The Merchants of Cool

Targeting teenagers is extremely expensive, but ultimately it pays off. Teens spent $150 billion dollars in 2000, who knows how much spending power they have today. Understanding teenagers and being able to reach them is tough because the culture of young people is always on the move. It changes monthly, weekly, even daily as teens are finicky and always redefining themselves. Thus, companies wishing to target teenagers have found that they need a very specific type of market research in order to truly comprehend how to market to teens. What corporations have started to do is send out the "hunters of cool". These people do focus groups, ask questions on the streets, attend parties, or even just sit back and watch teenagers to find out what is hip and now.

I have mixed feelings on the concept of cool hunters. As a business marketing major, I see the need for reaching teens because of their spending power. On the other hand, it's also somewhat deceptive and conniving. Everyone knows that teenagers are self-conscious, susceptible to peer pressure, in a hurry to grow up, and unsure of themselves and their place in the world. I feel as though the amount of advertising targeted at teens is not only overwhelming but enforces all of these negative aspects of adolescence. The models in all the advertisements are often much older, pushing teens to want to grow up as quickly as possible.

The amount of advertising directed at teens is just overwhelming. There are ads in almost every aspect of the lives of adolescents. I think it would be interesting to do a study comparing the effect of ads on teenagers in 2000 compared to the effect of ads today. I feel that having grown up in the internet age, I am actually less affected by ads because I've been bombarded with them so much that I began ignoring them. I think that the hunters of cool have an even more difficult time reaching teens today than just eight years ago. The typical, old school methods of advertising are beginning to be less effective. The way teenagers deal with media is different than ever before. In fact, teenagers, who were known for watching a significant amount of television are no longer watching tv the way they used to. With tv shows streaming in the internet at any time of the day, teens have stopped watching regular television shows and instead watch the episodes online when they have the time. I recently read an article about the new hit show Gossip Girl on the CW and how they had to re-structure their entire promotional compaign because their television rates were terribly low but they had a huge following online. They attempted to get more people to view it on tv at its regular time by taking it off their online media player however, that turned out to be a disaster. Their prime time ratings did not improve and instead viewers got upset at being unable to watch it online. Pirated websites became flooded with teens trying to get their Gossip Girl fix by any means possible.

The internet and cell phones have truly changed how teenagers handle media and how corporations can reach the teenage market. Corporations really have to figure out how to reach teens without being annoying or too intrusive. Pop ups and text messages are not the way to reach teens, they're a way to frustrate them. Instead companies like yahoo and google who take into account what topics and products people search for and then provide subtle advertisements which incorporate that information are proving to be effective and useful. It's obvious that people looking to market to teens must always stay on top of their game. Being up to date with the current trends is imperative to maintain a connection with teens and finding new and innovative ways to reach them is the only way to maintain the high level of teen spending in today's economy.