What the Kids Want
A psychographic sketch of teens online today
There’s a scene in the first season of “Mad Men” in which advertising anti-hero Don Draper asks his boss, “What do women want?” The answer he gets is flippant to the point of rather ugly sexism. But in the male-dominated world of early-1960s advertising, Draper was on to something. He knew instinctively that to reach America, you had to reach out to America’s new, emerging, liberated woman, a fact later borne out by daytime shows from “Phil Donahue” to “Oprah” and beyond.
Today, the audience to reach is teens, both male and female. Last time, we discussed some salient general facts about teens, their buying power ($125 billion and climbing) and the time they spend online. Today we’ll talk about who these teens are, what they want, and how advertisers like you can reach an audience of nearly 25 million Americans.
Smells like teen spirit
First off, how to teens think of themselves? According to a Horatio Alger Association report, American teens are more hopeful than ever before, with 81 percent describing themselves as “ambitious” and 88 percent as “confident,” while 70 percent see themselves going to college. They’re also a career-oriented and community-dedicated generation, with nearly 50 percent considering careers in education, 42 percent considering the military, 33 percent thinking about careers in government, and no less than 20 percent thinking about actually running for public office. That’s a pretty ambitious crew. And there about more than just
Not only are today’s teens ambitious, the Horatio Alger Association report says that they are also more engaged in what’s going on than any generation since the 1960s. A year ago, 78 percent of teens were “very concerned” about the outcome of the presidential election. No matter which side they were on, teens were very, very interested in who their next president would be. They’re also highly concerned about the environment. According to our research, 72 percent of teens described “global warming” as “an urgent or serious problem.”
OK, so the kids are cool and they care and they’re ambitious. So what? Well, Ninety-seven percent of American teens are currently online, according to MRI. That’s the biggest slice of Internet pie of any generation thus far. The way that American teens engage with the world today is online.
A long engagement
Want to reach ’em? You have to hit them where they live online, with messages that resonate with their hopes, dreams and considerable ambitions—and preferably, with a sense of situational humor that they understand. (Oh, by the way, 72 percent of U.S. teens 12 to 17 years old, or about 14.4 million people, spent time on Yahoo! in 2008, according to comScore.)
But the real, practical upshot from this data is that today’s teens are more involved—and crave to be involved—than ever before. Advertising as a one-way street—where advertisers disseminate messages through mass media—is all but dead, especially with teens. To reach and, more importantly, engage teens, you have to develop interactive campaigns that involve young people like never before. For a prime example, see our case study on Butterfinger, a campaign that drove engagement and helped sell product, while giving users a creative voice, one that they were eager to share with others via social networking.
Next time: How teens are using social media and approaching online gaming.
Sources:
Horatio Alger Association: The State of our Nation’s Youth, 2008
MRI: TwelvePlus, 2008
comScore: Media Metrix, April, 2009
(Image by frerieke, CC, 2.0)
—Michael Mattis
[ 2 comments | Categories: Audiences, Industry Trends, Marketing, Research ]
[...] Next time: What teens want online, and how you can help them get it. [...]
[...] This is the last of a three-part series on teen behavior online. For Part One, click here. For Part Two, click here. [...]