Do you know the difference between tweens and teens? And can you imagine their influence on companies marketing campaigns?
By reading two different articles dealing with this topic, the importance of this target group appears even bigger than thought before.
Who are tweens and teens?
Tweens, aged from 8 to 12, represent children who are no longer little kids, and not yet teens. Consequently, teens are defined up to the age of 12.
In her article, Anastasia Goodstein, the author of “Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens are really doing online”, broke some secrets concerning this Generation Y. According to her, teens are multitaskers, prefer really short messages and want to participate.
Kids want to have a say – and even some ownership – in the products and content they use. And the more opportunities they have to personalize these things, the more engaged they’ll be.
It is important to retain that young adults can not only considerably be influenced by marketing and advertising campaigns, but that they have themselves a huge impact on companies strategies.
How to reach this young target efficiently?
You want to know how you can target the youth efficiently? So have a look to the second part of the article of Anastasia Goodstein where she listed marketing tips that can be helpful for dealing with this challenge. Here are three of them:
- Enlist teens to manage your social media – As Penguin Books did it by hiring kids for their new teen Web site
- Know your audience – Whether boys and girls or tweens and teens, every group uses the Internet differently.
- Don’t sweat the design – Less is more: if you want to be attractive for your target, don’t exaggerate colors, banners and co, but offer them a place to talk about topics they’re interested in.
Smart marketing or predatory instrument?
But not everyone supports marketers in targeting tweens and teens. For instance, I found a blog called “The responsible Marketing Blog”. The editor of this blog wrote an article about marketing to tweens and teens with a more critical point of view. He gave examples of distribution of samples during cheerleading competitions for underlining their impact on young children.
Even if he just asked certain questions without giving real answers, the author communicate the impression that he runs it down.
And I think it is important to respect both sides in order to deal with them and to find an appropriated compromise: Neither overcharge young adults with marketing or advertising, nor ignore them totally… they are the future generation of consumers!
The best way to discover teen trends is also the most obvious -just ask them.
