Youth marketing
Encyclopedia
Youth Marketing is a term used in the marketing
and advertising
industry to describe activities to communicate with young people, typically in the age range of 12 to 34. More specifically, there is the Tween Marketing, targeting people in the 8 to 12 year-old range, Teen Marketing, targeting people age 13 to 19, College Marketing, targeting college-age consumers, typically ages 18 to 23, Young Adult Marketing, targeting young professionals, typically ages 22 and above.
The youth market is critical because of the demographic's buying power and its members' influence on the spending of family members. In addition, teens and young adults
often set trends that are adopted by other demographic groups.
. Nonetheless, many brands market to youth by offering relevant products and services while communicating a brand message in an appropriate voice and tone. Successful brands marketing to youth have a foundation in or association with key interests and drivers among youth: music, sports, fashion, video gaming and technology, among others.
While frowned upon for preteen
s and younger teens, another common way advertisers target the older youth market is through product placement
. Product placement occurs when a brand name product appears in a medium not necessarily related to the product itself. Companies often pay for their products to be placed in a movie or on a television show. This act, while not an overt form of advertising, seeks to target youth in a subtle manner.
Youth marketing strategies commonly include television advertising, magazine advertising and online marketing. Today young people expect to be able to learn about, interact and be entertained with brands or services targeting them online. Other common youth marketing tactics include entertainment marketing, music marketing, sports marketing
, event marketing, viral marketing
, school and college programs, product sampling and influencer marketing
.
Examples of brands embraced by youth and used as examples in marketing cases are: Vans Footwear, it used youth marketing tactics to grow from a niche sneaker brand to a successful international business and Mountain Dew
, a well known soft drink
brand that expanded market share through youth marketing tactics in the 1990s.
Youth Marketing is under increased scrutiny by many public oriented establishments such as government agencies, academia, and the media. The increased inquiry into the marketing industry has occurred because of the increased commercialism towards kids and marketing in schools. These are just a few of the ideas that have become more saturated in mainstream society. Recently in youth marketing there has been a lot of information and misinformation on this topic despite the issue of youth marketing. In regards to the public opinion of youth marketing, one side that has not been represented is that of the youth marketing industry. This point of view is crucial to understanding the basics to making positive progress on issues related to youth marketing.
The internet has ushered in a new digital media culture that allows different forms of media to converge. What once used to be multiple separate devices such as a telephone, television, or computer are now able to converge as one form of technology. Smart phones are the perfect example of this hybrid technology that the new digital media culture has ushered in. As early adopters of new technologies, the youth in many ways are the defining users of the digital media that are embracing this new culture."The burgeoning digital marketplace has spawned a new generation of market research companies which are introducing an entire lexicon of marketing concepts (e.g., “viral marketing,” “discovery marketing”)to describe some of the unorthodox methods for influencing brand loyalty and purchasing decisions." The research that is done on youth marketing quickly becomes outdated by the time it's published as a result of the growth of digital media as educators and health professionals continue to get a grasp on the situation.
Youth Advertising is an important determinant of consumer behavior, it has been shown to have an influence on a youths' product preference and purchase requests. There are some scientists that believe studying youth consumer behavior is a negative thing because it impacts their beliefs, values , and moral judgements. They argue this because they believe that youth are more influenced by advertising messages then adults are. On the other hand, there are some scientists that believe youth marketing is a good thing because it helps to define who they are as a consumer. On that note, it has been proven that requests by youth for advertised products decrease as they mature(1,14,24,26). Youth oriented audiences tend to become more critical about their purchases and less susceptible to media advertising as they grow up. Gender also tends to have a role in a youth's thought process when requesting an advertised product. In most cases, boys are more persistent in their requests than girls. Other factors that may co-determine children’s consumer behavior include socioeconomic level of the family, frequency and kind of parent–child interaction, and involvement with peer groups.
