What is the fastest growing
target for media marketing and advertising today? Not Generation X as it was only
three years ago. Now it's "Echo Boomers" - kids born between 1977 and 1994. And
at the heart of the "Echo Boomers" are today's teenagers.
In the last
decade, the number of teens in the United States has grown twice as fast as the
overall population. What's more, these kids are far easier to reach than any other
segment of our society because of their affinity for the Internet, a technological
development one author calls "the biggest marketing boom since the bulk-mail rate."
When the year 2000 has ended, teenagers in this country - kids between ages
12 and 19 -- will have spent 155 billion dollars on things of their choosing.
103 billion of those dollars will be their own money; 47 billion will come from
parents. Those statistics make teens an enormous natural attraction for those
very smart and very talented individuals who earn a living convincing people to
buy products and services.
Many malls that discouraged the patronage
of teen "mall rats" as recently as three years ago are now altering their premises
to be very teen friendly; nearly every company that deals in products bought with
"discretionary" dollars is re-evaluating its position to see if there might be
a teen component; and the advertising industry - TV, radio, Internet, billboards
and print media - are aiming more and more of their messages at kids between 12
and 19.
Of course teens have been the target of marketers for years,
but recently their approach has been changed. There is now an intense interest
on the part of sellers of goods in what makes kids tick. To learn more, they are
hiring expensive psychological consultants to help them study every phase and
stage of a child's life. The result has been to treat kids for the first time
as intelligent consumers and present them with sophisticated, finely honed commercials
and ads that are working very, very well.
One reason for that success
lies in the plethora of advertising that bombards today's kids - especially television.
For example, before children enter first grade, they have been subjected to over
30,000 television commercials. As young adults they have spent as much time watching
commercials as they did in high school! This is in addition to what they absorb
from the Internet, from magazines and from billboards.
Advertising is
a type of curriculum in America today, one in which kids are excelling. The pitches
teach kids that buying is good and will make them happy - that the solution to
life's problems lies not in good values, hard work or education, but in materialism
and the purchasing of more and more "things."
Nearly all advertisers
spike their presentations with messages that prey upon the emotional weaknesses
and insecurities of children. "Advertising at its best is making people feel
that without their product you are a loser," explains Nancy Shalek, president
of the Shalek Agency. "Kids are very sensitive to that. If you tell them to buy
something, they are resistant. But if you tell them that they'll be a dork if
they don't, you've got their attention. You open up emotional vulnerabilities,
and it's easy to do with kids because they're the most emotionally vulnerable."
Sixteen year-old Heather, in an interview for this Parent Connection program,
told us, "I don't feel pressure from the media or friends to have items that are
cool and 'in.' I'm just myself and I have my own priorities with my money." But
do Heather and kids like her who feel they aren't influenced by advertising really
understand where they get their "priorities"? Other than in direct sales, today's
national advertising is not intended to send kids out the door to go buy a product
immediately. Their goal is to repetitively implant images, concepts and product
names that will result in teens purchasing their goods without, often times, even
being aware of their motivation to do so.
To protect themselves against
the guiles of ads and commercials, kids need to understand the motive behind all
advertising: to get people to buy, buy, buy! The primary thrust of their efforts,
of course, is to assert that happiness is to be found in "things," and therefore
to link their particular products with happiness. At the same time, an axiom of
advertising is to make people unhappy with what they have. Kids who are able to
discern that intent in any advertising they encounter will be much better prepared
to respond objectively and responsibly.
Bert Grover asserts: "Much
of the advertising seduces teens into the material world, but they ought to be
kind of a protected class and be allowed to fully engage in developmental activities.
Instead they're out slugging away, 20, 25, 30 hours a week at a minimum wage job
so that they can support a car and a habit and a lifestyle and, candidly, they
throw away a great opportunity to take the best courses, take the extracurricular
activities, totally immerse themselves in the academic and physical learning appropriate
for young people that age." |
