Asia/Pacific 'youth premium consumers' seek challenges at work

Mumbai, Sept 11 (PTI) Youth in the Asia/ Pacific region, especially ones with a high disposable income, don't want to toil at work and face intrusive managers but believe in 'play' at work, challenging their own creativity and expanding their professional horizons, says a new book.

"The fun of work is found in constantly solving problems and in developing and testing new skills that lead to deep personal satisfaction," Yuwa Hedrick-Wong, an economist and strategist says in his book, 'The Future and Me' published by John Wiley and sons (Asia).

Yuwa, who has based his findings on empirical research,
attempts to describe the mindset of what he calls, 'the youth
premium consumers' yet stating that the 'bumpy' nature of
their lives makes them 'erratic' customers.

The adjunct professor at Fudan University in China says
that for these young consumers the pursuit of leisure has
become their birthright and the busier they are at work, the
more they demand leisure.

Central to their lives are three sets of activities
namely, work, leisure and relationships, he adds. This youth
has a different perception towards their place of work. "They
see a job as another stage of personal development.

The job allows them to excel in exercising what they see
as their professional expertise, and that they get to learn
more and advance their career," says Yuwa adding that this
makes them fickle when it comes to employment.

However, this self-centerdness must not be mistaken for
selfishness. "Their self-centered approach merely reflects
their belief that it is necessary to have strong personal
assets to succeed in life and that they need to continuously
invest in these assets," Yuwa says.

This focus on 'me' and 'tomorrow' is what brands need to
keep in mind when targeting these young consumers whose sense
of self-expression is deeply intertwined with what they buy
and how they spend, says the former columnist with Forbes
Asia.

Yuwa had some mind-boggling statistics about China to
talk about. "The increase in purchasing power experienced by
Chinese consumers in seven years took 30 years in Japan and
the U.S. In Switzerland, New Zealand and France, 30 years of
real per capita income growth equals about four years of
growth in China.

The average age of the richest 400 in China is 46.5 years
while that in U.S. is 65.7." With separate chapters dedicated
to young consumers from the economies of China, Thailand,
Japan, Singapore, Korea and other Asian and South-Asian
countries Yuwa tries to identify a common thread among them
all and yet point outs to distinctions in each when there is
one.

The young woman consumer too is evolving. "Many female
young premium consumers, especially those who are
well-educated, want and need a career as well as a family.
Motherhood is just a part of their identity."

Ten percent of Japanese women said they would marry a
man who earned less. Sixty percent of women said they would
never want their husbands to stay at home, Yuwa quotes a
survey by a popular weekly magazine.

For every 100 Thai men with tertiary education, there
are 118.9 Thai women at the same level, indicating that Thai
women are actually better educated than Thai men, the
MasterIndex of Women's Advancement in the book states.

Yuwa ends his book by questioning the reach of the
traditional media especially when targeting the young premium
consumer when the channels most frequently used by them
include text messages, blogs, podcasts and real-time events.

"Quality of content is now more important than ever
before, because young premium consumers are sophisticated and
discerning users of information. they do not suffer fools
gladly." (About the book: The Future and Me, Power of Youth
Market in Asia by Yuwa Hedrick-wong, John Wiley & sons, Pages
150) PTI PMI