1. Grown-Up Digital Natives
– The new generation of
customers
Maria Luchterhandt and Sebastian Schmidt

2. Grown-Up Digital Natives
– The new generation of customers
The neologism Digital Natives can be traced back to an essay by Marc Prensky in 2001. He coined the
term to describe people who were born after 1980 directly into the digital age. With their digital
media biography, this group of people takes permanently networked communication, collaboration
and coordination with others for granted.
The grown-up digital natives born between 1980 and 1985 are now entering a new phase in their
lives. In their early thirties, they are organizing their family life and their careers. It’s an interesting
time for brand article companies, especially when we define the grown-up digital natives as media-
savvy, well educated men and women living their lives in an urban environment.
So, in the following, it’s worth asking what attitudes and values these people find important – then
comes a graphic description of a media ”day in the life” of today’s early thirty-year-olds.
Values and attitudes of grown-up digital natives
In the world of grown-up digital natives, innumerable choices and constant change are a part of eve-
ryday life. It is highly probable that abundant choice has already characterized their search for the
partners with whom they will spend the period of their lives that we are considering, because 4 out of
10 singles make use today of online dating sites. The wide variety of possibilities offered by the online
rendezvous puts it third among the places where lovers meet – after the workplace and their circle of
friends, but ahead of the club, disco or on holiday. Online dating sites offer hundreds of potential
contacts, filtered according to what you are looking for, and thousands of photographic self-portraits.
The digital dating sites create the illusion that, with their help, finding a partner is uncomplicated and
professionally organized. In fact, there is an infinite number of new choices every single day.
This trend in selecting a partner makes you realize how important it is to grown-up digital natives
that they don’t have to go without anything: the person who becomes your partner is the one who
meets your requirements in the here-and-now. At any time, options for tomorrow are just a click away.
It’s clear to the grown-up digital natives that switching the options is inherent in their accepted con-
cept of life. The constant stream of media content (not necessarily with substance) in all aspects of
life reinforces the perception of an uncertain future as the “fragility of the present”. So satisfying the
demand for happiness here and now counts when choosing a partner and starting a family. “Putting
it bluntly: it’s about sex. It’s about love. It’s about children. It’s about providing, about maintaining
and expanding possessions. But, above all else, it’s about how he or she, with whom I’m together,
whom I marry, enriches, glorifies, reveals my self.”
After successfully selecting a partner, striving for happiness through individual satisfaction of needs
shapes the founding of a family, which, according to current surveys, is a major aim in the target
catalogue of people in their late twenties and early thirties. But family is defined less today as simply
a permanent relationship between adults and children. Also, living together in one specific place is
less important in defining the concept of “family”.
The reason is that young parents too are no longer accepting an either-or situation. They don’t want
to forego any aspect of life. So, for example, the magazine “Nido”, that appeals to parents with
children under six, a wide range of interests and an above-average income, promises the “whole
spectrum of topics from pop to politics, from fashion, travel and interior design to psychology and
sex. Everything from the perspective of modern, urban parents.”
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3. It is precisely when a couple becomes a family that this both-and mentality puts the daily routine of
life under pressure – because everything is supposed to contribute trouble-free and effortlessly to
satisfying one’s own current needs.
Thus, within the family, each individual’s plans for the day have to be coordinated. The particular
activities are determined by his and her preferences in work, leisure, sport and entertainment. And in
the process the children are to be kept happy too. Outwardly, the children are used as a way of help-
ing to promote their projected image: “In our family everything’s cool; we know the latest updates
of our peer group; we’re the controllers of our lives.” This is the image that they feel obliged to ex-
hibit convincingly on the playground in Berlin-Mitte.
Grown-up digital natives perform a balancing act between cultivating their individuality and search-
ing for commitment. In this situation, the targeted use of digital communication has become the sine
qua non for maintaining this model of life.
A day in the life of a grown-up digital native
Nina, 32, and Stefan, 34, have one child: Leon is 3 and attends an all-day kindergarten. Both parents
have jobs. Nina works part-time (a three-quarters post) as a company representative and is able to do
some of her work from her home office – provided she doesn’t have to visit clients or go to the firm
to attend important meetings. Stefan is a consultant in a management consultancy and is often away
from home on projects. Two or three times a week, the couple hire a multi-lingual nanny via an
agency and she comes in the afternoon, and also in the evening if Nina has a business appointment
or if the couple need time for themselves. The grandparents live in another town and see their grand-
children mostly on public holidays or birthdays.
In their everyday life, the family use all manner of media, but most of all their smartphones and a
tablet PC. On their devices, they have a large number of apps that they rely on every day to com-
municate with each other and with their friends and families or to access information in general.
Their tablet PC has, for example, become a part of the daily breakfast routine: either Stefan has it
because he likes reading the newspaper app while drinking his coffee and then looking at the status
of his friends on Facebook, or Nina uses it first to access her Facebook page and then to check the
feed on Linked-in and Xing. Or they hand over the tablet PC to Leon (if he whines long enough) so
that he can play one of his favourite educational games1.
In the morning, all the family’s appointments are planned via the Orga-App2. If the fridge is empty,
items are added to the shopping list in the Orga-App, and all their devices are automatically updated.
If one of the parents is unable to keep an appointment, he or she needs only to change the entry in
the family diary, and the other one immediately receives a push message.
If Stefan’s job means he has to travel by plane, he checks in via the app of the particular airline and
receives his ticket as QR code3. There’s no need to print the ticket or queue at the check-in counter.
The same applies to buying tickets for public transport – both Nina and Stefan like using the app of
their local transport network4.
They mostly don’t use SMS any more but Whats-App5 instead – an online messenger service that
eliminates the cost of sending SMS, since communication is via the Internet.
