Reaching Tweens

One thing about going to a seminar like PurpleCowRoundup is that it forces you to examine what you're doing in a whole different way, and it creates discomfort to do that.

I once heard that a good way to design sidewalks for a university campus was to build the buildings, then wait for the students to wear the natural paths in between so that you would know where to put the sidewalks. Yet, in most campuses, you will see sidewalks that are rarely used, while certain patches of grass never grow due to the foot traffic. The same thing applies to promotions.

My fear is that this group of emerging consumers, starting with the "tweens," more than any other in history, will take control of their buying relationships rather than giving that control to marketers. Looking at "customer evangelism," which relies on unpaid referrals by a customer's trusted peers v. advertising where the marketer delivers the message that it thinks the customer wants to hear, requires a fundamental shift in our basic belief as marketers. In this case, the believe would be that we need to be all things to all people and that we need to market the same way no matter where we are. While for a McDonald's that is definitely a consideration, for most of us, we don't need to worry about going outside our niches, and we shouldn't.

Another big concept is that it's ok to offend some people. For anything to be remarkable, there needs to be something to talk about. If we don't offend our target market, we can be successful.

Today, our market controls us, we do not control our markets. Wanted to share some thoughts from my blog today related to this concept and a story you may have read today in your morning paper that appeared on reuters.com .

Reaching Tweens

Reuters today carried a story (Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage) about the "Tween" market. These 7- to14- year-olds are evidently not quite old enough to be teens, and too old to be called children. While the marketer in my nature admires the thought of segmenting demographics into this more granular differentiation, I have some concerns regarding the implications of the phenomenon it describes.

Think about it, the consumer marketers have so much perceived power over these formative consumers, that they are using product advertising to set the values of these young people. And, after what I learned last week about the decline of marketing as we know it, this quote,"Some marketing estimates put their buying power in the United States alone at $300 billion a year -- a lot of money to miss out on if you get the tone of a campaign wrong or go with the wrong role model" becomes rather scary from a marketer perspective.

Guess what, folks? The campaigns that the huge consumer brands are trying to get right all rely on the old model for success. If 83% of TIVO users skip all commercials and this age group has grown up with computers, VCRs and DVDs, is it a huge stretch to assume that they are the least likely to be swayed by ads long term? Doing things the old way means that the odds of a miss based on an interruptive campaign are magnified.

Also, I question the arrogance of assuming to orchestrate the choice of a spokesperson to this target market. This is the same thinking that lead to positioning Brittany as a virgin while gyrating provocatively on stage in tiny tops, as though this group doesn't have enough conflicting feelings about their emerging sexuality. And, by the way, what the heck does that have to do with Pepsi, anyway?

The most valuable piece of information in this article, regarding the success of the Olson twins, Mary Kate and Ashley, as celebrity spokespersons and endorsers is found almost as an afterthought. Why are they effective? First, all of their products are created based on what they would like themselves, and they are perceived by the market as peers, since these kids virtually all grew up together on TV. There is a perception of trust created by this relationship that nearly mimics that of a friend.

The reason for the success of promotions by the Olson twins is that tweens trust them and, thus, advertising takes on more of the quality of a personal referral. In mirroring their own preferences in the products they create and endorse, the twins ask the target market what appeals to them, rather than creating an image that tweens should aspire to emulate. They are credible customer evangelists for this segment.

Marketers who listen rather than manipulate will be those that the next generation will demand. For marketers who learn that lesson before the crisis hits, the rewards of listening and acting based on what they learn from their customers will be huge.

This is a pivotal time in the practice of marketing. The most successful future marketers will be those courageous pioneers like the Krispy Kremes and In-N-Out Burgers of the world who are willing to challenge the "doctrines" of marketing and blaze new trails based on where the customers, not the consultants, lead.