Ready for Generation Z?

Today’s MediaPost features an article in their Engage: Teens column that admittedly I found a little disturbing. Three Predictions about Generation Z purports that this up-and-coming group of teens are like a super-powered version of their Generation Y predecessors (I can’t help think of the scene in Eclipse with the “newborn” vampires are coming out of the water, stronger and feistier than their elder vampire counterparts).

Anyway. These forthcoming uber teens (who are younger than preteens, the offspring of the X Generation, ages 5 and under) are apparently 1. More technologically savvy than any other generation, 2. Adverse to criticism, and therefore likely to sabotage a brand or a marketing campaign and 3. Will continue to find loopholes so that they can access information more quickly. Numbers one and three I’m totally fine with; it’s just number 2 (excuse the pun) that stopped me in my tracks. These kids are barely potty trained! It's quite the stretch to predict that with "one slip of the tongue, they're likely to stomp on your foot, leave the room, and start an empire quicker than you can say Facebook." Yeah, maybe that's because most of these Generation Zers are still in preschool and therefore tantrums are not uncommon.

When it comes to generational trends, I prefer Penelope Trunk's Generation Z summary of predictions. She gives us some historical perspective but doesn't make any big claims. And really, as youth marketers, do we really need to start focusing on Generation Z now? Unless you've got an early learning program, children's book series or family-friendly movie coming out soon, I think not.

Tampon advertising that pokes fun at tampon advertising (pun intended)

I nearly laughed out loud when I saw this latest (brilliant) “Break the Cycle” campaign targeting women 14 to 21 from U by Kotex, courtesy of JWT in NYC.

The ads poke fun at advertising, market research, out-of-date marketing concepts-- and prudishness. According to Tuesday’s New York Times article,

One spot which will make its debut next month, opens with a woman strolling confidently toward the camera. “I’m a believably attractive 18- to 24-year-old female,” she says. “You can relate to me because I’m racially ambiguous. Market research shows that girls like you love girls like me.”
The sense of an ad somehow deconstructing itself continues, as she says, “Now I’m going to tell you to buy something. Buy the same tampons I use. Because I’m wearing white pants, and I have good hair, and you wish you could be me.” Screen text near the end of the spot asks, “Why are tampon ads so obnoxious?”
A print ad, meanwhile, shows a woman driving a convertible with this text: “I tied a tampon to my key ring so my brother wouldn’t take my car. It worked.”

And so does the ad.

In another TV spot (see it on YouTube), a young woman in her 20s says “How do I feel about my period? I love it. Sometimes it makes me want to run on the beach!" while showing images of women running on the beach and dancing. The clips mocked in the spot are actually from Kotex commercials, believe it or not.

The result is a campaign that is fresh, different, authentic and terrific on so many levels. Online on UbyKotex.com visitors can sign a “Declaration of Real Talk,” vowing to defy societal pressures that discourage women from speaking out about their bodies and health. For every declaration, Kotex will donate $1 to Girls for a Change, a national nonprofit based in San Jose, Calif., that pairs urban middle school and high school girls with professional women to encourage social change.

According to MediaPost, a study conducted online in August 2009 by Harris Interactive on behalf of Kotex, among more than 1,600 North American women ages 14-35, 7 in 10 women believe it's time for society to change how it talks about vaginal health, yet less than half (45%) feel empowered to make a difference.

“We’re really out there and we’re trying to touch women and say we care about this conversation,” said Mr. Meurer, of Kotex. “We’re changing our brand equity to stand for truth and transparency and progressive vaginal care.”

Talk about breaking the cycle.

What is your brand doing to shake up preconceived notions when it comes to girls and health?

Marketing to Kids: Our favorite titles

“The average 10-year-old has memorized about 400 brands, the average kindergartner can identify some 300 logos and from as early as age two kids are "bonded to brands." Some may call it brainwashing, others say it's genius; regardless of how you see it, the approach is the same: target young kids directly and consistently, appeal to them and not the adults in their lives and get your product name in their heads from as early an age as possible.” --- Juliet Schor, Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture

According to recent research “even in these tough economic times, tweens wield $43 billion in spending power annually, and influence the spending of billions more on everything from cell phones to vacations to automobiles.” Statistics also show that kids and tweens influence another $150 billion of their parents' spending. So what are we to do with this information?

