'Teens will want to be involved in the development of products'
Jane Pritchard from Tullo Marshall Warren (TMW) talks to us about how to capture a slice of the lucrative teen market and what makes the 'me' generation tick in terms of marketing. In one of three videos in the teen series, she looks at some of the emerging trends in direct mail marketing to teenage audiences.
Watch the film and download our pdf on trends in marketing to teens at the bottom of the page.
You do not have Adobe Flash installed or Javascript is disabled in your browser.
To install Flash 9 plugin please click here.
If you are sure that Flash 9 plugin is installed, please check that Javascript is
enabled in your browser.
A very lucrative market
Jane Pritchard: The Chartered Institute of Marketing estimates that the teenage market is worth £10bn a year. And when you add in parents’ spending into that it kind of totals up to around £30bn a year, so it’s a fairly large market. I think the thing also that you need to consider is the long-term benefit. So if you attract a teenager in the younger years there’s a chance that you can maintain that loyalty when they get to adulthood. So making that investment now can also reap additional returns in the future.
Emerging trends
Jane Pritchard: The emerging trends in marketing to teens, particularly from a DM point of view, will evolve around a number of different things. The first thing is around participation. So teens will actively want to get involved in the development of a brand's products or services so they will want that open dialogue with the brand. And direct marketing really needs to communicate that through the messaging, so inviting teenagers to respond to ideas, suggestions, is going to be really, really important in terms of engaging that audience.
Other trends to watch out for in the future include a trend that’s been around for some time, which is customisation and teenagers want to be individual, they want to feel that they’re individual. Customisation is very important for them and brands have tried to maximise that wherever possible. So for example with Nike, creating your own trainers and designing them is one way that a brand is really trying to build that bond with the teenage market.
From a DM point of view we need to bring that individuality, the customisation to life in terms of the creative. Other trends to watch out for include perks and privileges. Now this is to create great social currency for those teenagers out there. If they get a perk or a privilege from a brand, obviously that’s a really positive way that they can pass on that message to other parties within their social group. So the types of perks and privileges are going to be really important in marketing to teens.
Now you have to think slightly differently as well about your perks and privileges. Even though vouchers will continue to work, there are other ways that you can start to look at that and communicate it through direct mail.
So for example to take Ben & Jerry’s, they have a free cone day where teenagers can go in and obviously choose their favourite ice cream and also bond with the brand. So that’s one way of trying to look at perks and privileges in a different way.
The last kind of emerging trend is the eco trend. Now teenagers obviously are engaged in protecting the planet, but it being eco has actually become quite cool, so teenagers are really, really keen to engage with eco brands.
And again a trainer company has reacted to this. So Adidas have their own range of eco trainers at the moment targeted at the teenage audience. So DM needs to respond to this. So we need to think carefully about formats and about the times that we communicate and mail to that teenage audience because they will be aware of the impact on the environment.