In order to understand the public’s opinion on youth marketing, one must be able to understand the experiences that each generation has been exposed to while growing up. Generation Y is very similar to the baby boomer generation especially at different points in life. So it’s essential to see what experiences each generation has experienced while growing up. But different formative experiences affect each person of Generation Y. For example, the events that made the biggest impression on members of Generation Y who graduated from school in 2000 were Columbine, the war in Kosovo, and Princess Di’s death.
Products and brands with Social Power encompass the notion that “Corporate cool hunters are searching for teens that have the respect, trust, and admiration of their friends.” The American Psychological Association said, “Advertisers understand the teen's desire to be "cool," and manipulate it to sell their wares, a concept that's been offered to marketers by psychologists including James McNeal, PhD. Marketers assume a silent role as manipulators and the role they manage to play is not only in the purchases of teens but also in the social statuses of teens. A key aspect to youth marketing or any targeted demographic marketing is that these products are supposed to fulfill the needs or desires of the consumer. A large portion of sales promotion is dedicated to accomplishing this. However, according to Ainsworth Anthony Bailey of University of Toledo in "The Interplay of Social Influence and Nature of Fulfillment: Effects on Consumer Attitudes," not much of this research has focused on non-fulfillment of promotional promises which in turn, breaks the trust of the consumer and hurts the entire image of the brand and its product.
The role of brand loyalty and/or belonging to a brand becomes a primary act for the young consumers. Promotion is always positive; commodities are presented as the road to happiness. In short, advertising uses existing values and symbols rather than reflecting them. Child psychologist, Allen Kanner states that, “The problem, is that marketers manipulate that attraction, encouraging teens to use materialistic values to define who they are and aren't.” It’s key that we acknowledge the need for teens to not only identify but to let the brand identify them. It’s what feeds into the notion that Marketing and Branding effects teen consumerism. Salancik & Pfeffer's (1978) Social information processing theory addresses mechanisms by which peers influence individuals' behavior and attitudes. According to this theory, social information consists of comments and observations made by people whose views an individual considers relevant. The literature on social influence suggests that this could impact consumers' perceptions.
The Classroom
According to the Media Awareness Network, a huge space where young adults can be targeted is in the setting of education or classroom. Whether it be through sponsored health educational assemblies, or as simple as the vending machines in the lunch room, or contests/incentive programs, and the companies that supply the schools with new technologies such as Mac computers. The academic setting becomes a prime marketing tool in reaching our youth because the classroom provides a captive audience for any product or brand to be modeled in front of. One example that the Media Awareness Network provides to explain how the academic environment can be used to silently speak and market to the youth is contests and incentive programs like the Pizza Hut reading incentives program in which children receive certificates for free pizza if they achieve a monthly reading goal. Similarly, Campbell's Labels for Education project, in which Campbell provides educational resources for schools in exchange for soup labels collected by students.
The Internet
According to the director of Saatchi & Saatchi Interactive, "This is a medium for advertisers that is unprecedented... there's probably no other product or service that we can think of that is like it in terms of capturing kids' interest." Advertisers reach the young demographic by eliciting personal information. They do this simply by pulling them into filling out surveys before they can play online games, view exclusive material, etc. by offering prizes such as T-shirts for filling in "lengthy profiles that ask for purchasing behavior, preferences and information on other family members."
Advertisers turn around and use the information they've gained from these surveys and profiles to "craft individualized messages and ads" in order to draw and hook them into a world centered around a certain product or brand. The ads that surround the individual in these cyber worlds are intended to keep hold of them and allow them to be completely consumed by the advertisers messages around them.
These games are not just games. They're "advergames", CBS News correspondent John Blackstone reports for "Gotta Have It: The Hard Sell To Kids." Advergames allow for marketers to incorporate brands and products into a game-like setting where the child playing it, is exposed constantly to these brands and products. A 10-year old girl who was interviewed by CBS, says she can score with Skittles, race with Chips Ahoy or hang out with SpongeBob.
