attitudes and preferences are in many ways similar to those of non-Hispanic youth, and are becoming more so as a new generation of YLs comes of age in America. This ongoing cultural fusion means that while marketers need to recognize the likelihood that certain mainstream efforts will engage YLs in the same manner they attract non-Hispanic youth, they need to continue to track and understand the nuanced cultural differences that remain.

For example, we found that the notion of a “typical” YL has become trite; rather, there exist shades of YLs that reflect not only their skin color, but also how they identify with their Hispanic heritage. Also, the long-held sense by YLs of being underrepresented in politics and media may be more a factor of their own 45% perception of their size and influence than anything else. Indeed, that’s the percentage – nearly half – of all Americans YLs believe they comprise in this country. (Latinos actually represent 15% of Americans.) And, as YLs strive for bi-dentity balance while trying to embrace their unique cultural roots amid changing family and cultural mores, marketers should recognize the scale and complexity of these new pioneers in order to better engage this fast moving segment.

For any marketer charged with trying to engage this increasingly elusive audience, The Cassandra Report serves as an essential tool to help translate emerging movements and cultural trends into relevant insights for their business. For more information on subscribing to The Cassandra Report, as well as The Intelligence Group’s wide range of other products and services, please contact Allison Arling at aarling@intelg.com.