Parents used to bemoan the fact that their kids were constantly glued to the set; now they despair that young people don't seem to focus on anything for more than a few minutes.
Sure, they're still watching TV, but no longer are they couch potatoes, absorbing everything that flashes across the screen; they're flicking channels, flicking through a magazine, texting their friends or moving to a PC - a growing culture of impatience that began with the remote control and is now seen to an extreme degree in the region's young.
For marketers, this means a single-shot strategy is likely to be more miss than hit. What's required, as ever, is careful targeting, but across a whole collection of media rather than a strategically selected one or two.
It also means using media that young people don't realise they're consuming - plenty of outdoor and events-based marketing, and even packets of tissues.
"Young people are becoming more and more fickle in their consumption of media," says Florance Yip, marketing director at Nike Hong Kong. "So unlike in the past, it is no longer just one or two media that dominate their attention, and communication in many different ways is simply essential in reaching young consumers."
Soonthorn Areerak, MEC Thailand's channel planning director, says: "Young people today are very individualistic, very mobile. They're always on the road, and always moving. They also embrace change well and have a high ability to adapt. This means media should also be ever-dynamic, new, and exciting."
Media owners whose core target is young people are heeding the call, launching cross-platform media properties that give advertisers a whole raft of ways to reach their market.
At MTV, along with developing programmes that cater to the music, sport and fashion interests of viewers, greater emphasis is being placed on interactivity between viewers and the channel, enabling them to participate in a show, for instance, using their mobile phone. Mishal Varma, MTV's senior vice-president, programming and talent and artist relations, says there's also more "pro-social" programming, such as anti-smoking and anti-drugs announcements, and the MTV Music Summit for AIDS.
You'll also find MTV in your wallet in some markets, not on a tiny screen but on branded credit and debit cards, which are now available in Singapore, Indonesia, India, the Philippines and Malaysia.
MTV has a radio station in Indonesia and is looking for potential business partners in other countries in the region to launch others. The channel also publishes MTV magazines in Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia.
Rival Channel V, run by the Star Group, is similarly diversifying, particularly in the lucrative mainland market.
"Marketers in China indeed are looking at television in conjunction with events and other media for youth marketing," says Star VP, corporate affairs, Jannie Poon.
"While television remains a major and most important platform to reach them, the channel is also into print, wireless, radio, online and on-ground."
The V magazine is a monthly title launched early this year covering music and lifestyle topics. A V programme block is available on radio across China, while the www.vchinese website provides an online connection, and concerts and roadshows are held in major cities and on university campuses.
In individual markets, meanwhile, new media options targeting young people -both old and new-tech - are being born all the time.
In Singapore, for instance, a new magazine, called Choices, launched in August aimed at tertiary students and is being distributed free at polytechnics, universities and junior colleges.
And Artishoo is giving advertisers below-the-line opportunities to reach students by printing a brand logo or message on packets of tissues placed in dispensing machines on campuses.
On terrestrial TV, Singapore's Channel 8 has been using a multimedia approach to target young people, using SMS contests on its Beauty and the Belle programme.
In India, the TV line-up for younger children has grown this year, with the launch of Cartoon Network's sister channel Pogo, with programming ranging from Barney & Friends for pre-schoolers, up to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and the animated Mr Bean series for older children.
While in Thailand, Virgin Radio Asia has just launched two new radio stations aimed at young listeners. Stations in the northern university city, Chiang Mai, and on the holiday island of Ko Samui, are in addition to the four stations Virgin has launched in Bangkok since entering the Thai market two years ago.
Content for Chiang Mai will be based on the Bangkok station Virgin Hitz, with a focus on top 40 popular music, and on Ko Samui will broadcast easy listening music to help listeners "kick back in tropical paradise", Virgin says.
Radio technology predates TV, and is well behind the days of MMS and video streaming, but its affordability and portability makes it a good choice - if not necessarily a favourite - for youth marketers.
"Radio is huge for this market," says Ian Stewart, CEO of youth brand specialist marketers The Filter Group.
"We're big supporters of radio because the fact is young people are at home doing their studying, there's only one TV in the house and that's being watched by everybody else, so they put the radio on.
"And when they're older, they're spending hours in the car commuting with the radio on. You've got a fairly captive audience, and you can create so much specialised content for radio. We're big supporters of radio for reaching young people," Stewart says.
Star's radio venture in India, Radio City, is certainly proving popular.
The poppy, youth-oriented Radio City is now available in four major cities - Mumbai, Delhi, Lucknow and Bangalore - and tops radio ratings surveys with its lively phone-in shows and "wacky" contests.
And in the fledgling market of Cambodia, a new Sunday morning youth slot called "Os Tos Mhong", or "Cool" was launched this year on radio station FM102, featuring a relationships phone-in and just-released music.
