We were interested to know what Generation Y consumers (men and women between the ages of 21-34) really wanted for the holidays, so we conducted 721 in-person surveys in 22 markets around the U.S and found some results that may make your holiday shopping a little easier.

We found that 45% Millennials prefer cash gifts over gift cards while 21% of them prefer gift cards. It appears that young adults today prefer to make their own purchasing decisions rather than receiving gift items. If they were to receive a gift card, an overwhelming 66% of them would rather have a bank card versus  music download cards or restaurant gift cards.

When you're making your final holiday shopping trip and you can't figure out what to give, remember that Millennials like to keep their purchasing power even in the holidays.

The Hispanic market remains an important segment for most all vertical product and service sectors. As the Latino population grows and their socioeconomic power expands, the potential for increased profits exists for all companies. While major corporations are marketing at many levels to Hispanics, other marketers are still taking shots in the dark on how to best reach Latinos. Utilizing precious multicultural marketing dollars at optimal levels is important in getting the most out of those resources.

At BFG, we have been exploring Millennial Hispanics (Gen Y) and how they may or may not differ from older generations of Latinos. In an in-person, large-scale study BFG found that the Hispanic tradition of seeking product and service recommendations face-to-face has shifted among Millennial Hispanics ages 21-26. While younger Gen Y Latinos still seek face-to-face recommendations from family and friends, they more often go to the Internet.

More importantly, BFG found that the age 21-26 Hispanics look very much like Non-Hispanics in the same age cohort on numerous behavioral metrics. The 36+ aged Hispanics still rely mostly on family and friends as evidenced by significantly higher dependence compared to Non-Hispanics in the same age group in seeking product and service recommendations.

This introduces the question that if continued findings indicate that the youngest of the Millennial Latinos look and act very much like their Non-Hispanic friends, is there a need to break out marketing dollars into multicultural buckets for Millennials? Or, can you focus those dollars on older Hispanics and use general market approaches in marketing to younger Hispanics?

Concurrent media consumption is a growing trend, especially among Millennials. A recent study found that "86% of mobile internet users, and 92% of those aged 13-24, are using their smartphones while they watch TV. And 40% of this time is spent on social networks, which includes Twitter."

Social media conversations around major television events such as The Super Bowl, The Oscars and, most recently, The Royal Wedding have been common for quite some time, but now the behavior is moving towards the mainstream. Popular television shows are finding a home with audiences of digital natives whose normative behavior is shared communal experiences online. Shows like HBO's True Blood and NBC's The Voice are finding ways to aggregate these conversations and use them to extend buzz.

The social network Get Glue, which allows users to check-in to entertainment events, is growing as behavior like watching your favorite television show becomes more of a shared experience thanks to the connectivity afforded us by social media. There's even at least one blog, Lost Remote, which reports exclusively on what they call social TV.

There's no denying that captive audiences are now an endangered species. As concurrent media consumption proliferates, entertainment properties will need to find ways to extend their experiences and galvanize the community of viewers/attendees that surround them.