Great Article About Marketing and Tweens (click on title to go to original source)

Individuality.com: Empowering youth through consumption?


By Erika Shaker
Our Schools / Our Selves, July 2001
Issue Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives


There are few places better than marketing conferences to find out what's really going on in the hearts and minds of corporate players. How they really feel about independence or critical thought...or, more accurately, how they deal with it. And this takes on a somewhat chilling edge when the topic of this marketing conference is youth.

Which was how I found myself at the Toronto Hilton for the Understanding Youth conference the beginning of May, surrounded by alarmingly well-groomed, shiny-toothed, youthful individuals, all sporting the latest trends (black capri pants, stacked heels, cell phones and beepers, wide collars and artfully-touseled hair) and all eager to share and glean information about the youth market.

The day began with the complimentary gifts--it's about marketing, after all--WWF keychains (shaped like teeny tiny folding chairs), logo-ed stationary, luggage tags, Chupa Chups suckers, calculators shaped like cell phones, and YTV pens. Lunches were sponsored by YTV and WWF, ice cream snacks by Hagen Daas, breakfasts by Kelloggs (individual boxes of Frosted Flakes and Rice-Crispie Snacks). I also came away with stacks of marketing literature describing in detail the shopping clout of this target market (aged anywhere from 2 years to early 20s) and industry ads ("Jessica--just one of 1.9 million kids you can reach with YTV--available in all shapes and sizes...the biggest collection of kids").

Conferences of this sort really do present an alternate reality, one where criticism of consumer culture and the direct targeting of children is called "Commie-Pinko crap" (and I didn't realize that people still used that term seriously) from people who are "so behind the times."

After all, we're told, youth are cool. They're aware. They're savvy--"much smarter than I was at their age," lament the speakers with apparent envy and admiration. Kids know what they want. And it's the duty of advertisers to listen, and give kids what they want, what they will buy, what they will put their financial clout behind. This is an $1.8 billion/year market--which impacts the spending of 10 times that amount. That's not small potatoes. Furthermore, this is a market that has a much greater longevity than one made up of older consumers--simply put, they will be around longer to spend more. That's why market research organizations prefer to call themselves" a youth market consultation and fulfillment house."

The message for marketers is clear. This is all about democracy. Give kids a platform to discuss issues important to them. Let them express themselves. It's not really about marketing to youth--it's all about empowering youth, giving them a sense of ownership and pride they can take in the media they create and the fashion they drive. The successful marketing campaigns that target youth are about respecting these young people, and recognizing that it's about fulfilling their needs--their need to feel important, to be treated as individuals, to be in control--not simply selling a product.

The irony--perhaps obscenity is a more accurate word--is constant reinforcement of the simple and erroneous equation of freedom with the Pepsi Challenge. Entire legions of kids, all rebelling from an uncomsumer-culture--all rebelling together, that is. But I digress.

Empowerment through commodification. It's an intriguing concept, really, and one that virtually guarantees lifelong support and consumption. After all, it's much more difficult to dis Reeses Peanut Butter Cups after they've acknowledged our ability to look beyond their logo and prefer them simply because they taste better than a homemade concoction of peanut butter and chocolate ("You're a slave to corporate logos!" "It's the taste, loser!"). And isn't that what's really important? Kids are apparently beyond the influence of logos and advertising, and advertisers are more than happy to inform kids of this revelation; ads are now simply the vehicle through which kids find humour and product information.

The trick for marketers is to reinforce this message: "we know that you know that we want you buy our product. Let's have a knowing giggle about this. You're past that. You're smarter than that. So buy our product because we acknowledge your superior market savvy." And to complete the illusion of respect, marketers must be creative--in their message, and in their advertising vehicle. The more interactive--sorry, empowering--the better.

Which is why companies like Alloy.com develop ad campaigns with a comprehensive approach--a vehicle (perhaps an ad in a teen magazine) to drive kids to a web site where they will participate in a contest or survey that prepares them for an upcoming radio advertisement for an actual product. Quizzes are very useful tools in marketing campaigns because they engage kids, and give them the illusion that companies are listening to what they think and feel. Plus, there's the added bonus of kids returning to the web site to see the results of the quiz or context...and the sponsor's name is well-profiled throughout the experience.

Take TIMEX for instance. Alloy launched a contest where kids were invited to choose between two possible designs for a new upcoming TMEX watch. The web site recorded between 40-50,000 responses from kids thrilled to be consulted on designing a "real" product. Of course there were prizes involved at all ends of the process; when TIMEX went with the more popular watch, kids who spread the message most "virally" (through a corresponding postcard campaign) were rewarded with more merchandise.

("Viral" is the latest catch word for marketing campaigns spread through word of mouth or on the street--campaigns successful at spreading the "buzz" of excitement surrounding a new product. Believe me, it caused quite a giggle during the Trojan Condom's marketing presentation.)

