The Cellular Family at the Millennium Available to Purchase

This paper is adapted from a speech given at the SMI Conference this year. Informer is a youth specialist marketing consultancy and research agency. Committed to a continuous exploration of the lifestyle, attitudes and behaviour of young people aged between 12 and 24. Clients include leading brands in the fashion, drinks, music, television, beauty, travel, finance, interactive entertainment and retail markets. The agencies flagship product is the Informer Youth Monitor the worlds largest ongoing qualitative research study of the youth market/youth trends. It is a powerful tool for strategic planning and an invaluable source of knowledge for those wishing to understand the young consumer. Today's kids are growing up faster than ever before. Adults are often bewildered at their speed of growth and at their ability to assimilate many aspects of older culture into their lives, even before they strictly become teenagers. This has huge implications for brands and brand marketing. The media — the biggest influence on our lives — constantly informs us of the impending breakdown of the family and diminishing family values in this post‐modern world. We're led to believe that rising divorce rates and the increase of single‐parent families are evidence that, not only is marriage an outmoded institution, but that traditional family unit is a thing of the past. But what will happen to family life in the future and what will the effect be on children? This paper will examine the latest learning's into attitudes to family life and sets the context of children's lives, examining everything from relationships with brands to advertising to sport.