“Mums!” my 6 year old son exclaims as he punts open the door to my office and I brace for his less than graceful landing on my lap. He sucks back his milk eyeing the yellow pages directory on my desk. “What are the yellow pages?” he asks. I explain that it is a book that people use when they want to go shopping. Is there something you would like to buy? I ask him. “A fishing boat” he says in a rather matter-a-fact way. Surveying the ads under “Boats Retail” I ask him which place he would like to buy his boat from. His response is interesting.

“None of them” he tells me rather disgusted. (He doesn’t like the look of any of the ads). “Well, what if you had to choose one of these, which would you pick?” Interestingly enough he does not pick the place with the biggest most colorful ad but one that has a rather obscure looking ad. I ask him why he picked the ad he did and he explains:

“Because Mums, this one has a fish finder in it and I want to catch a Sturgeon. Do the yellow pages have Sturgeons?”

Searching for Sturgeons does not include the yellow pages as we discovered. That afternoon I took my son on a multi-media search experience on the web that he has not forgotten. He watched videos of huge sturgeons, caught and dragged into boats by exhausted fishermen, and experienced the thrill first hand of Sturgeon fishing. My son was ecstatic.

In the infinite search environment that the internet provides it is doubtful my son will ever go searching in the yellow pages again. He wants his information served up fast and in an appealing way that engages all his senses.

“Gotta go Mums” and he is off in a flash to search for his sister.

As marketers there is much we can learn from the young. But there are some constant themes that are recurrent. Products will always be sold in a simple way and in a way that puts the consumers needs first.