Wherever you stand on the issue of marketing to kids and teens, there’s no disputing that (done right), an early investment in the kids and tweens business can be a driving force in your company’s future and long term success. The question is… how do you do it right?

We at Hopscotch Consulting spend a lot of time pondering this issue, advising companies on appropriate marketing campaigns and brand strategies that empower kids (and don't exploit.) We have lots of great ideas and insights; eventually we'll write our own book. In the meantime, we'd like to share a number of titles on the topic that tackle the issue of marketing to kids from multiple angles:

Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives
By John Palfrey and Urs Gasser
As a lawyers who specialize in intellectual property and information issues, Palfrey and Gasser discuss the ways "downloading, text-messaging, massively multiplayer game-playing, YouTube-watching" youth are transforming society.

Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture
By Juliet Schor
Schor exposes what she believes to be a huge cesspool of materialism, consumerism and commercialization that perhaps is leading to a generation of kids that won't learn what is important and truly necessary in life.

Brand Child: Remarkable Insights into the Minds of Today's Global Kids & Their Relationships with Brands
By Martin Lindstrom and Patricia B. Seybold
Brand Child provides a comprehensive account on how current tweens perceive brands, react to marketing and decide to spend their considerable financial buying power.

Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds
by Susan Gregory Thomas
"The moment a baby can see clearly, she becomes a consumer." Investigative journalist Thomas interviewed child development experts, product developers, marketing consultants and educators in this exposé on how marketers are targeting young minds - even before they leave the womb.

Consumer Kids: How Big Business is Grooming Our Children for Profit
By: Ed Mayo and Agnes Nairn
How do children become targeted by big business and why does it matter? Mayo and Nairn show how corporations have exploited and packaged childhood and why too much marketing can make you unhappy.

Creating Ever-Cool: A Marketer's Guide to a Kid's Heart
By: Gene Del Vecchio
What's secret formula for achieving “ever-cool” status- one of the key attributes that the most successful kids’ products have in common? Del Vecchio provides some great tips on how to best establish a lifelong relationship with the youth market.

Gen BuY: How Tweens, Teens and Twenty-Somethings Are Revolutionizing Retail
By Kit Yarrow, Jayne O'Donnell
Yarrow and O'Donnell argue that Gen Y consumers have revolutionized the way Americans shop by turning traditional sales and marketing strategies upside down. The book offers an in-depth look at what motivates these young people to buy certain products and reject others.

Getting Wiser to Teens: More Insights into Marketing to Teenagers
By: Peter Zollo
This book gives readers a thorough understanding of what teens think, feel, and need, what they do, what they buy, and how marketers should--and shouldn't--reach them.

The Great Tween Buying Machine: Capturing Your Share of the Multi-Billion-Dollar Tween Market
By: David L. Siegel, Timothy J. Coffey, Gregory Livingston
What drives tweens, and what are the social and personal implications for this market? This book explores how this target market has changed over the last few years and reveals key information on how to expand a company's marketing base.

Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation
By: Don Tapscott
As a result of their access to the digital media, today’s kids, teens, and tweens learn, work, think, shop and create differently than their parents. This book provides valuable insights for marketers who wish to understand this new generation that is surrounded by high-tech toys and tools from birth (full disclosure- when some of us at Hopscotch were employed by FreeZone.com back in the mid 1990s we worked with Don in providing many key insights)

The Kids Market: Myths and Realities
By: James U. McNeal
Called the "godfather of kids marketing," by U.S. News and World Report, James McNeal shares all his knowledge gained from years of experience marketing to kids in the USA and Asia.

Marketing to the New Super Consumer: Mom & Kid
By: Timothy Coffey, David Siegel and Gregory Livingston
Insights into understanding how moms make shopping decisions and how children are very much involved in the decision-making process.

Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens Are Really Doing Online
By: Anastasia Goodstein
Ypulse founder and blogger Anastasia Goodstein explains how teens use technology--including the benefits and drawbacks--and how parents can set realistic boundaries in cyberspace.

What Kids Buy and Why
By: Daniel Acuff and Robert H Reiher
Grounded in brain development with a sound underpinning of why kids behave as they do at specific ages and across gender, Acuff and Reiher take you behind the scenes of many major successful brands.

