TEENS AS TARGETS? ADOLESCENT'S MEDIA TASTES AND PREFERENCES.

"Now you can discover quickly and easily what all the cool girls are thinking-about their world

As the quotation from SMARTGIRL makes perfectly clear , advertisers and marketers are actively engaged in researching the tastes attitudes and preferences of adolescent consumers so they can effectively target them. SMARTGIRL uses surveys, discussion groups and product reviews to find out how young girls think and feel. They describe their female respondents as :

*10-24 years old *Upscale, media-savvy,online. *Nearly 100% college and career bound *Evenly distributed across the U.S.A. *Spending $30 more per month than the average teen.

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While some adults are dismayed at what they regard as blatant manipulation of an impressionable audience, not all teenagers share the perception. To begin with, doesn't such a perception sound like a put-down? Doesn't it sound to teenagers as if adults don't believe they can think for themselves? There's another factor at work that makes many teens quite receptive to such marketing tactics. Many of them find it flattering. Many of them function in adult institutions where they get the impression that their opinion doesn't count, that no one is really listening to them. Imagine how good they feel when advertisers come along and want to shoot the breeze. Wouldn't you be flattered? If you want more information on targeting teens, contact Channel One and request The Teen Fact Book[ 2001] .[212 508 6800]. You will certainly find their optimistic, upbeat portrait of "the millennials", strikingly different to the kids in crisis portrait constructed by the news media.

I talk to and with thousands of teens across the country each year and I would have to say that they are fascinated and intrigued by advertising. When I use some of the teens tastes& preferences surveys [below] many of them are really very interested in finding out just where they and their friends fit in with these national norms. Adolescent Psychology 101 will tell you that one of the most basic drives at work in teens, especially early adolescents, is the drive to belong and fit in. Maybe they don't all talk like Dawson or Joey,but as one critic said, they feel that way. So advertisers and the mass media frequently construct characters and environments and products that adolescents can relate to .Dissing those characters, environments and products, invites them to circle the wagons and defend their teen turf. As I heard one teenage girl in California tell her teacher,who criticized the magazines she read, "I feel like I'm being brainwashed".

If we're are going to successfully engage young people in the work of media literacy, we have to be vigilant against replacing media brainwashing with our own brand of thought control.

None of this however, is to suggest that we should not be concerned about which media teens are exposed to and what effects it might have on them. We certainly know that today's teens have troubles and feel pressure.One 1999 study reported the following pressures felt by teenagers. 44% report pressure to get good grades. 29% report feeling pressure to fit in socially. 19% feel pressure to use alcohol or drugs. 13% say they feel pressure to be sexually active. While the media clearly contribute to some of these pressures, other pressure comes from school, family, society and peers.

It is also likely that girls experience more pressure than boys. A 1999 study of , of 2000 teenage girls by Seventeen magazine's website [ www.seventeen.com] concluded that 46% of the female readers are unhappy with their bodies. 35% said they would consider plastic surgery, including breast augmentation and 7% said they suffered from eating disorders.

Media Use Among U.S. Children and Teens.

A 1999 report from The Kaiser Foundation included the following findings and comments.

*The most striking race/ethnicity differences in regard to access to and use of media & technology occurs in relationship to computer access. 78% of Caucasian kids come from homes with at least one computer, compared to 55% of African American kids and 48% of Hispanic youngsters.

*White children are also more likely to have access to a computer with CD-ROM drive and Internet access.

*The socio-economic environment of the home or school also affects technology access. 49% of students who come from a low income home or attend a low income school report having access to a computer at home compared to 66% of middle income students and 81% of students in higher income communities.

*Using total person hour measurements the researchers were able to quantify the amount of daily interaction children have with all media. For 2-7 year-olds this was 3 1/2 hours per day. 8-13 year-olds spend 6 3/4 hours per day engaged in media use. For 14-18 year-olds the figure is 6 1/2 hours daily.

*Boys spend more time with media than girls, mostly as a result of their greater interaction with video games, computers and television.

*Girls spend more time with print media than boys and after the age of 8 they also spend more time with music media such as radio, tapes and CD's.

*African American children report the greatest media exposure including taped TV programs, movies, video games and commercial videotapes.

*Media exposure tends to decline as income level increases with THE EXCEPTION OF PRINT AND COMPUTER EXPOSURE.

Clearly the socio-economic differences evident in this research raises significant questions about equal access to information technology. Who has access to what technology , for what reason, in what circumstances, at what cost , with what effects and why? These are questions that not only need to asked, but also answered , if we are to avoid the very real problems associated with the creation of an electronic elite and the much described digital divide.

Which of the 5 media literacy principles described above, might help us conceptualize the role of mass media and technology in both our classrooms and our living rooms?

[from The UNESCO International Clearinghouse on Children and Violence on the Screen. 1. 2000]

MARKET RESEARCH: PORTRAIT OF A GENERATION.

Described as "the richest generation of teenagers in history", today's young people enjoy peacetime ,a strong economy and an endless variety of disposable goods and leisure products aimed at them

From a marketer's perspective, they are "the stuff that dreams are made of". What do we know about them?

*In 1998 they spent $141 billion.

*They influence over $300 billion in family spending.

*There are 23.4 million 12-17 year-olds in this nation, making up 8.6% of the U.S. population.

*They are 51. 3 % males and 48.7 percent female.

*14% are African American/ 13% are Hispanic and 3% are Asian American.

*48% of these young people go to the movies once a month compared to just 26% of adults.

*60+% of them have TV in their bedrooms.

*They watch 20 hours and 50 minutes per week, a decline from 22.30 in 1992,

*Radio is their most used medium.

*89% of them have been online.

*83% use email.

*78% use search engines.

*42% use chat rooms.

*77% live in a home with a video game system.

*77% of them would rather find information online than in a book.

*80% report having read a magazine in the past week.

*Female magazines are the strongest sellers including Seventeen, YM, Teen People.

*Their favorite television programs include: Dawson's Creek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Felicity, Boy Meets World, The Simpsons, Friends, That 70's Show,and 7th Heaven.

*Among the brands they rate as "the coolest "are, Nike, Tommy Hilfiger, Gap, Abercrombie and Fitch and Old Navy.