"You think about that 30-second commercial, basically a lot of those games are pretty fun to play and kids really get engaged in them," Ted Lempert, president of Children Now, a group that has successfully pushed for limits on TV advertising to kids, says. "So really it ends up becoming a 30-minute commercial."
Kids In An Adult World
The influence that our youth have on purchases made in a household are extremely high, shockingly, even on high-end items such as what vehicle the family decides to purchase. For example, one study estimated that children influenced $9 billion worth of car sales in 1994. One car dealer explains: "Sometimes, the child literally is our customer. I have watched the child pick out the car." According to, James U. McNeal, author of "Kids as Customers: A Handbook of Marketing to Children," car manufacturers cannot afford to ignore the children in their marketing. Companies such as Nissan sponsor the American Youth Soccer Organization and a traveling geography exhibit in order to get exposure for their brand name and logo in child-friendly settings.
At the age of five or six, children have trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality and make-believe from lying. They do not distinguish programs from ads, and may even prefer the ads. Between seven and ten years-old, children are most vulnerable to "televised manipulation". At age seven, the child can usually distinguish reality from fantasy, and at nine, he or she might suspect deception in ads -- based on personal experience of products which turned out not to be as advertised -- but they cannot articulate this and still have "high hopes". By ten, this has begun to turn into the cynical view that "ads always lie". Around eleven or twelve, the child begins to accept and tolerate adults lying in ads. This is the real birth of the adolescent's enculturation into a system of social hypocrisy.
Product Placement
Product placement, or embedded marketing, is a form of advertisement, where branded goods or services are placed in a context usually devoid of ads, such as movies, music videos, the story line of television shows, or news programs. The product placement is often not disclosed at the time that the good or service is featured.
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
and advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
industry to describe activities to communicate with young people, typically in the age range of 12 to 34. More specifically, there is the Tween Marketing, targeting people in the 8 to 12 year-old range, Teen Marketing, targeting people age 13 to 19, College Marketing, targeting college-age consumers, typically ages 18 to 23, Young Adult Marketing, targeting young professionals, typically ages 22 and above.
The youth market is critical because of the demographic's buying power and its members' influence on the spending of family members. In addition, teens and young adults
Young adult (psychology)
A young adult, according to Erik Erikson's stages of human development, is generally a person between the age of 20 - 40, whereas an adolescent is a person between the age of 13 - 19, although definitions and opinions vary. The young adult stage in human development precedes middle adulthood. A...
often set trends that are adopted by other demographic groups.
Reaching the market
The youth market is viewed as a difficult group to connect with and sell to, based on the fragmented media landscape and young people's keen ability to identify and reject marketing messages that lack credibilityCredibility
Credibility refers to the objective and subjective components of the believability of a source or message.Traditionally, modern, credibility has two key components: trustworthiness and expertise, which both have objective and subjective components. Trustworthiness is based more on subjective...
. Nonetheless, many brands market to youth by offering relevant products and services while communicating a brand message in an appropriate voice and tone. Successful brands marketing to youth have a foundation in or association with key interests and drivers among youth: music, sports, fashion, video gaming and technology, among others.
While frowned upon for preteen
Preteen
Preadolescence is a stage of human development following early childhood and prior to adolescence. It may be defined as ending with the beginning of puberty or with the beginning of the teenage stage, the time frames in which adolescence is considered to begin. In terms of age in years,...
s and younger teens, another common way advertisers target the older youth market is through product placement
Product placement
Product placement, or embedded marketing, is a form of advertisement, where branded goods or services are placed in a context usually devoid of ads, such as movies, music videos, the story line of television shows, or news programs. The product placement is often not disclosed at the time that the...
. Product placement occurs when a brand name product appears in a medium not necessarily related to the product itself. Companies often pay for their products to be placed in a movie or on a television show. This act, while not an overt form of advertising, seeks to target youth in a subtle manner.
