Teen Marketing Strategies

Data from two new surveys will help inform teen marketing strategies. The data from Forrester Reseach and BIGResearch provide insight into online teen marketing strategies.

Forrester's latest survey of Canadian and US teen consumers (21-21 years of age) reveals that more than two-thirds of of them own PCs, DVD players, home stereos, mobile phones or handheld devices and a quarter of them own MP3 players and camera- or Internet-connected or phones. Teens are overwhelmingly gamers, with more than 90% owning a gaming device, and three-quarters playing games (both online and offline) on their computer.

Forester found that teens spent an average of 11 hours per week online, compared to the 8.5 hours their adult counterparts spent online per week. Nearly 80% of teens visit games sites, close to 50% visit movie web sites and more than a third visit music sites.

An effective way of reaching these teens, then, would be through in-game advertising, advergaming, or by advertising on gaming web sites.

Finally, Forrester found that approximately half of 12 to 21 year-olds get purchase advice from their friends and family, and 65% tell others what products they like. That's seconded by a BIGResearch survey of 18 to 24 year-olds that found that Word of Mouth was the most influential media for making electronic purchases, followed by TV, Magazines, and the Internet.

These finding reinforce the point I made in my last post about online fashion marketing that online marketing aimed at teens needs to incorporate the technologies with which they are fluent.