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Teens have always been a hot market for advertisers, because they love to spend money on the latest fashion, gadget, music, entertainment, and everything else that makes them look, act, feel, or be perceived as cooler than others.
The advertising giants have been feeding from the trough of teenagers for generations and will continue to do so. It's that discretionary spending that is so alluring.
Whether it's an allowance, income from a part-time job, or that scratch enclosed inside of that birthday card from grandma, it's up for grabs.
The bank savings account usually loses out to a new pair of jeans, cell phone, headphones, junk food, music, well; you know what teenagers spend their money on.
You either have teenagers living under your roof, had them living under your roof, or if those don't qualify you; you were once a teenager.
The new kid on the block is the teenager who has, without being aware of it, morphed into a Screenager (Screen-ager). Their desirable eyes and ears that the twenty-first century marketers want to capture.
Easily influenced, rebellious, wanting and willing to follow the pack, to belong and yet be independent, hungering for what's next, awaiting a trend to hop-on and ride-out until it evaporates, opinionated, dedicated to fun and experimentation, destined to be an adult in a consumer, information, and communications world, we classify them as Teens, but they're really Sreenagers.
Why?
We all know that purchasing habits and many of the other habits which we carry into adulthood are formed while we are in our teens and even before.
How do you target these discretionary spenders, this try-it generation, these slaves to peer pressure, the addicts of cool, and these can-never-have-enough-stuff age group?
They're mobile, better-educated, quick thinkers, openly opinionated, and better communicators than we ever were, because they have better and faster forms of communication.
Where are they? They are everywhere on the planet, higher concentrations in some areas of the globe, but traveling more than their parents did at their age and witnessing the world up-close and personal 24/7.
Their language is unique to their generation as ours was. Our generation may have invented cool, but the Screenagers have taken it to a whole new level of sophistication.
The phones of our day were hard-wired to the wall and our watches had sweeping hands only. Our opinion was considered out-of-place in many social situations and we were kept on a tighter leash. True, the moral, social, and sexual fiber of our lives loosened through the years, but compared to today's teens, we were dinosaurs.
Screenagers are the new generation that is software and hardware savvy and programmed to react to a blink of light in a nano-second. While we teethed on pong, were in awe of Star Wars, and overjoyed with an 8 watt tape deck, any recollection and tale told of such a past to a teen these days would probably just arouse a chuckle or a curious facial expression and a head shake.
We are giving way to the Screenagers everyday in everyway and the advertisers and marketing gurus know it. The battle for the Screenagers' attention is fierce.
You see them everyday. Weaving their arms into the straps of their backpacks and inserting tiny earphones into the sides of their heads, or more recently, putting on a retro pair of headphones for better sound.
They're digital in everything that they do. Televisions use digital technology, the music they listen to is digital (as the CD dies a slow death), their phones are digital, the games they play are digital (who has the 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. On the go, go, go!
If you are not on the digital highway, fuel-up, saddle-up, and get-up to speed and target this Screenager phenomenon. They carry an awesome amount of computing power, communication complexity, and purchasing clout.
While riding the bus, subway, sky-train, or lounging in the back of the family car they are either communicating with someone or being communicated to.
Newspapers and magazines are at their fingertips electronically, advertisers hit them with snippet ads that pack more power than their 60 second predecessors. Hit with images on the highway, in the airwaves of their favorite stations, and visually on a digital screen.
The screen is beginning to dominate, because it's not enough to hear something, it has to be seen, hence the birth of the Screenager and they're aging quickly. Exposed to wants and desires of their generation, the ones who get the message across get the business.
Hook the Screenager on a publication and they could be a reader for life. Teach them how to nail a job interview, wear their hair, dress the part, and get the girl/boy and they may morph into a lifetime viewer. Show them where to dine and what to drive to get there and you could have a loyal patron and buyer forever.
The great thing about habits for advertisers and businesses is that habits are generally difficult to break and they know it. This is why the Screenagers are the frontier that any smart business isn't waiting to enter. It should be a priority to enter 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 to them via their portable digital devices and you can reap the benefits for years to come, but if you ignore them you are destined to be a dinosaur, just like the teenager of years past.