Youth marketing strategies commonly include television advertising, magazine advertising and online marketing. Today young people expect to be able to learn about, interact and be entertained with brands or services targeting them online. Other common youth marketing tactics include entertainment marketing, music marketing, sports marketing
Sports marketing
Sport marketing is divided into three sectors. The first is the advertising of sport and sports associations such as the Olympics, Spanish Football league and the NFL. The second concerns the use of sporting events, sporting teams and individual athletes to promote various products. The third is...
, event marketing, viral marketing
Viral marketing
Viral marketing, viral advertising, or marketing buzz are buzzwords referring to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of viruses...
, school and college programs, product sampling and influencer marketing
Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing, is a form of marketing that has emerged from a variety of recent practices and studies, in which focus is placed on specific key individuals rather than the target market as a whole...
.
Examples of brands embraced by youth and used as examples in marketing cases are: Vans Footwear, it used youth marketing tactics to grow from a niche sneaker brand to a successful international business and Mountain Dew
Mountain Dew
Mountain Dew is a citrus-flavored carbonated soft drink brand produced and owned by PepsiCo. The original formula was invented in the 1940s by Tennessee beverage bottlers Barney and Ally Hartman and was first marketed in Marion, VA, Knoxville and Johnson City, Tennessee. A revised formula was...
, a well known soft drink
Soft drink
A soft drink is a non-alcoholic beverage that typically contains water , a sweetener, and a flavoring agent...
brand that expanded market share through youth marketing tactics in the 1990s.
Public Attitude Towards Youth Marketing
Since the 1980s the marketing industry has seen an increase in research as well as an increase in spending. The marketing industry's budget in 1992 was $6 billion and by 2003 this figure had risen to an estimated $15 billion in marketing efforts.According to Tim Kasser of Knox College there is little that is known about youth marketing opinion. He states that since the late 1990’s there have only been two large-scale opinion surveys conducted. The first of these surveys was sponsored by Center for a New American Dream, which consisted of 400 random parents nationwide. The second was sponsored by power exchange and took its survey participants from people who make a living off of youth marketing. The purpose of this survey was to assess a participant’s attitude towards a variety of youth marketing issues. Respondents to the survey were asked a range of questions regarding the ethics of youth marketing. The public opinion on youth marketing ethics according to this survey was mostly negative. An overwhelming 78 % of respondents agreed that the current practices used in youth marketing were harmful to children. Where as only 3.7% believed that the current practices were fine the way they were.While the remaining 85.1% didn’t believe that youth marketing had any ethics. The results of this survey shed light on youth marketing’s pros and con’s. But this survey has shown that respondents clearly view the current tactics being used as potentially harmful and in need of structure. By the end of this survey Tim Kasser concluded that a large portion of respondents to his survey felt that youth marketing morals were unacceptable and that they contributed to a range of youth oriented problems. Also he found that marketing that took place in public schools was unacceptable and that governmental regulations should be put in place to prevent marketing groups from advertising to eight year olds. Even though this is just the tip of the iceberg talks on youth marketing have been ongoing their have been few changes to policy or law in regards to marketing to youth. The results of the survey done by Tim Kasser suggest that people are ready to change public policy and legal initiatives in regards to these issues.Youth Marketing is under increased scrutiny by many public oriented establishments such as government agencies, academia, and the media. The increased inquiry into the marketing industry has occurred because of the increased commercialism towards kids and marketing in schools. These are just a few of the ideas that have become more saturated in mainstream society. Recently in youth marketing there has been a lot of information and misinformation on this topic despite the issue of youth marketing. In regards to the public opinion of youth marketing, one side that has not been represented is that of the youth marketing industry. This point of view is crucial to understanding the basics to making positive progress on issues related to youth marketing.
