Youth Marketing - Consumer Behavior and Attitude Towards Youth Marketing

Consumer Behavior and Attitude Towards Youth Marketing

Since the 1980s, the marketing industry has seen an increase in research as well as an increase in spending. The marketing industry's budget in 1992 was $6 billion and by 2003 this figure had risen to an estimated $15 billion in marketing efforts. According to Tim Kasser of Knox College, there is little that is known about youth marketing opinion. He states that since the late 1990s there have only been two large-scale opinion surveys conducted. The first of these surveys was sponsored by Center for a New American Dream, which consisted of 400 random parents nationwide. The second was sponsored by power exchange and took its survey participants from people who make a living off of youth marketing. The purpose of this survey was to assess a participant’s attitude towards a variety of youth marketing issues. Respondents to the survey were asked a range of questions regarding the ethics of youth marketing. The public opinion on youth marketing ethics according to this survey was mostly negative. An overwhelming 78% of respondents agreed that the current practices used in youth marketing were harmful to children, whereas 3.7% believed that the current practices were fine the way they were, while the remaining 85.1% didn’t believe that youth marketing had any ethics. The results of this survey shed light on youth marketing’s pros and cons. But this survey has shown that respondents clearly view the current tactics being used as potentially harmful and in need of structure. By the end of this survey, Tim Kasser concluded that a large portion of respondents to his survey felt that youth marketing morals were unacceptable and that they contributed to a range of youth-oriented problems. Also he found that marketing that took place in public schools was unacceptable and that governmental regulations should be put in place to prevent marketing groups from advertising to eight-year-olds. Even though this is just the tip of the iceberg, talks on youth marketing have been ongoing; there have been few changes to policy or law in regards to marketing to youth. The results of the survey done by Tim Kasser suggest that people are ready to change public policy and legal initiatives in regards to these issues.

Youth trends

On the other end of the youth marketing spectrum, you could say that the traditional definition of “youth” doesn’t really exist. This assumption was based upon consumer behavior in a study done by Viacom Brand Solutions International called the “Golden Age of Youth”. This case study was designed to focus on adults from 18 to 34 years old who primarily delayed their adult responsibilities in favor of staying younger in all aspects of life. According to this study, 16- to 19-year-olds are considered to be going through the discovery period. As people grow older they usually phase out of the discovery period and into the experimentation period, when they hit the age range of 20 to 24 years old. Usually those that don’t fit into the groups above are part of the golden category, which consists of anyone 24 to 34. Some of the key results that were produced from this case study were that 24–34-year-olds usually don’t respond to the same marketing techniques as teens and those that think so are being fooled, whereas in reality only 8% in the study were actually true teenagers. It also showed that the golden youth were the happiest out of all the categories and drawn towards expensive brands compared to teens. Based on the categories provided by Viacom and the results of the case study, it goes to show that over 52% of adults from 25 to 34 still have a lot of growing up to do.

Youth trends are part of an environment pertaining to information that we know as youth marketing and is rapidly evolving and is interconnected with the evolution of transmission systems and content quality. It is easy to give very little weight to these new trends that are evolving in this information environment, but these changes should not be taken lightly because it will affect how youth communicate and absorb this information. These changes can easily be shown through various media such as smart phones or social networking sites like Facebook, allowing youth marketing to occur on a sensory level.

Morals and education of marketers:

Youth marketing is under increased scrutiny by many public-oriented establishments such as government agencies, academia, and the media. The increased inquiry into the marketing industry has occurred because of the increased commercialism towards kids and marketing in schools. These are just a few of the ideas that have become more saturated in mainstream society. Recently in youth marketing there has been much information and misinformation on this topic despite the issue of youth marketing. In regards to the public opinion of youth marketing, one side that has not been represented is that of the youth marketing industry. This point of view is crucial to understanding the basics to making positive progress on issues related to youth marketing. John C. Geraci, who wrote the article “What do youth marketers think of selling to kids?”, gives an insight as to the mindset of those working in this industry by conducting an online polling. This polling consisted of 878 interviews each around 30 minutes. The interview covered topics such as educational background to ethics in youth marketing. According to the polling, those that work in youth-oriented careers are 92% more likely to have a four-year degree and less likely to have academic skills specifically for dealing with children. Most of these people also feel that the ethical standards are on par with other industries. But at the same time they feel that ethics can be a matter of intentions and not results. Usually companies will invest time in producing ad campaigns and products to make sure they are suitable for a youth-oriented market, which means that these ideas can easily be turned over because they are deemed not suitable. In addition, they usually spend large sums of money on market research to ensure products have some educational value for youth and are acceptable to those buying the products. Most ethical procedures in the youth marketing industry occur behind office walls and are usually not seen by the public, media, or politicians, which means that problems that arise with youth marketing don’t originate from the people creating the ads but are the result of multiple causes. For example, childhood obesity has not been caused by one ad or product brought out by a marketing company. But it is a health concern that has developed due to multiple factors, that influence how the public reacts to certain ads and products brought out by these companies.

