The cliche that children 'grow up too quickly these days' has never seemed more apt than in the wake of the brouhaha over Primark selling padded bikini tops for girls as young as seven. Yet, while young people, and tweens in particular, may have an impressive technical knowledge of digital media, and social knowledge of 'grown-up' activities from drinking to sex, they are still children and still learning. They are insecure, unsure of their identity and, as is the defining characteristic of teenagers, often misunderstood.
Many marketing directors have the perception that teenagers are continuously rebelling: surfing the web for illegal downloads or inappropriate websites; constantly plugged into the coolest platforms from Twitter to Chatroulette; and never deigning to watch anything live on TV, but catching up in their own time via VoD services.
In reality, however, tweens and young teens, at least, are quite conservative in their online habits. This is backed up by an exclusive study carried out by Fly Research for Marketing that shows TV remains the main way teenagers encounter big brands.
Amanda Anderton, group research director at 2CV Research, says that her company's findings tally with this. 'The misperception is that tweens and teens are using lots of different online sources,' she adds. 'But they are not sophisticated users of social media and their habits are surprisingly limited in scope, mainly using Facebook, MSN and YouTube. They are certainly not all tweeting away and we've seen little evidence of illegal downloading up to the age of 15.'
Online insight
Teenagers become more web-savvy in their midto late-teens, according to Anderton; before this they are still predominantly led by playground patter. 'If someone comes into school and says "I've found a cool online game", this spreads like wildfire,' she says. 'That has interesting implications for online marketing - maybe it doesn't need to happen online at all.'
Nickelodeon's marketing director, Steven Brabenec, agrees. While one of the network's most popular programmes is iCarly, about a girl with her own web show, he says that tweens often exaggerate their use of social media. 'Sometimes kids talk about social media and say they are into it because they think they should say this, whether they are actually using it or not,' he points out. This could explain the surprise demise of Bebo, supposedly the tween hangout of choice, which parent AOL is considering closing down.
Nickelodeon uses this insight to inform how it talks to viewers. 'We make it acceptable not to know what is cool and what isn't,' says creative director Peter Drake. 'We make it OK to ask questions, and OK to be told what is hot and what's not.'
The network also recognises that, despite what they say, many tweens do want to be treated like kids. 'It's very easy for children's TV presenters to be ironic and too cool, but ours are genuinely enthusiastic, talking in a way that is easy to digest, honest and amusing,' says Drake. Honesty is crucial here, as young people have a keen sense when it comes to someone trying to be something they're not. 'If you do this, you'll come across like the science teacher doing the embarrassing dancing at the school disco,' says Brabenec.
As tweens get older, however, they respond less well to being told what to think or do. This insight is not new, but the way advertisers communicate with teenagers has changed in response to it.
Agency 20:20, for example, handles teenage-pregnancy and STI-awareness work for the COI. Rather than use traditional media to run a short, sharp campaign about how multiple partners can lead to a higher risk of sexually transmitted diseases, it created a mobile drama called Thumbnails. It ran for 22 weeks, with a 60-second episode airing each week on a Friday night at 7pm. This allowed the teenagers to digest the storylines and draw their own conclusions.
'The cast became their friends over the 22 weeks, and by creating contentious storylines, we encouraged them to have an opinion,' says Peter Riley, chief creative officer at 20:20.
For instance, one of the six main characters was Jackie, who initially appeared cool because she attracted lots of male attention. However, as the series progressed, viewers realised that men did not respect her and girls talked about her behind her back. 'They realised that she will sleep with anyone and that that's no good,' adds Riley.
Interactive imperative
Another major element of the campaign was its interactivity - a prerequisite of marketing to teens today. At the end of one episode, the agency sent all 80,000 subscribers a text message, as if from Jackie, asking what the other characters were saying behind her back.
'This sparked lots of interesting dialogue. A typical answer from a boy was "You're a slag", whereas girls were saying either "They weren't talking about you" or "You don't want to know",' he says. After another episode, the subscriber received a call from character Billy, asking whether he should sleep with a girl he had just met in a club.
'Texts came flooding in suggesting that he go for it, but make sure he used a condom,' says Riley. 'This showed that the message about safe sex was getting through. It also demonstrates that there's no point telling a teenager not to do something, like have sex. They're going to do it anyway.'
RESEARCH BRANDS AND TEENS
Fly Research conducted an exclusive qualitative study for Marketing into the way in which 95 teenagers on its Myvoice Panel interacted with a set of leading brands - Adidas, Apple, BlackBerry, Coca-Cola, Facebook, McDonald's, Nike, O2, Nintendo and Vodafone - over the course of three days. The teens kept diaries, via their mobile phones, noting details such as where they saw or heard of the brand, what they were doing at the time and how the interaction made them feel.
Results
The average number of brands seen or heard by teenagers over the three days was 4.7. McDonald's was the most-noticed, seen or heard on 67 occasions, which is equivalent to 16% of total mentions. Coca-Cola garnered 59 mentions, or 14% of the total. In third place was Facebook, at 57 occasions and 13% of the total. Languishing at the bottom were BlackBerry and Nintendo, both scoring only 7% of total mentions.
Teenagers at the younger end of the age spectrum, and males, saw or heard more mentions of the target brands than other groups. 'I would speculate that this is because females tend to mature a bit quicker and, as you get older, you take notice of brands less. It could be confidence-related: as you get older and more confident, you need less affirmation from brands,' says Ian Davidson, managing director of Fly Research.
The main medium through which participants saw or heard brands was the TV (22%), followed by talking (20%) and the internet (11%). These channels accounted for more than 50% of the total brand mentions. The media that were least successful at reaching them were radio and web pop-ups (1% each) and magazines and cinema (3% each).
Males and younger teenagers (13to 15-year-olds) saw more brands on TV, while 16- to 19-year-old females tended to talk about brands more. Not surprisingly, given these results, when they saw one of the target brands, teens were most likely to be watching TV, followed by being on the computer or out shopping. The 16- to 17-year-olds were the most likely to be on the computer and the 18- to 19-year-olds to be out shopping.
One third of the teenagers claimed that seeing a brand had no impact on them. However, a further third said their brand exposure made them feel better toward the brand in question and a quarter said it made them want to buy the brand's products.
Those most likely to say that seeing the brand had no impact on them were the 18- to 19-year-olds, while 16- to 17-year-olds were the most likely to say they felt better about the brand. Only 4% said that the interaction made them feel worse about the brand.
- 22% of teenagers asked said the main way they either saw or heard brands was via the TV