Teens & Advertising

Teens & Advertising

Roger M. Friedensen, APRVice President

The Catevo GroupOctober 30, 2006

Teens & Advertising

What Do These Things Have In Common?

Teens & Advertising

What Advertising Is• Advertising: Drawing attention to

messages about products, services or issues

• Supplements and complements other communication strategies– Public relations/publicity– Direct sales and marketing

• Pretty much indispensable

Teens & Advertising

What Advertising Is Not• Always accurate• Always objective• Always effective• Always useless• Cheap . . .

Teens & Advertising

Why Advertise To Teens?• There’s a lot of you – 32 million (give or take a

few million)• The big reason? MONEY

– Grownups get to spend money on:– Mortgage, rent, groceries, insurance, car repairs and medical

bills– You get to spend money on:

– Pretty much whatever you want . . .

• You have some serious coin– $233 billion in income– Influence at least $600 billion in spending

• Advertisers spend $15 billion+ to reach you

Teens & Advertising

What Do You Buy?• Clothes• Food (especially candy, snacks and

sodas)• Music• Video games• Jewelry• Magazines• Shoes

Teens & Advertising

Why Does It Work? • Reason #1: It captures our attention• Reason #2: It captures our attention, It

captures our attention, It captures our attention, It captures our attention, It captures our attention, It captures our attention, It captures our attention, It captures our attention, It captures our attention, It captures our attention, It captures our attention, It captures our attention . . .

• (Repetition works )

Teens & Advertising

How Do You Do It?• Research• Research some more• Identify what makes you special• Identify your target market(s)

– Who do I want to influence?

• Develop your message(s)• Identify most effective communication

channels• Develop and execute program• Research some more

Teens & Advertising

Advertising Through The Years

• Way long ago . . .– Word of mouth– Papyrus fliers– Walls and rocks

• Pretty long ago . . .– Handbills, posters– Newspaper ads, town criers

• Not too long ago . . .– TV and radio spots– Billboards

Teens & Advertising

Advertising Today• TV commercials• Radio commercials• Newspaper/magazine ads• Website ads• TV & Movie (promos,

placements)• Planes, trains and

automobiles (buses and horses, too)

• Skywriting• Bathroom urinals• Point-of-purchase displays• Leaflets• QVC/HSN• Cereal boxes

• Guerilla marketing• Billboards• Mobile phones• Posters and signage• YouTube, MySpace,

Friendster, etc.• Direct mail• E-mail• Online chats• Newsgroups• Fax• Staged events• Text messages• Games• Museum exhibits

Teens & Advertising

How Does It Work?• Pain, fear, hope, pride are primary motivators

• When we’re teenagers– “If I wear Gap jeans, everyone will think that I’m cool.”

– “If I don’t use Arrid Extra-Dry deodorant, I’ll smell and no one will like me.”

– “If I only had an 80 GB video iPod, my life would be complete.”

• When we’re grown-ups– “If I drive a BMW, everyone will think that I’m successful.”

– “If I don’t use Arrid Extra-Dry deodorant, I’ll smell and no one will like me.”

– “If I only had the right financial planner, I could retire early, play with my video iPod and my life would be complete.”

Teens & Advertising

Why Does It Work?• What drives teenagers?

– Their parents, until they get their driver’s licenses (badda-bing!)

• As teens (and as grown-ups), we care about:– What’s cool

– What’s fun

– What’s interesting

– What’s popular

– What feels good

Teens & Advertising

But You Folks Are A Little Different• Online since birth

– The world in the palm of your hand– 97% have used the Net– More time online than TV

• Networked since birth– E-mail, IM, text messages and mobile phones

• Marketed to since birth– Advertising/marketing messages galore– Hip to the hype

• Diversity is the rule

Teens & Advertising

So What Does This Mean?• You like to control your media

experiences– Interactive experience (you get to play along)– User-designed products (e.g., iTunes, games)– Often know more technology than adults

• Social networking is big. Really big.– MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, Digg, MPGs– Less face-to-face networking, though

Teens & Advertising

So What Does This Mean?• Self-expression is big, too.

– Blogs and design tools rule– 9,189 Mentos videos– You are now the competition

• Little brand loyalty– MySpace is ByeSpace – let’s go to Myyearbook

Teens & Advertising

What Drives Teenagers?• “The drive to be yourself, establish your own

personal image and connect with like-minded peers is behind many of the trends we see with this generation: blogging, personal Websites, personal networks and personal media creation, where teens are creating and publishing their own poetry, music and movies online. What does this mean for brands? The days of a Nike-style mega brand that dominates an entire generation is over. Welcome to a world with as many different definitions of cool as there are individuals.”– Chip Walker, executive vice president and planning director, Energy

BBDO, Feb. 10, 2006

Teens & Advertising

Who Said This?

“What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?"

Teens & Advertising

PlatoAncient Greek Philosopher

c. 427 – c. 347 B.C.E.

Teens & Advertising

So Let’s Try This Out . . .• Two options

OR

Teens & Advertising

Advice For The Day• Caveat emptor• Latin for, “Let the buyer beware”

Teens & Advertising

This has been a Bad Kitty Production

©2006

Teens & Advertising

Thank you!