Youth consumer behavior

The Internet has ushered in a new digital media culture that allows different forms of media to converge. What once used to be multiple separate devices such as a telephone, television, or computer are now able to converge as one form of technology. Smart phones are the perfect example of this hybrid technology that the new digital media culture has ushered in. As early adopters of new technologies, the youth in many ways are the defining users of the digital media that are embracing this new culture. "The burgeoning digital marketplace has spawned a new generation of market research companies which are introducing an entire lexicon of marketing concepts (e.g., “viral marketing,” “discovery marketing”) to describe some of the unorthodox methods for influencing brand loyalty and purchasing decisions." The research that is done on youth marketing quickly becomes outdated by the time it's published as a result of the growth of digital media as educators and health professionals continue to get a grasp on the situation.

Youth advertising is an important determinant of consumer behavior; it has been shown to have an influence on a youths' product preference and purchase requests. There are some scientists that believe studying youth consumer behavior is a negative thing because it impacts their beliefs, values, and moral judgments. They argue this because they believe that youth are more influenced by advertising messages than adults are. Advertising impacts usually are conducted by focusing on three specific effects: cognitive, behavioral, and affective. Usually cognitive effect studies are more focused on children's abilities to distinguish commercials from reality and their ability to understand the difference between the two. When cognitive studies are being done they will follow Piaget's theory to track the concrete development of children. Piaget’s theory is divided into stages; these stages are known as the pre-operational stage, and concrete operational stage. The first stage focuses on the age group of 2- to 7-year-olds whereas the second focuses on 7- to 12-year-olds. On the other hand, there are some scientists that believe youth marketing is a good thing because it helps to define who they are as a consumer. On that note, it has been proven that requests by youth for advertised products decrease as they mature (1,14,24,26). Youth-oriented audiences tend to become more critical about their purchases and less susceptible to media advertising as they grow up. Gender also tends to have a role in a youth's thought process when requesting an advertised product. In most cases, boys are more persistent in their requests than girls. Other factors that may co-determine children’s consumer behavior include socioeconomic level of the family, frequency and kind of parent–child interaction, and involvement with peer groups. These are just a few of the issues regarding youth consumer behavior and it is not going on in just our country but in other countries as well such as the Netherlands. The Netherlands is a perfect example to show how youth marketing is viewed in another country. In the Netherlands youth advertising may not mislead about characteristics or the price of the product in addition to this products aimed at children cannot have too much authority or trust amongst children. But there are loopholes in the way the Netherlands protects children from direct youth marketing. These loopholes usually question concepts such as “misleading”, “authority”, and “trust”.

Social responsibility and how it affects consumer behavior

Studies of social adolescents in social marketing media are usually concerned with activities that have heavy consequences. For example things like smoking, violent entertainment, alcohol abuse, and fast food consumption are all things that are negatively going to affect a young consumer's consumption behavior. Recently though the de-marketing of these harmful behaviors has started to occur slowly over the years, the focus of social and youth marketing has shifted from reinforcing positive behavior in favor of discouraging abusive behaviors. Since social and youth marketing are trying to head in this direction it indicates to the industry that youth marketing can be used for positive benefits. For example, rather than just a company associating itself with a non-profit or global aid organization is easy to understand. But youth more often than not want to actively get engaged in experiences that directly affect the world such as world hunger for example. Which indicates that companies should not just associate themselves with non-profit but actually offer their own non-profit experiences that young consumers can get involved with. Overall this idea and how it relates to youth marketing might seem a bit abstract but it potentially links to a young consumer’s behavior. This idea of creating cause-related experiences is important for the industry to take note of when it comes to youth marketing. By influencing a young consumer view of a specific company as a well known supporter of a positive non-profit can create brand loyalty beyond traditional brand utilities. This loyalty to the brand in a sense makes the volunteer or youth-oriented customer are aiding in the production of more loyal customers to the brand. In the long run, these non-effort opportunities can become embedded in a generation and become self-producing for the company as long as they maintain the events that cause consumer loyalty.

Real-world examples

In order to understand the public’s opinion on youth marketing, one must be able to understand the experiences that each generation has been exposed to while growing up. Generation Y is very similar to the baby boomer generation especially at different points in life. So it is essential to see what experiences each generation has experienced while growing up. But different formative experiences affect each person of Generation Y. For example, the events that made the biggest impression on members of Generation Y who graduated from school in 2000 were Columbine, the war in Kosovo, and Princess Diana’s death.