Advertisers and marketers also target teens and the young market. Some do it straightforward, offering products and services meant for teens. Others, however, sometimes do it in a questionable way. However they do it, marketers and advertisers have to be aware that reaching out to the teen market also has its downside.
Efforts in reaching out to the teens have may backfire, so marketers have to be perceptive and practical in targeting the young consumers.
Lies All Over the Internet
Tom Anderson, founder of MySpace, was recently reported to have lied about his age and made himself younger online. Dating sites are also filled with adults lying about their age. For teens, there are a handful of reasons:
1.Teens like to explore different sides of their personalities. Some just want to feel like how it felt when they were a knight or a warrior in pc games. Some just feel like playing with who they are online.
2.Those who are too young still want to join sites that are deemed cool by the general market. There are a lot of youngsters aged 11 to 14 on MySpace and Friendster. MySpace automatically makes the profiles of 15-year-olds and under private but there are those who want their profile public. So they’ll lie about their age to make a public profile.
3.Teens sometimes say they’re 20-plus, married and have kids! The purpose of this is to avoid creepy adults trying to chat up the little kids online.
4.Teens just like to mess around with marketers. Teens nowadays are keen on the marketing efforts online and some will lie about their profile to avoid some marketing efforts.
With these lies all over the Internet and social sites, marketers will have to be a little more creative in their marketing strategies. Teens may feel repelled by some marketing efforts, but this doesn’t apply to all.
Teens usually like to control what they’re seeing online. If a product or service that they don’t like is being flashed on their screens, they would get irritated by it. But if the product being marketed is something they like, then they would not reject it as the others.
Teens prefer ads that are funny and creative. They are strongly annoyed by pop-ups and spam advertisements. Random messages that serve as ads are also a big NO for them.
The ultimate real way of reaching out to the teens is actually to make them feel connected with the product and form of marketing. Advertisements that makes them think about the product can increase their curiosity for the product and the company. It is also important to let them choose to align themselves with specific products and brands. Advertise in an engaging way — ask them questions, offer some reward, make puzzles out of the ads,etc. Allow them to participate and keep them hooked! This way, there’s a chance that they can align themselves with the product and feel like they’re in control.