Abstract:

For youth marketers like Pepsi, social media is a potent tool to keep abreast of changing youth values, expressions and aspirations. While marketers realize the growing importance of tapping into youth conversations in channels outside of qualitative FGDs, in most of the developing Asian countries face to face research is still the norm; and social media is seen as largely a channel to communicate -not really listen -to youth. The qualitative social media shadowing approach ‘e-mmersion’ attempts to reveal ‘true’ nuances of youth’s multiple personas. This paper explores the feasibility of the e-mmersion methodology in a multi-country study across developing Asia; to evaluate its potential as a mainstream research methodology that could complement existing youth trend spotting research in Asia.