Stefan and Nina work very hard and scarcely have time for each other. To keep their relationship on
track despite everything, they use a program6 as an aide-memoire that displays the development and
the state of their relationship, awards points for time spent together and offers tips on how to spend
this “couple time” – going to a restaurant for example. Practical help is also offered in the form of
vouchers for restaurants. However, Stefan always checks these offers on Google first, where he can
read an evaluation of any restaurant and the comments of other guests to help him decide whether
it is worth it or not.
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4. They use their smart phones all the time for their other activities too: as a navigation device7 (if they
don’t have the latest version of the program, an update can quickly be downloaded while on the
move), for sport8 (to check the intensity of their training, for example when jogging), when stuck in
a traffic jam (to read Facebook or to chat) or to check in9 at Starbucks and claim a voucher for coffee
– again as instantly redeemable QR code.
Both Stefan and Nina think it is very important to be up-to-date, to see what their friends are doing
and where they are at any given time. Status reports and pictures are annotated continuously. Invita-
tions to dinner are also sent online – via, for example, the event invitation function on Facebook,
which is quicker and simpler than phoning round several different people. In this way, everybody can
see straightaway who has time and who hasn’t.
Nevertheless, Stefan and Nina still use the telephone, but instead of the traditional phone it’s Skype.
By using Skype, you can see each other live and Leon can show his grandma and granddad his latest
pictures live.
Conclusion and outlook
This article has shown graphically how sociological changes and technological innovations are inter-
dependent. For brand article companies, understanding the technologies of digital natives does not
go far enough. What is required is the spirit of enquiry to penetrate the world in which those people
live who take it for granted that they have a right to make use of the possibilities the world offers.
“The link is more important than the thing,” stated Cova and Cova as early as 2001. This vision of
social togetherness will become even more important in the next generation of communication tech-
nology: the Internet of things and therefore the peer-to-peer communication between end devices that
make possible innovative processes of communication, coordination and communication; semantic
technologies that, via intelligent search engines, cluster web content and web services as you need
them; or instruments of opinion mining that automatically extract opinions and attitudes towards
situations or people. What is technically possible has to be turned into something with brand con-
formity, appropriate for the target group and with practical application. There are still no reliable
benchmarks to gauge the success of commercial communication in people’s transmedia daily lives as
illustrated above. But, if brand manufacturers face up to this new reality now, we’ll see comparable
success stories that will quantify to what extent advertising campaigns and brand communication
reach the hearts and heads of the grown-up digital natives.
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5. Sources and links to further information:
1
e.g. Lernerfolg Grundschule:
http://itunes.apple.com/de/app/lernerfolg-grundschule/id408866513?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4
2
e.g. Cozi:
http://www.cozi.com/iphoneapp.htm
3
e.g. at Lufthansa:
http://itunes.apple.com/de/app/lufthansa/id299219152?mt=8
oder Air Berlin:
http://itunes.apple.com/de/app/airberlin-your-airline/id409129262?mt=8
4
e.g. at BVG:
http://www.bvg.de/index.php/de/940553/name/Handyticket.html
5
Whatsapp:
http://www.whatsapp.com/
6
e.g. Kahnoodle:
http://kahnoodle.com/
7
e.g. TomTom:
http://itunes.apple.com/de/app/tomtom-d-a-ch/id326068192?mt=8
8
Nike App:
http://nikerunning.nike.com/nikeos/p/nikeplus/de_DE/products/gps_app
9
either over Facebook or other geo-located services, such as Foursquare:
https://de.foursquare.com/
Bauman, Zygmunt; Jakubzik, Frank: Leben in der Flüchtigen Moderne, Suhrkamp Verlag 2007
Beck, Ulrich; Beck-Gernsheim, Elisabeth: Fernliebe: Lebensformen im globalen Zeitalter:
Das globale Beziehungschaos, Suhrkamp Verlag 2011
Bender, Justus: Studenten heute. Woran kann ich noch glauben. Zeit Campus 7.9.2009
Cova, Bernard; Cova, Véronique: The tribalisation of society and ist impact on the conduct
of marketing. http://visionarymarketing.com/_repository/wanadoo/cova-tribe-2001.pdf
Maier, Anja: Debatte Macchiato-Mütter. Projektkinder der Edeleltern, TAZ, 27.8.2010
Moreno, Juan: Es soll nicht weh tun. Warum junge Eltern anders sind als deren Eltern,
Spiegel Spezial 1/2009
Prensky, Marc: Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon,
MCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5, Oktober 2001
Speicher, Stephan: Prenzlauer-Berg-Mütter. Schlank, hübsch, verhasst,
Süddeutsche Zeitung, 24.06.2011
Mattauch, Christine: Boten der Liebe. Absatzwirtschaft, August 2011
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6. Responsible for content:
Maria Luchterhandt und Sebastian Schmidt
Maria Luchterhandt is Account Manager at Agentur Publicis in Berlin.
She is currently focusing on the planning and implementation of adver-
tising communication for the target group “connected families”. She
previously gained several years experience as an adviser at Scholz &
Friends in Berlin and Dentsu in Düsseldorf. She graduated in Business
Studies at the University of Potsdam.
Sebastian Schmidt is the Managing Director of Agentur Publicis in
Berlin. Previously, Mr Schmidt worked at the Institute of Electronic Busi-
ness e.V. (IEB), an institute of the University of the Arts (UdK) in Berlin,
where he concentrated on the Innovation Centre for Digital Communi-
cation. The main focus of his work was social media marketing, Enter-
prise 2.0 and customer self-care.
Publisher RedPaper:
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Tel. +49 (0) 911/9 98 13-0
Fax +49 (0) 911/86 96 60
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