The Lure of Youth
By: Lisa Picarille
Reeling in teens is a huge opportunity for online marketers. Don't let the big one get away.
They're wired, they're affluent and they are a largely untapped market. This prized group is teens. They are often referred to by a variety of different monikers including Echo Boomers, Millennials, Netizens, Generation Y, Trophy Children (because of the strong impact that parents have in their decision-making process) and Generation N (for Net). When analyzing this group, market researchers often slice and dice things in slightly different ways, but one common thread among all the facts and figures is that the group's size is on the rise and its spending power is awesome and undeniable.
Northbrook, IL,-based Teenage Research Unlimited (TRU) put the current U.S. population of teens (age 12 to 19) at 31.6 million. TRU says this population, which has increased steadily since 1992 as children of baby boomers entered their teen years, spent $155 billion in 2005.
Alloy Media says 10-to-24-year-olds are a demographic said to be 60 million strong with annual spending power of as much as $250 billion. Alloy expects the number of teens to reach 35 million by 2010, while Forrester Research says there are 73 million people under the age of 18 in the U.S.
JupiterResearch reports that teenagers spent over $158 billion in 2005 and are expected to spend $205 billion in 2008.
A recent Harris study reports that American kids, teenagers and young adults, aged 8 to 21 years old, have annual incomes totaling $211 billion and they are spending 81.5 percent of their earned income – a whopping $172 billion per year.
Younger kids, the so-called "tween" set between ages 8 and 12, spend $51 billion per year, according to Alloy (see sidebar, page 58).
Futurist Jim Taylor, vice chairman of the Harrison Group, says boys under 18 have an average of $525 to spend each month, while girls have $430.
U.S. teens controlled an estimated $169 billion in disposable income last year – or $91 per week per teen – according to a study by TRU.
So where do these kids get their money? The major sources of teens' income are: parents on an as-needed basis (47 percent); odd jobs (41 percent); gifts (41 percent); parttime jobs (28 percent); regular allowance (25 percent); and full-time jobs (11 percent), according to TRU. The average young consumer spent $84 per week. Some $57 of that was their own money, while they received the remaining $27 from their parents.
And unlike kids of the past, they are free to spend; 22 percent of U.S. teens have credit cards while in high school.
Getting Hip to the Kids
But this group is hard to get a handle on. Maybe that's why researchers have devoted a lot of effort to trying to understand this highly coveted group. Here are some basic things you need to know about teens.
- They are very wired and likely to stay online for longer periods than adults.
- They are more likely to access the Internet from different locations.
- They participate in a wider range of online activities.
- They are more likely to adapt quickly to new technology, and embrace its changes.
- They multitask while online.
- They are fickle and not necessarily brand loyal.
- They are savvy and often distrustful of traditional advertising methods.
No other age group matches teens' enthusiasm for the Web or their use of broadband connections. About 21 million or nearly 87 percent of the 12-17 age group is online, many at least twice a day, according to a recent Pew Internet & American Life study. That's more than the activity of 25-to-29 year olds, which have an 85 percent penetration. And 49 percent of teens have high-speed connections at home. That's more than any other age group.
A Burst Media survey from June of 2006 reports that 69 percent of Web users (13 to 17 years of age) said if they had no Internet access outside of school it would "ruin" or make their day "not as good." Bummer, dude. Among teens who go online from home, friends' homes, libraries and other locations outside of school, more than one-third (37.4 percent) say they spend three or more hours per day on the Internet.
Teen males are more likely than teen females to say they spend three or more hours per day on the Internet – 39.9 percent versus 34.7 percent. Additionally, nearly one in five (17.9 percent) say they spend between two and three hours online; one-quarter (25.1 percent) say they spend one to two hours online; and 19.6 percent say they spend less than one hour per day online outside of school.
 What Teens Are Doing Online
And while spending all this time online kids are multitasking – Web surfing, watching TV, sending emails, listening to music, sending instant messages and doing homework (see sidebar, page 54).
"Corralling these distractions to minimize their disruption is a significant challenge for marketers," Chuck Moran, Manager of Market Research for Burst Media, says. "Marketers should use the Internet to create a central content point for teens on a variety of subjects and interests. By doing so marketers can then develop integrated marketing campaigns with advertising creative and programs referencing a central platform and working in tandem to get teens' attention."
One way to do that might be look to the growing popularity of social networking sites. Three out of five (61.4 percent) respondents in the Burst Media study had visited a social networking website. Of those, 60.7 percent joined the site and created a profile. Teen females are significantly more likely than teen males to say they have visited and joined a social networking site (67.5 percent versus 53.7 percent).
And MySpace leads the pack when it comes to social networking. From April 2005 to April 2006, the overall number of teen visitors (between the ages of 12 and 17) to MySpace grew from roughly 3 million to 7.8 million. That was up 162 percent, according to comScore Media Metrix. MySpace currently has approximately 85 million members.
Like Google, MySpace has spawned a cottage industry of sites that provide support and services to teen subscribers. Sites like MyGen.com.uk, Coshed.com and Poqbum.com, help kids create profiles, layouts, graphics, games, icons and quizzes for MySpace blogs.
But once something gains popularity there is usually some backlash – MySpace has drawn fire from parents and teachers – and now many teens are looking to newer, edgier social networks, such as Bebo.com, Tagged.com and MyYearbook.com. Tagged.com grew to half a million teen visitors in April 2006, from a virtual unknown, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Also a newcomer, MyYearbook.com blossomed to 1 million visitors over the last year.
Marketers value these virtual communities for a number of reasons: They attract a very specific target audience; visitors return again and again; they provide a place to promote and sell products; it's fairly easy to collect demographic and product- use information; and they provide a place to interact one-on-one with teens.
However, it's not going to be easy for affiliates to crack.
"It's an interesting market opportunity that has everyone salivating," Blagica Stefanovski, affiliate program director at PartnerCentric, says. Continued on Page 2...
Tags:
teens, youth, tweens, age, boomers, gen y, spending, social networking, blogs,
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