Got a favorite book to share? Let us know!

Look Mom, candy mints that sure pack a nicotine punch!

Question: Are the cigarette makers really, truly targeting kids? Answer: of course they are.

This is such a tired topic, so I'm a tad surprised that I'm choosing to comment on it. Yet it has such a fun new little twist...

In case you haven't heard, Orbs Dissolvable Tobacco is being test marketed in Portland, Columbus and Indianapolis by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. These little pellets look like mints (and taste like...I don't know what but my guess is that they don't taste like crushed up cigarettes). Reynolds is also planning to test the Orbs in a chewable stick and a strip form later this spring.

The critics are already upset, understandably so:

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids says "They are likely to appeal to children because they are flavored and packaged like candy, are easy to conceal even in a classroom and carry the Camel brand that is already so popular with underage smokers."

And the American Cancer Society says "it's a very dangerous product for children, who tend to become addicted more quickly."

R.J. Reynolds-- of course-- says the product is meant for adults and has warning labels on the package and can only be sold to adults 18 and older.

So here is my question: Is there anything about this product that isn't designed with kids in mind? Let's see... the candy-like flavor? The youthful colors and packaging? The cute camel silhouette? The highly addictive nature of the product? The fact that it's technically "off limits?"

Sara Troy Machir, spokeswoman of Star Scientific, a small tobacco company that sells two dissolvable products, Ariva and Stonewall is quoted in USA Today as saying "Teens like risk-taking behavior and a tablet, unlike a cigarette, won't lure them."

Wow. Did she really say that?

So really, it's a win-win for the tobacco companies. Continue the cradle-to-grave strategy (literally) by continuing to market to kids with not one, but multiple product offerings. Kids who don't initially go for the all-American appeal of the bright packaging and sweet candy-like taste of product number 1 might like the "risk taking" appeal and stench of the old standby product number 2.

So much attention about moi! The Muppets get the Hannnah Montana treatment

Miss Miss Piggy? I sure do. But guess what-- The New York Times reported yesterday (Fuzzy Renaissance, September 21, 2008) that not only is Miss Piggy coming out of cold storage, she and the rest of her Muppet Pals are getting the "Hanna Montana treatment, being blasted into every pop-culture nook and cranny that the company owns or can dream up."

For starters there are the specials on Disney Channel in which Muppets interact with High School Musical and Jonas Brothers stars. Then there are the viral videos on YouTube and the NBC Christmas special. And don't miss the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Muppets float or "Nightline" political interviews. And of course there's plenty of merchandise: Muppet clothing at Urban Outfitters and Limited Too stores; Muppet-theme stuffed animals and tote bags at Macy’s; and a Muppet boutique at the New York flagship of F. A. O. Schwarz.

"We think there is a Muppet gene in everybody,” Lylle Breier, a Disney executive who is the new general manager of Muppets Studio told the Times. Still, she has a few challenges. Ms. Breier also said that recent focus groups indicated that some children could not even identify Kermit and Miss Piggy, much less ancillary characters like Fozzie Bear and Gonzo the Great.

It's really too bad. Since Jim Henson's death in 1990, his children have taken over the reigns to the family business but the Muppet characters have stagnated under changing ownership. Disney aquired the "Classic Muppets" in 2004; Children's Television Workshop owns the "Sesame Street" Muppets.

The article reports that while "Disney estimated three years ago that the Muppets would be generating about $300 million a year in merchandising sales by now, retail analysts say the total for 2008 will be closer to $50 million."

Dick Cook, chairman of Walt Disney Studios (and Ms. Breier’s boss) told the Times: “Developing the kind of high-quality entertainment we have planned for the global relaunch of the Muppets takes time,” he said. “We want to be very, very careful that whatever we do is in the spirit of the Muppets and that we are enhancing the brand."

I couldn't agree more. While it certainly appears that Disney will leveraging every ounce of marketing muscle to bring the Muppets back to center stage, what isn't so clear is how they'll keep the Muppet magic intact in doing so. Time will tell. Kermit and Miss Piggy were originally created to entertain adults with clever and irreverant humor; Disney's strategy appears to be one where they simultaneously attract nostalgic older generations as well as the 6-12 year-old tween market. I wonder what Jim Henson would think about all of this. Or, more appropriately, what would Miss Piggy do?