Whether they call themselves "Echo Boomers," "Gen Y," "Netizens" or "Millenials," today's young people share two common traits: they're affluent, and they're wired.
For marketers, kids represent a lucrative demographic with enormous amounts of disposable income and tremendous purchasing power.
The surfing habits of young people make them an ideal target group. In its 1999 study The Net-Powered Generation, Forrester Research found that young Internet users:
- Stay online for longer periods than adults
- Are more likely to access the Internet from different locations
- Participate in a wider range of online activities
- Are more likely to adapt quickly to new technology, and embrace its changes
Strategies of online marketers
According to MNet's 2001 survey Young Canadians In A Wired World, 99 per cent of kids have gone online, and 79 per cent have Internet access at home. Among Canadian kids ages 9–17, the most popular online activities include:
- Playing and downloading music (57%)
- Sending and receiving email messages (56%)
- Surfing for fun (50%)
- Playing and downloading games (48%)
Each of these activities presents opportunities to marketers, who seek to develop relationships with young people at the earliest possible age. A few online marketing strategies used to bombard kids with brand-related messages include:
- Words and images that make a Web site feel like a "place" or a "world"
- Friendly cartoon "spokes-characters" that encourage kids to identify with products and companies. (This works especially well when kids recognize the characters from television and toy stores.)
- Interactive games and activities such as colouring pages, crossword puzzles and word searches featuring brand products and characters
- Clubs that kids can join, and contests they can enter to win prizes
- Banner ads linking visitors to other commercial Web sites
- Brand-related "e-cards" that kids can send to friends and family
Similar marketing strategies are used to build relationships with older kids. Commercial Web sites for teens:
- Present themselves as being part of a teen subculture—no adults allowed!
- Use celebrities as spokespersons
- Feature bold graphics and attitude-laden content
- Build online communities through chat and email
- Feature the latest music, sports and celebrity gossip, as well as sophomoric humour and party talk
- Offer quizzes, contests and brand-related games
Even sites that promote products for adults use strategies like these to draw in children and teens. Alcohol sites are the chief offenders; but some gambling sites also use kid-friendly tactics to win the loyalty of the next generation of consumers.
Virtual communities on commercial sites
Surveys show that most young people view the Internet as a communication and socialization tool. As a result, companies offer young people "virtual communities" or forums where they can interact and talk with like-minded people. These communities can take the form of simple chat rooms, or more elaborate "palaces" where visitors can use avatars (pictures or cartoons) to assume visual identities when they interact.
Marketers value these "virtual communities" for a number of reasons:
- They attract a specific target audience.
- They bring visitors back again and again.
- They provide a place to promote and sell products, collect demographic and product-use information, and interact one-on-one with consumers. Marketers can also lace chat-room discussion with subtle promotions, or "plant" personalities to enliven talk or encourage visitors to disclose personal information.
Advergames
Marketers also see great opportunities in online game playing. Researchers say that when we play electronic games or surf the Net, we enter a "flow state" that makes us receptive to the images and messages we encounter. Traditional commercials don't work online—they interrupt that flow state. Games, on the other hand, are an ideal vehicle for keeping kids in the marketing loop. With their seamlessly integrated product promotions, "advergames" keep kids happily engaged with products and brands for hours at a time.
Advergames are an especially effective way to reach teenaged boys. Nine out of the ten most popular Web sites for Canadian boys ages 9–10, and six out of the ten most popular Web sites for ages 11–12, are commercial Web sites that feature product-related advergames.
Online spending
Creating engaging online communities builds brand recognition, loyalty and trust, but the ultimate goal is to get young people to spend money online. This accounts for the increasing presence of Web sites that aggressively promote online spending.
These sites haven't been too successful yet. MNet's study Young Canadians In A Wired World found that only 15 per cent of Canadian teens have actually made online purchases. (Most likely, this low figure is because they don't yet have access to credit cards.) To encourage online spending, some of these "teen com" sites permit teens to earn points that can be redeemed as discounts. Others provide alternatives to credit cards for Web purchases by teens, usually by allowing their parents to create debit accounts. But nowadays, more and more teens are obtaining credit: in 2000, both Visa and American Express launched credit cards for kids aged 12 to 18. So the future is looking up for e-marketers.
Legislation and guidelines
No Canadian guidelines specifically address electronic marketing to children. Instead, responsible kids' sites adhere to the Canadian Marketing Association's "Special Considerations in Marketing to Children" and, to a lesser extent, Advertising Standards Canada's "Broadcast Code for Advertising to Children."
In the United States, many sites for kids voluntarily adhere to the Children's Advertising Review Unit's guidelines for online marketing to children.
These guidelines require companies to let kids know when they're being advertised to. However, this can be a fuzzy area. A site may identify a banner ad as an "advertisement"—but not the online games and activities where kids interact with brand characters.
