FEATURES: Roar cracks open youth market - Youngsters in Greater China were generally unhappy but their counterparts in Asean were more upbeat

Asia's youth market is not only different from country to country, it is also different within the same market, a wide-ranging study has found. Pan-regional operators have known this fact for some time, however, the Right of Admission Reserved survey, or ROAR for short, still presents a vivid picture of the scale and scope of the differences at both the micro and macro levels. This was underlined at a recent gathering of broadcasters in Seoul; the Asia-Pacific Television Forum on Children and Youth, which was hosted by Unicef. Unicef officials were goaded into a new mission on hearing some of the Roar findings. One included the revelation that the younger generation in Hong Kong, India and Taiwan were less likely to take public announcements about drug abuse seriously compared with their counterparts in Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines and China. On the micro level, Hong Kong youths were 50 per cent more likely to disagree with the statement: "I take public announcements about drugs very seriously", while another 30 per cent were apathetic. "Because kids are still avid watchers of television (according to Roar, 76 per cent of respondents said they watch TV daily), Unicef approached us to find out how they could do it better to more effectively raise levels of awareness of social issues among Asia's youth," said Channel V commercial director Jasper Donat. Unicef's reaction was indicative of the fact that the youth market is far more complex than anyone had thought possible. For example, Hong Kong youths can be split up into four main groups: - Rave people (33 per cent), who are fun-loving hedonists, experimental and leaders; - Tormented teenagers (27 per cent), who lack self confidence and who are normally anxious and worried; - Mall shufflers (25 per cent), who are unhappy, serious and found shuffling around malls. But they are also the most 'techno' minded; and - Grown-ups (15 per cent), who are mentally mature, liberal and career-minded. In Singapore, five groups were identified: swingers; the sophisticated, the stylish and sexy; confident careerists; the carefree; and the safe netters (those who follow the rules). "Immediately, we can see that home video games and the Internet are important to the mall shufflers, and action adventure, rave parties, pubs and karaoke and comics are important to the rave people," OMD Asia's director of communication insights Peter Allen said. On the happiness index, he said, Greater China was in negative territory, while Southeast Asia was on a more positive turf. However, Mr Allen added: "It seems that in Hong Kong it's trendy to be sad." Another important finding was that Singapore is more open to foreign brands, while Thailand was the least tolerant to foreign brands. "A key point to make here is that if tracked over time, we will measure levels of tolerance given socio-cultural trends and factors, and we could project whether it's up or down," Mr Allen said. Channel V's Mr Donat said he would like to see Roar conducted on a regular basis, perhaps twice a year. "Young people change their minds every week. So we need to investigate them more frequently." Roar, driven by OMD and conducted by AMI, interviewed more than 4,300 people, aged 15 to 29 in eight countries - Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and India. The sponsors, which also actively participated in the organisation of the study, included Star, Channel V, Hachette Filipacchi and Fox.

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