Initial Ideas

When coming up with initial ideas, there were two things I felt were most important to keep in mind - our group theme, and our target market. To an extent, these things go hand in hand, as we chose our theme based on the interests of our target market.

Still, I did a little more research in the traits of the attendees of MCM and similar cons and their buying habits (links on this can be found at the bottom of this post, or in my useful links post). I found that a lot of the thoughts I previously had on the subject were just confirmed by this research. I concluded that my target market: -
- Have very little money.
- Like content they can relate to.
- Like references to things they enjoy.
- Have a strange sense of humour (*internet humour*).
- Like trends and fads.
- Love memes.
- Like cute things.
- Like things that don't take too much concentration/time.
- Are usually very busy.
- Use media around them as an escape from the less-than-positive current state of politics and the economy.

I used this information, along with a few casual conversations I had with members of my target market, to establish I wanted to do a non-fiction book, specifically something helpful aimed at young adults. I chose this as I wanted to play to the 'relatable content' and easy, quick reading points from my research. I also thought that choosing to create something non-fiction will potentially make me stand out against a lot of other books in the Comic Village at MCM.

My first thoughts of where to take this idea are a cookbook or a sort of self help book. This is something I will have to consider over the next few days. But I do know that the style I'd like to approach the product in will be similar to 'The Meme Bible' (thememebible.com) - a spoof activity book that's very popular in my target market. It's very simple and lighthearted, and really plays into its readership's strange sense of humour.

Another thing I will need to consider is if I want to bring any characters into my book, just in the interest of creating a stronger brand for my product.

Links:
Millennial Shopping Trends - blog.marketing.rakuten.com/affiliate/9-must-know-millennial-shopping-trends-of-2017
Millennial Infographic - goldmansachs.com/our-thinking/pages/millennials
Making Millennials Spend More - https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/consumer-business/deloitte-uk-young-luxury-shopper-2017.pdf
Millennials on Millennials - http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2017/millennials-on-millennials-a-look-at-viewing-behavior-distraction-social-media-stars.html