Not your Father’s brands (or your mothers).

I teach  120 undergraduate students who range in age from approximately 18-20.

I am always curious of the the products they use, what they prefer and what is on their minds.

I did an unscientific pole on what products they were using.  When I asked about what MP3 player they used almost all of them have an ipod.

When asked what social networking site they preferred again almost  unanimously  Facebook.

Neither of these products existed eight years ago.  These are the customers of the future.

Based on these numbers if I am the marketers of the competing MP3 and social networking sites I would be very nervous.

So much for the first mover advantage (I am also talking about that train wreck over at Yahoo).