Much of the research on Generation Y — born between 1977 and 1995 — emphasizes their independence and techno awareness. They want products that know them and appreciate them.

Monday the Chicago Tribune announced a new newspaper called RedEye, the first daily newspaper aimed clearly at Generation Y. RedEye will be published five days a week, Monday through Friday, and will be sold to the large number of young urban adults who use public transportation and populate Chicago’s large college campuses.

RedEye is born out of the research of the Media Management Center, the Readership Institute and the Tribune’s own proprietary research. “This is the most exciting launch since the birth of USA Today,” said the Media Management Center’s Managing Director Michael P. Smith. “USA Today is the perfect Baby Boomer newspaper,” said Smith. “From what I have seen and heard from people in focus groups, RedEye has the same potential to capture and reflect the interests and lives of young urban adults in Chicago.”

Three years ago, Smith worked with students from the Medill School of Journalism to create a seminar called “Creating Winning Products for Generation Y.” The seminar was for media participants in the Center’s programs. “The students who worked on the original project were from the generation,” said Smith. “The energy and insight that they brought to the original research fueled other research and focus group questions.”

One thing that the Generation Y groups asked for was respect for their ideas, issues and interests. “It is not that they dislike newspapers,” Smith said, “they seemingly like newspapers better than the generation right ahead of them. But they want media to be for them.”

For several years consultant Hazel Reinhardt, who teaches demographics and market analysis at Northwestern, has warned media executives that Generation Y is entirely different in their common experiences from previous generations, thus requiring dramatic re-thinking about how the media should approach them. Reinhardt’s data helped inform the Medill student inquiry into Generation Y.

In addition, the Readership Institute’s studies have produced numerous reports that help newspapers tackle issues related to young readers. While Generation Y is not the focus of the study, a graphic from researcher Stu Tolley used by RI Director John Lavine during a presentation at the meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors illustrates urgency for newspapers to act. The graph shows a dramatic downward trend in daily newspaper reading for adults between ages 21 and 25 — down from more than 40 percent in 1972 to about 20 percent in 2002. The Readership Institute study can be found here on the Readership Institute Web site.

Recent Readership Institute research on newspaper brands showed that light readers — which include young readers — don’t find current mainstream newspapers relevant to their lives. RI Director Lavine interprets this research to mean that in order to be successful with theses young readers, newspapers need to make significant changes to become relevant and useful to them. Pushed on the data at the American Society of Newspaper Editors meeting, Lavine challenged the nation’s editors to create new newspapers for younger readers.

“Our readership research showed that young, light readers read a local daily newspaper, but most do not have a deep, passionate tie to it,” Lavine said. “Their ‘experience’ reading the local daily verges on non existent. Is this inevitable? Our work says ‘no!’ The fastest way to forge a bond is to give young readers a new newspaper just for them. It is not to get them to read their parents' paper. Doing that is just as difficult as it is to get them to love their parents' Oldsmobile or Buick or TV show.”

His challenge to editors included: “If publishers and editors are serious about attracting young readers, then providing them with a paper that not only meets their needs and wants but also creates a ‘relevant, important experience’ is a serious, high impact way to go.”

One of the big concerns about launching a new newspaper to compete with the main product has been erosion of the core product. Smith thinks that’s not a legitimate concern today. Smith’s career has included work with the startup of USA Today. He was also deputy director of Knight Ridder’s Baby Boomer initiative of the late 1980s in Boca Raton, Fla., before joining the Media Management Center. His previous work with newspaper innovations has excited him about the launch of RedEye. “With the exception of USA Today, newspapers have tried to change the main product with a feature, a re-design or maybe a new section,” Smith said. “This is a new newspaper. It is purposely not the Chicago Tribune. It will be most successful when it is as credible as the Tribune but completely different in tone, size and style.”

Smith said that fears of cannibalization — erosion of the core newspaper product — were legitimate 15 years ago. “Things are different today,” he said, “because Generation Y is clearly different from previous generations due to their lifelong immersion in technology and other social situations.” According to Smith, the young generation is very media savvy and uses and interchanges multiple media for news and entertainment.

The rise in use of the Internet has also created a need for new print strategies, Smith said. “In a couple of ways,” he said, “RedEye is a post-Internet newspaper and an Internet creation.” He said the term post-Internet indicates that the newspaper industry learned a lot from creating Internet extensions. “These efforts have given newspapers insights into content interests, information presentation, reader interaction and content promotion.”

Smith also said that by pioneering into the Internet world, newspapers have learned how to launch new products and to take risks outside of the core product. “I can really sense a new enthusiasm for content because of the experiments and new ventures into new media. Sure newspapers have made plenty of mistakes, but today newspapers run many of the top 20 news Web sites. And, it’s hard to imagine a newspaper without an Internet edition today.”

One aspect of RedEye is an Internet brand extension found in the new daily Metromix pages and the weekly Metromix weekend entertainment section. Metromix.com is a searchable entertainment Web site. “I probably would not have understood the importance of this had I not seen it, because I clearly am not the Metromix target, being an aging Baby Boomer,” said Smith. “But the reality is that Metromix is a powerful brand in the minds of young urbanites in Chicago. It in itself is an amazing story — it has gone from zero to 600,000 unique users a month in just six years. I wish I would have written a case study on it.” By using the Metromix content in the new newspaper, Smith thinks the Tribune will be able to cross-promote and leverage each medium for young people.

When asked how successful RedEye will be, Smith said it could be very successful. “It really depends on how focused the editor and the general manager can keep the newspaper,” Smith said. “It is clear from the research that we have done and from what I have seen in focus groups that this newspaper really fills a need for young adults.”

To learn about the Medill News Service research on Generation Y, click here: www.yvoteonline.org/.