There was a time when people would have understood what marketers meant when they said they wanted to target 'the iPod generation'. For most of us, it would have conjured up an image of a 16- to 24-year-old style-leader, who wears branded trainers, summers in Ibiza and doesn't hold doors open for old ladies.
Now, however, iPod ownership has become so ubiquitous that it has about as much street cred as wearing fluffy slippers. So it is perhaps time that brand-owners came up with a more accurate way of describing this sought-after demographic group.
Mark Boyd, creative director and head of content at ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty, agrees that the iPod is no longer a suitable reference point for youth culture. 'It used to be this bold thing we all talked about; now even my grandmother has one. It doesn't symbolise a cool, early-adopter audience,' he says.
Defining characteristics
So what defines Generation TXT to the exclusion of other audiences (aside from an inability to spell)? It's not Twilight - mums watch that with their daughters. Neither is it The X Factor, because celebrity culture has cross-generational appeal. The same is true for the Nintendo Wii - the console can't be cutting-edge, because Ant and Dec advertise it.
What, for example, do they say at MTV - which also used to be shorthand for youth? 'We tend to refer to them as the always-on generation,' says Zoe Harris, director of marketing, creative and consumer press, at MTV UK. 'Whether you're talking about Facebook, mobile texting or instant messaging, they are seeking instant access to information, friends, content and experiences.'
The 'always-on generation' isn't particularly catchy, but echoes what other creatives and marketers in this sector have to say. Most of them identify digital networking as the hub of the issue.
For Steve Ackerman, managing director of production company Somethin' Else, the defining characteristics of the youth demographic are 'multi-tasking, content-sharing and a kind of social voraciousness'.
Jeremy Paterson, managing director of music marketing agency Frukt, talks about 'engagement and empowerment', while Boyd sees a 'connected, challenging and sceptical' set of consumers.
Crunch all these comments into some kind of media-planner matrix and one starts to visualise an on-demand, open-access, impulse-driven generation. As well as being comfortable customising content, it has a social naivety, which is converting tracts of Facebook real estate into a kind of Big Brother-style confessional - where aunts, uncles, teachers and future employers can read the sort of content once reserved for diaries.
Some observers try to encapsulate this with terms like 'digital natives', but still nothing trips off the tongue as smoothly as 'the iPod generation'.
'Maybe that's a good thing,' says Paterson. 'Generalisations imply that it's possible for marketers to come up with a one-size-fits-all approach, but the truth is that platforms like Facebook aggregate a youth market that is actually very fragmented.'
Boyd agrees. 'Either you end up with terms like "the Facebook generation", which is so broad as to be meaningless, or you back the wrong trend and get labelled as the guy who talked about "the Bebo generation".'
Engagement strategies
This doesn't mean brands shouldn't try to tap up style-leaders, says Boyd. In the same way that Puma used to hand out free trainers in dance clubs, Bartle Bogle Hegarty likes to go after the 'bloggerati', a hardcore of online commentators who drive trends.
For Harris, how you refer to this audience is less important than how you engage with them. 'So many brands expect the audience to go out of their way to engage, but this audience is in too much of a hurry,' she adds. 'It wants experiences that are simple to execute but add value.'
Ackerman agrees, adding that his company's work in digital and branded content begins with two premises. 'First, you can't talk at them, you have to talk to them; and second, you have to give them stuff if you want to engage - like Orange did with film. They're used to getting stuff for free, and that's a cultural shift brands and media companies need to address.'