Mindshare has launched the first edition of its new quarterly trend series, Culture Vulture, which identifies the Entrepreneurial Spirit of Gen Y across 30 countries globally.

The report, led globally out of the agency’s Asia-Pacific hub in Singapore, examines over 300 Gen Y entrepreneurial businesses across 38 cities including New York, Buenos Aires, London and Shanghai to understand how the youth’s innovative ideas can inspire and fuel game-changing communication behaviour.

"At the core of this first edition is the belief that businesses need a little bit of reverse mentoring from time to time- big blue chip companies can learn from the nimble and creative entrepreneurs of Gen Y," said Catherine Williams who heads the series for Mindshare.

The report identified 14 unique global trends that Gen Y- the consumer group, in the 17 to 32 age group (The generation born between 1978 – 1995) has been pioneering to great success in small to medium sized businesses. These include tips from trendsetting tech start-ups, channelling the power of advocacy, and creating a genuine value proposition.

Commenting on the launch of the series, Marco Rimini, Mindshare’s Global Business Planning Leader said, "Understanding trends and popular culture actually tell us more about consumer behaviour than media consumption data ever could. Our Culture Vulture series has been created specifically to better inform our clients and teams of these trends and inspire original thinking in our media strategies."

Culture Vulture combines two of Mindshare’s Business Planning solutions. The first is Mindreader, a global quantitative study covering 40,000 people across 40 countries globally. This data provided profiled Gen Y Entrepreneurs and their needs. The second source is Mindshare’s Global Scout Network, a team of Cultural Cool Hunters based across 38 cities worldwide.

Culture Vulture is available on iTunes as an iPad app, which features over 300 case studies and 14 videos in an interactive magazine format with an easy-to-use text interface: 
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/mindshare-culture-vulture/id488021205?mt=8&ls=1 

It’s also available as an interactive PDF (www.culturevulture.mindshareworld.com) showcasing 14 unique videos summarizing the best examples of new business concepts launched by Gen Y entrepreneurs.