Intern Focus Group

How can we get more young people here?

Like any good assignment, my charge to figure out how we could potentially attract a younger audience to our portfolio of events started with a vague musing. But one worth digging into.

To start, I utilized our strategy team subscriptions (eMarketer, Stylus, Simmons, etc.) and secondary articles (New York Times, Reddit, BrainPickings, etc.) to get a feel for the landscape. What's everyone else saying about this group?

Well, everyone was pretty much saying the same stuff. They're always connected. They're always on social media. They like experiences over things. They're driven by fulfillment not payment. Feeling contrarian, my new goal was to disprove these lazy tropes or dig beyond them.

That's when I employed the help of our 20+ interns for a focus group.

Here's what I found.