'New Geek' arises with money and power
Published: 02 Aug 2005 13:00 BST
Far from being shy, retiring teenagers spending hours hunched over computer screens and living off a diet of Coke and pizza, today's geeks are, in reality a sophisticated demographic that spend a whopping £8.2bn on computer games, high-tech gadgets and the like each year.
So says the spiritual home of the geek, the SciFi Channel, based on its latest research into the spending power and aspirations of its target audience. According to the research, the spotty adolescents of 10 or 20 years ago have matured into a very attractive target for advertisers and one of the highest-spending social groups in the country.
While many New Geeks are still obsessed with computer games, these are likely to be super-sophisticated, £30-plus first-person shooters such as Doom III. And when not practicing their well-honed firing skills, the New Geeks have been using their IT skills land high-earning jobs with plenty of cash to spend. This had made them a very attractive demographic indeed.
According to Nick Betts, the SciFi Channel's managing director, companies are now increasingly using Web site pop-ups and interactive technology to attract people who no longer bother to read the magazines that were once the traditional home for Geeks.
"The anorak has gone," says Betts and a "new, more chic geek has emerged from the bedroom." And New Geeks have power. The SciFi Channel’s research says there are 6.9 million of them and a third are women.
New Geeks are typically young, with 83 percent of them are under 44. They are fairly wealthy; just under a quarter (21 percent) have family income of more than £50,000, and most of all they are party people. New Geeks visit pubs, clubs and bars more than twice as often as average person.
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