In other words, instead of logging on to a company web site, the kids tell Alloy what they want. And Alloy tells their corporate clients. Corporate messages are reinforced without kids actually having to visit a company site. Kids are more likely to play the "Hamburgler Pac Man game" on Alloy's website than they are to go to McDonalds.com for al little direct corporate interaction. And in return for developing and implementing these campaigns Alloy makes a pile of cash: the company will do $150 million in revenue targeting teens this year alone.

Sponsorships are another effective way of piggybacking on popular events--for example, aspects of the school day. Showbiz Productions has done this very effectively, "by going to schools, writing down all their important events, and corporatizing them--well, maybe not corporatizing them...maybe just making them better."

Showbiz has two major "vehicles" for getting corporations into schools: StreetBeat (a video dance party on wheels) and FashionShowToGo.com (coming this fall). These Trojan Horses as they're called, without a trace of irony, are designed specifically to make use of the dollars students represent and the desire for corporations to reach them.

Streetbeat is the moveable dance party/Trojan Horse that gets companies into schools using the vehicle of music. Schools already have to compete with cooler after-school activities to get kids to come to school dances (which have become an important form of fundraising), so it's actually much more logical for a student council to contact a production company like Streetbeat to put on a production/dance.

Streetbeat will bring in the sponsors, provide sampling products, print posters and tickets--and assemble a mailing list of potential customers for the sponsors. Isn't that less fuss for students who are busy with jobs, homework and dating? And, really, faced with the choice between a "professional" DJ and video dance party (where commercials will be viewed by the wildly dancing student audience as NIKE shirts and packs of Juicy Fruit gum are hurled off the stage) and "Bob and Carol's" DJ business down the street, what's a cool-conscious teen going to pick? No contest.

But it's not just high school dances that are up for grabs. Showbiz has determined that the two most popular events for schools are dances and fashion shows. (Actually, the prom ranks up there too but it's too emotional an event to consider corporatizing it...at least, for now. But the URL www.PromInACan.com is still available so who knows?)

Enter fashionshowtogo.com, a fully staged fashion show complete with retail and production. The popular kids in school act as models and organize the show. Students can even go to the web site and purchase products through the on-line shopping feature. And it's funny, but because all professional fashion shows have logos and commercial products and sponsors, students don't see fashionshowtogo.com as evidence of corporate sponsorship in schools--it's just like another "real" fashion show. Seems the key is to make sponsors not look like sponsors, a goal that Streetbeat has met admirably, setting what was termed by one admiring listener "the gold standard of sneaky."

Streetbeat has enjoyed massive growth and has used the "cool factor" well to its advantage in becoming a part of the school experience. All this amounts to big bucks, and "outreach to over a 1/2 million kids." And this doesn't even include the impact FashionShowToGo.com will have on Canadian schools, or the potential profit to corporations targeting this market.

The Showbiz representative led us in a brainstorming session (at a breakfast roundtable complete with complimentary Rice Crispie Square Treats and Kelloggs Frosted Flakes) to find new ways that cereal companies could get in to schools. This would be a trickier proposition as, unlike Streetbeat, the cereal industry was interested in younger grades and therefore a more impressionable--and controversial--audience. This in spite of the fact, as the corporate representative charmingly explained, that sugary cereals are in fact good for you "and have more vitamins than an apple."

(At this point we were also informed by another participant that potato chips aren't really bad for you--and it's just been extraordinary how parents have been subjected by teachers to the peer pressure of packing healthy lunches for their kids.)

Mr Showbiz suggested that the trick was not to sell cereal...but to sell breakfast. And within seconds he had devised a new marketing strategy. How about a breakfast party sponsored by the corporation? What if parents were told to bring their kids in to school 15 minutes early one morning, after the company had made arrangements with the principal that corporate support-staff would be available to oversee the event. And kids would all get their cereal, and some sort of "prize" of a pin which advertised the event. And then when Mom took the pin to the local grocery store she would receive a discount on that cereal.... Lots of media hooks, lots of potential, and lots of longevity. Sounds like a winner to me! I wonder if Campbell Soup saw similar sparks when they devised their soup kitchen for Toronto schools.

All very feel-good and media-friendly. All claiming to want nothing more than to help out kids and schools in their time of financial need. But it's no coincidence that the title of this roundtable session is "Trojan Horse marketing and sponsorship programs in schools...Finding an effective way to get your product or promotion into Canadian schools."

I've never been quite clear why the Trojan Horse is the descriptor of choice for corporations trying to target the school market--it being a symbol somewhat weighted in history and mythology and all. Ironic, given the insistence of the private sector that these initiatives are win-win. But I'm pretty sure the Trojans wouldn't have described the Greeks as "partners" in their civilization. And they sure wouldn't see the Trojan Horse as a win-win proposition. So why should schools see a dance party in a box, or a soup kitchen--a soup kitchen!--as anything other than what they are--the "gift" of corporate manipulation? In the case of Troy, it meant the destruction of a civilization. In the case of education, it is no less devastating.