The internet has ushered in a new digital media culture that allows different forms of media to converge. What once used to be multiple separate devices such as a telephone, television, or computer are now able to converge as one form of technology. Smart phones are the perfect example of this hybrid technology that the new digital media culture has ushered in. As early adopters of new technologies, the youth in many ways are the defining users of the digital media that are embracing this new culture."The burgeoning digital marketplace has spawned a new generation of market research companies which are introducing an entire lexicon of marketing concepts (e.g., “viral marketing,” “discovery marketing”)to describe some of the unorthodox methods for influencing brand loyalty and purchasing decisions." The research that is done on youth marketing quickly becomes outdated by the time it's published as a result of the growth of digital media as educators and health professionals continue to get a grasp on the situation.
Youth Advertising is an important determinant of consumer behavior, it has been shown to have an influence on a youths' product preference and purchase requests. There are some scientists that believe studying youth consumer behavior is a negative thing because it impacts their beliefs, values , and moral judgements. They argue this because they believe that youth are more influenced by advertising messages then adults are. On the other hand, there are some scientists that believe youth marketing is a good thing because it helps to define who they are as a consumer. On that note, it has been proven that requests by youth for advertised products decrease as they mature(1,14,24,26). Youth oriented audiences tend to become more critical about their purchases and less susceptible to media advertising as they grow up. Gender also tends to have a role in a youth's thought process when requesting an advertised product. In most cases, boys are more persistent in their requests than girls. Other factors that may co-determine children’s consumer behavior include socioeconomic level of the family, frequency and kind of parent–child interaction, and involvement with peer groups.
In order to understand the public’s opinion on youth marketing, one must be able to understand the experiences that each generation has been exposed to while growing up. Generation Y is very similar to the baby boomer generation especially at different points in life. So it’s essential to see what experiences each generation has experienced while growing up. But different formative experiences affect each person of Generation Y. For example, the events that made the biggest impression on members of Generation Y who graduated from school in 2000 were Columbine, the war in Kosovo, and Princess Di’s death.
Targeting the Demographic
Social Status and Brand LoyaltyProducts and brands with Social Power encompass the notion that “Corporate cool hunters are searching for teens that have the respect, trust, and admiration of their friends.” The American Psychological Association said, “Advertisers understand the teen's desire to be "cool," and manipulate it to sell their wares, a concept that's been offered to marketers by psychologists including James McNeal, PhD. Marketers assume a silent role as manipulators and the role they manage to play is not only in the purchases of teens but also in the social statuses of teens. A key aspect to youth marketing or any targeted demographic marketing is that these products are supposed to fulfill the needs or desires of the consumer. A large portion of sales promotion is dedicated to accomplishing this. However, according to Ainsworth Anthony Bailey of University of Toledo in "The Interplay of Social Influence and Nature of Fulfillment: Effects on Consumer Attitudes," not much of this research has focused on non-fulfillment of promotional promises which in turn, breaks the trust of the consumer and hurts the entire image of the brand and its product.
The role of brand loyalty and/or belonging to a brand becomes a primary act for the young consumers. Promotion is always positive; commodities are presented as the road to happiness. In short, advertising uses existing values and symbols rather than reflecting them. Child psychologist, Allen Kanner states that, “The problem, is that marketers manipulate that attraction, encouraging teens to use materialistic values to define who they are and aren't.” It’s key that we acknowledge the need for teens to not only identify but to let the brand identify them. It’s what feeds into the notion that Marketing and Branding effects teen consumerism. Salancik & Pfeffer's (1978) Social information processing theory addresses mechanisms by which peers influence individuals' behavior and attitudes. According to this theory, social information consists of comments and observations made by people whose views an individual considers relevant. The literature on social influence suggests that this could impact consumers' perceptions.
