In Tuesday's press conference, Prime Minister Mark Rutte told us that the government is going to allocate extra money to activities for young people. At the moment, a plan is being worked on, the details of which are being worked out together with municipalities and young people themselves. The outbreak management team (OMT) is also working on the question whether young people up to the age of 27 are allowed to play sports as a team. Currently, this is only possible for young people up to the age of 18. This approach is very welcome, because more and more young people are becoming 'coronamous'. Meanwhile, 40% of young people say they have difficulty having fun.
In their search for ways to amuse themselves, young people throw themselves onto the media
The corona rut is beginning to affect young people: four out of ten young people are currently struggling to entertain themselves and a third needs (new) ways to entertain themselves. Of the Dutch as a whole group, only two out of ten have problems with this and 18% are looking for ways to deal with it. In an attempt to fill the hours, young people seem to focus on media. The use of social media, streaming, linear TV watching, radio, online news media and even offline news media have all strongly increased among young people. No less than two-thirds of young people are now streaming more than they did before the corona crisis.
Also the Winter Games of the Krajicek Foundation and the Johan Cruyff Foundation, mentioned in the press conference, will be well received. For weeks now, young people are by far the most difficult with their limited social contacts (70%), but at the moment, the limited sports and recreation facilities (57%) are clearly in place two of the things young people are struggling with. The Winter Games thus offer light in the dark days and will kill two birds with one stone: social contact and sports!
A nice outlet and distraction for the boredom problem of young people is the SWIPE, conceived by Friends & Foes and LAB-3, a (TikTok) dance with accompanying video clip that encourages young people to keep their distance and at the same time seek the connection. You can read the complete message on Fonk.
Most Dutch people stay at home during Christmas holidays
Wintering in a warm country, or looking for the cold on the European slopes; it's not here this year. Seven out of ten Dutch people plan not to go on holiday this winter. Older people are extra careful and stay at home more often this winter (84%) than people between 35-54 years (67%) and 18-34 years (59%). 4% go on holiday in the Netherlands, another 4% hesitate to book a holiday in the Netherlands and 13% do not know at all. This is an opportunity for brands to give Dutch people a holiday feeling in their own country, or even at home. Due to the lack of a distant holiday, many people will start looking for entertainment closer to home.
Christmas commercials with a corona touch: especially effective among the elderly
Several brands decided this year to have their Christmas commercial earlier than usual - even for Sinterklaas! - their Christmas commercial earlier than usual this year. Will this mean a shift in the Christmas commercials we're going to see on Dutch TV this year? The majority of the Dutch people think advertising is appropriate, but opinions are divided on how it should be inserted. An increasing number of Dutch people think that brands should adapt their commercials to the current situation (33%), but also a part of the population thinks they should put it in as they always do (39%) and can still advertise their products (34%). The older generations consider coronaproof advertising more important than the younger generations. It is therefore likely that Christmas commercials that respond to this will appeal better to this target group than brands that choose not to do so.
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