At Nike, Yip says campaigns have to cover a range of media and a range of themes such as sports, music and gaming. The media mix, she says, is gradually shifting hi-tech. "With the increased options of new media available in the market, we have also been increasingly looking at ways to be more innovative in our media mix to maximise both the effectiveness and the efficiency of every dollar spent," she says. "Interactive has played an increasingly important role in targeting young people since the data reflected young people are more and more so spending time on the internet, so the rate of increase there is definitely greater than on other mediums relatively."
Young people are also spending more time on the phone, and MEC estimates that 84 per cent of upscale youth in Asia have their own mobile phone.
Under the golden arches, however, marketing bosses are confident that putting the bulk of their spend where it's always been - on television - is the right way to continue. "For the meantime, we're keeping with the traditional mediums being the most effective way to reach all of our audience, and in Hong Kong the bulk of our media (spend) tends to be on TV," says David Morita, VP for marketing and communications with McDonald's Hong Kong.
"Outdoor is a very effective medium that we tend to use a lot of because it's a tightly packed city, and typically we'll also use some print and some radio."
The brand advertises on Commercial Radio and on Government radio station RTHK, along with MTV under a global deal with the network.
Last month marked the first venture online for McDonald's Hong Kong, with banner ads on Yahoo to support the new 'Fresh Choices' menu.
While getting young people to stop long enough to notice an advertiser's message is becoming a growing challenge, so long as they're offered some added value, they tend to be receptive to media messaging.
"There's none of that anti-brand, anti-corporate feeling among young people that you get in Europe," says Stewart.
"They love experiences and involvement," says Soonthorn in Bangkok.
"And they want engagement, honesty and relevance. Many media owners are having to use higher levels of below-the-line activities, tactics, events, and so on to capture them. Advertising must also be sincere, long-term, and open to their criticism."
The other piece of good news is that the region's youth are staying younger for longer, giving youth-focused brands a bigger audience.
Morita says McDonald's has adjusted its target market to focus on 18 to 34 year olds, as birth rates decline and people delay marriage and have fewer children.
"The corporation as a whole has really changed our focus - we used to be viewed very much as a place for children and families, and while we think our brand is still very much supported by that segment we felt our brand needed refreshing," he says.
In many ways, this older group of youth are more lucrative than the under 25s from a marketing perspective, because they have so much more disposable income.
The Filter Group says this ageing is so significant they no longer call themselves youth marketers but urban marketers.
"People tend to think of the young as teens and early adults, but in Asia you've also got the nouveau riche young working executives who don't think there's anything wrong at 34 years old to be playing with their X-box," says Stewart. "There's the young, and the young at heart."
MAKING THE YOUTH CONNECTION
SHINMAI
Agency: MEC
Shinmai, a Taiwanese jasmine-flavoured rice cracker, used everything from lift interiors to beach parties to tempt the taste buds of its target audience in Thailand, primarily 15 to 29 year olds.
University campuses were chosen to give potential consumers "brand encounters" with Shinmai. On 'Freshy Day', the first day of the academic year for new students, Shinmai games were held across 21 campuses, and sampling points set up. The brand also sponsored Wai Kru Day with a thank-you party for teachers and students, and held a Shinmai 'Healthy Sports' Day, during which it promoted yoga, swimming and tennis.
More traditional investment ran the spectrum from TV and radio to press and outdoor. TV work included sponsorship of a game show popular with teens, and product placement on Kling Wai Korn Por Sorn Wai, a teen drama.
Press included Cleo and Pulp magazines to reach teens, and Preaw magazine for working young adults. The Pulp agreement saw Shinmai sponsor the movie preview section, and give away tickets to films.
A beach event was organised in conjunction with Hot Wave radio station, along with a Hot Wave Concert. And bus shelters were covered with Shinmai creative in strategic areas, along with about 15 lift interiors in buildings where students and working adults would be likely to see them.
PANASONIC
Tech brand Panasonic is using its sponsorship of a popular Channel V programme in China as the springboard to a multimedia campaign that aims to engage the youth audience and at the same time encourage them to use the brand.
The campaign centres on sponsorship of Face 2 Face, a weekly TV programme that showcases performances and interviews of top Chinese pop artists in mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
To promote the use of mobile phones, the campaign has developed a sophisticated SMS contest, encouraging mobile users to send short messages to accumulate scores by grooming a virtual budding artist for stardom by having them undergo various types of training.
The more successful the virtual artist becomes, the higher the score for the user. The top 300 users in the first round will win Panasonic Mobile Face 2 Face concert tickets while the ultimate winner in the second round will be rewarded with Face 2 Face VIP treatment - return flight tickets, luxury transport and hotel accommodation and appearance on the TV programmes.
SMS users can also vote for which city will hold Panasonic Mobile Face 2 Face concerts.
A micro-site within Channel V's site has been established, featuring details of the concerts and the SMS contest. Panasonic Mobile Face 2 Face programmes and performing singers are also highlighted in (V) magazine and radio, reaching additional audiences across China.