The Classroom
According to the Media Awareness Network, a huge space where young adults can be targeted is in the setting of education or classroom. Whether it be through sponsored health educational assemblies, or as simple as the vending machines in the lunch room, or contests/incentive programs, and the companies that supply the schools with new technologies such as Mac computers. The academic setting becomes a prime marketing tool in reaching our youth because the classroom provides a captive audience for any product or brand to be modeled in front of. One example that the Media Awareness Network provides to explain how the academic environment can be used to silently speak and market to the youth is contests and incentive programs like the Pizza Hut reading incentives program in which children receive certificates for free pizza if they achieve a monthly reading goal. Similarly, Campbell's Labels for Education project, in which Campbell provides educational resources for schools in exchange for soup labels collected by students.
The Internet
According to the director of Saatchi & Saatchi Interactive, "This is a medium for advertisers that is unprecedented... there's probably no other product or service that we can think of that is like it in terms of capturing kids' interest." Advertisers reach the young demographic by eliciting personal information. They do this simply by pulling them into filling out surveys before they can play online games, view exclusive material, etc. by offering prizes such as T-shirts for filling in "lengthy profiles that ask for purchasing behavior, preferences and information on other family members."
Advertisers turn around and use the information they've gained from these surveys and profiles to "craft individualized messages and ads" in order to draw and hook them into a world centered around a certain product or brand. The ads that surround the individual in these cyber worlds are intended to keep hold of them and allow them to be completely consumed by the advertisers messages around them.
These games are not just games. They're "advergames", CBS News correspondent John Blackstone reports for "Gotta Have It: The Hard Sell To Kids." Advergames allow for marketers to incorporate brands and products into a game-like setting where the child playing it, is exposed constantly to these brands and products. A 10-year old girl who was interviewed by CBS, says she can score with Skittles, race with Chips Ahoy or hang out with SpongeBob.
"You think about that 30-second commercial, basically a lot of those games are pretty fun to play and kids really get engaged in them," Ted Lempert, president of Children Now, a group that has successfully pushed for limits on TV advertising to kids, says. "So really it ends up becoming a 30-minute commercial."
Kids In An Adult World
The influence that our youth have on purchases made in a household are extremely high, shockingly, even on high-end items such as what vehicle the family decides to purchase. For example, one study estimated that children influenced $9 billion worth of car sales in 1994. One car dealer explains: "Sometimes, the child literally is our customer. I have watched the child pick out the car." According to, James U. McNeal, author of "Kids as Customers: A Handbook of Marketing to Children," car manufacturers cannot afford to ignore the children in their marketing. Companies such as Nissan sponsor the American Youth Soccer Organization and a traveling geography exhibit in order to get exposure for their brand name and logo in child-friendly settings.
At the age of five or six, children have trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality and make-believe from lying. They do not distinguish programs from ads, and may even prefer the ads. Between seven and ten years-old, children are most vulnerable to "televised manipulation". At age seven, the child can usually distinguish reality from fantasy, and at nine, he or she might suspect deception in ads -- based on personal experience of products which turned out not to be as advertised -- but they cannot articulate this and still have "high hopes". By ten, this has begun to turn into the cynical view that "ads always lie". Around eleven or twelve, the child begins to accept and tolerate adults lying in ads. This is the real birth of the adolescent's enculturation into a system of social hypocrisy.
Product Placement
Product placement, or embedded marketing, is a form of advertisement, where branded goods or services are placed in a context usually devoid of ads, such as movies, music videos, the story line of television shows, or news programs. The product placement is often not disclosed at the time that the good or service is featured.
See also
- Viral marketingViral marketingViral marketing, viral advertising, or marketing buzz are buzzwords referring to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of viruses...
- Word of mouthWord of mouthWord of mouth, or viva voce, is the passing of information from person to person by oral communication. Storytelling is the oldest form of word-of-mouth communication where one person tells others of something, whether a real event or something made up. Oral tradition is cultural material and...
- Online marketing
- College marketing
- New Media MarketingNew Media MarketingNew media marketing is a relatively new concept used by businesses in developing an online community, which allows satisfied customers to congregate and extol the virtues of a particular brand...
- Youth culture