Teens have always been an attractive market for advertisers, because they love to spend money on the latest in fashion, gadgets, music, entertainment, and anything else that makes them look, act, feel, or be perceived as cooler than everyone else.
The advertising giants have been feeding off the teen channel for generations and will continue to do so. It is that discretionary spending that is so attractive.
Whether it’s an allowance, income from a part-time job, or that scratch found inside Grandma’s birthday card, it’s up for grabs.
The bank savings account usually loses to a new pair of jeans, cell phone, headphones, junk food, music, well; you know what teens spend their money on.
Either you have teenagers living under your roof, you have had them living under your roof, or if they don’t qualify you; you were a teenager once.
The new kid on the block is the teenager who, inadvertently, has become a Screenager (Screen-ager). Your desirable eyes and ears that 21st century marketers want to capture.
Easily influenced, rebellious, eager and willing to follow the group, to belong and yet be independent, hungry for what’s next, waiting for a tendency to go up and down until it evaporates, stubborn, dedicated to fun and experimentation, Destined to be an adult in a world of consumers, information and communications, we classify them as teenagers, but in reality they are Sreenagers.
Why?
We all know that shopping habits and many of the other habits that we carry into adulthood are formed during adolescence and even earlier.
How do you target these discretionary spenders, this test generation, these peer pressure slaves, cool junkies, and this age group who can never have enough?
They are mobile, better educated, quick thinkers, openly stubborn, and better communicators than we are, because they have better and faster ways of communication.
Where are they? They are everywhere on the planet, higher concentrations in some areas of the world, but they travel more than their parents at their age and witness the world up close and personal 24/7.
Their language is unique to their generation, as was ours. Our generation may have invented cool, but the Screenagers have taken it to a whole new level of sophistication.
Today’s telephones were connected to the wall and our clocks only had wide hands. Our opinion was deemed out of place in many social situations and we were kept in check. It is true that the moral, social and sexual fiber of our lives has loosened over the years, but compared to today’s teenagers, we were dinosaurs.
Screenagers are the new generation that is expert in software and hardware and is programmed to react to a flicker of light in a nano-second. While we chewed on pong we were in awe of Star Wars and rejoiced with an 8 watt tape recorder, any memory and story told of such a past to a teenager these days would probably just arouse a laugh or a curious facial expression and head . shake.
Every day we are giving way to Screenagers in every way and advertisers and marketing gurus know it. The battle for the Screenagers’ attention is fierce.
You see them every day. Weaving your arms into the straps of your backpacks and inserting little earbuds to the sides of your head, or more recently, putting on a pair of retro earbuds for better sound.
They are digital in everything they do. The televisions use digital technology, the music they listen to is digital (as the CD slowly dies), their phones are digital, the games they play are digital (who has time for a board game like Monopoly when you can challenge and play an opponent? on another continent in real time?), and they are on the move. Go, go, go!
If you’re not on the digital highway, fuel up, get on your horse, and rev up and aim for this Screenager phenomenon. They carry a staggering amount of computing power, communication complexity, and purchasing power.
While riding the bus, subway, elevated train, or resting on the back of the family because they are communicating with or communicating with someone.
Newspapers and magazines are at your fingertips electronically, advertisers hit them with snippet ads that have more power than their 60-second predecessors. Impact with images on the road, on the waves of your favorite stations and visually on a digital screen.
The screen begins to dominate, because it is not enough to listen to something, you have to see it, hence the birth of the Screenagers and they are aging rapidly. Exposed to the wishes and desires of their generation, those who convey the message get the business.
Hook the Screenager to a post and you could be a reader for life. Teach them how to get a job interview, do their hair, dress for the part and get the girl / guy and they can transform into a spectator for life. Show them where to dine and what to drive to get there and you can have a loyal customer and buyer forever.
The great thing about habits for advertisers and businesses is that it is often difficult to break habits and they know it. This is why Screenagers are the frontier any savvy company is not waiting to enter. It should be a priority to get in and establish a presence before the millions of Screenagers are lost to a competitor.
Everyone remembers first, but second place is quickly forgotten.
Screenagers; Get your message across to them through their portable digital devices and you may reap the benefits for years to come, but if you ignore them, you are destined to be a dinosaur, like the teenager of years gone by.
