REPORT - TEEN POWER 2000: Paradox of the teen market still tripping up youth marketers

Attempting to find out what makes teenagers tick is a mind-numbing task at best, however, a balanced theme is critical in any ad campaign targeted at the youth market. Even the notion that ads targeted at youngsters should be crazy falls flat if the craziness is simply for the sake of it. FCB's Mind & Mood teen surveys in the US and Asia, for instance, found that while youngsters want to be independent, they also want to fit in with the cool crowd; they want to rebel, but they want their rebelliousness to be approved of by their friends; and they want to be novel, but not too trendy. At the recent Teen Power 2000 conference in Hong Kong, FCB's regional director of client service, Matthew Dodds, said the youth market had numerous paradoxes which had to be clearly understood before marketing strategies and creative were formulated. "They want to be independent but, at the same time, they want to fit in with the cool crowd. How do they do that? They go out and get the right clothes, sneakers and hairstyles. They learn to have the right look and speak the right words on specific topics," he said. "But the ultimate teen paradox is that, while individualism is important to them, they are doing what other people want them to and not what they want to." Mr Dodds said, therefore, that a winning brand strategy included helping teenagers position themselves as individuals, providing fun and escapism and creating a community feeling. Being a teen, then, was like being a marketer, he noted, because youngsters felt that image was all-important because "image shows who you are". But Mr Dodds stressed that while Western individualism meant standing out from society, in Asia, it meant standing out within society. "Asian teenagers are rebellious, but they seek approval from their closest friends. This means that they seek to be different from the masses from within a safety zone." Among Asian teenagers, cool means being adventurous, independent, individualistic, novel (but not too trendy) and smart. Uncool means being too cutting edge, ostentatious, crazy and conforming. Youth marketers have to bear these in mind when creating a campaign, Mr Dodds said.

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