Where do we start with this one? We're not big on boasting, but we're confident that UK Tribes is the most influential study of UK youth that's out there. Some six years in the making, Channel 4 first commissioned the work to Crowd DNA founder Andy Crysell's previous agency, Ramp Industry (later acquired by creative agency St Luke's). When Crowd DNA was formed in 2008, the UK Tribes project came with us (ignore the fraudulent claims from a number of other research agencies that UK Tribes is their work; happy to name and shame upon request!).

The initial brief was to segment youth in terms that would make sense both to them and the media and marketing industry. We wanted to evidence that UK youth, though still very tribal in nature, now has a fluidity to it, with ideas and influences spreading at pace across a number of tribal identities that young people engage with for varying lengths of time. It's used both by Channel 4 for product development (including Skins and The Inbetweeners) and in planning and strategy by a huge host of brands and agencies.

It's hard to keep count of the number of different research methods we've used over the different phases of this project (we estimate that, qualitatively and quantitatively, we spoken to in excess of 100,000 young people). They've included everything from online research communities, video blogging and an influencer network, to expert interviews, co-creation and several major quant studies. 

Particular aspects of the project include - 

- www.uktribes.com is the website we've created to house the findings. Created with much love and intense attention to detail it's loaded with film, images, audio, copy and interactive charts, covering everything from brand and media preferences to our participants' aspirations and cultural heroes.(contact us for a password).

- www.findyourtribe.co.uk was an innovative means to quantitively research youth typologies, to put numbers to the rich findings created through our UK Tribes work. The site/survey invites people to complete an interactive, highly visual quiz, which asks them questions about their music, fashion, lifestyle, brand and media preferences; at the end defining which youth tribe each participant belongs to. The results have been deployed by many brands to understand the tribal profiles of their brands and competitors, and learn more about media usage. More than 60,000 people have completed the survey.

- Tribes films - we've created short films to provide a snapshot of what makes each youth typology tick. Numerous creative, media and PR agencies have made use of them in campaign development (some example films below).

- Planning segments - overlaying the dizzying number of different youth tribes, we went on to create five planning segments, allowing media buyers a different lens through which to optimise engagement with young people. This work included a nat rep study of UK youth, plus a fusion of the findings with TGI.

- Video blogging - this is the latest phase of UK tribes; 50 young people updating us via video blog entries on everything from their hopes and fears for the future, to what they think of the upcoming Olympics, to what makes an ideal weekend (everything from just chilling in the park to flying to the moon, it seems).

We've been asked to talk about our UK Tribes work at conferences, on the radio, in print and online. There's now a huge body of wortk in place within this project, plotting both the fast-changing nature of youth culture, plus - as it's sometimes reassuring to note - other aspects of being young which remain constant across the generations.

Here's a few nice industry quotes about the tribes work

"Channel 4’s UK Tribes project has given us a fascinating insight into Britain’s youth. On Nike, we often find that media research dates incredibly quickly – as a brand that is an innovator by nature, it has been refreshing to see such unique and forward-thinking work. Everything from the unusual research methodology to the way the tribes are depicted on the site is impressive." Nick Ashley, Head Of Communications, Mindshare

"Tribes is challenging us the think again about how we effectively engage with young people." Nick Tapley, Associate Director, OMD

"This innovative new work is being adopted by McDonald’s to help us examine our customers through a tribal lens, giving us fresh new brand and communications insight." James Rennie, Head Of Media Marketing And Values, McDonald's

Craft Kids

Scene Kids

Chavs' (self defined) interview

Indie Kids interview (filmed circa 2005)