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Vigeos & Insights
USA TODAY By Marilyn Gardner | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor Parents turn to kids for tech support Children are helping Mom and Dad complete online purchases and other Internet tasks, potentially altering family dynamics. Like many students his age, 10-year-old Jacob Hanstein navigates the Internet with cool efficiency. When he recently wanted a pair of sneakers with wheels in the heels, for instance, he knew just where to turn. “We told him we were not spending $70 for a pair of sneakers,” says Jacob’s mother, Jill Hanstein, of Ringwood, N.J. “He’s adept at pricing things. He did […]
THE PRESS OF ATLANTIC CITY Published: April 28, 2007 By REGINA SCHAFFER Tommy Buchel is sleeping soundly in his bed when his vibrating cell phone, tucked under his pillow, suddenly wakes him. “RU awake?” the phone says. The message is coming from a friend. There is no emergency. “I get text messages in the middle of the night,” said Buchel, of Galloway Township. “I’ll have my phone under my pillow, and I’ll wake up at 12:30 or 2:30 in the morning. I’m like, ‘What do you need?’ They just want to talk.” Buchel, likes scores of other teens, is a […]
ORLANDO SENTINEL Published: April 23, 2007 By Susan Jacobson | Sentinel Staff Writer Zachary Grossman mowed lawns and did odd jobs to pay for his cell phone, which was glued to his ear for most of his 30-minute lunch on a recent day at Edgewater High. “I could live without it, but it would be a lot harder,” said Zachary, a senior at the Orlando school. Most young people apparently feel the same way. Several national surveys show that up to 80 percent of teens own cell phones, and nearly half use them at school. To guard against phones interfering […]
“Information on demand, in a very viral fashion, can occupy you for hours. I spend five-plus hours a day on a computer, read countless blogs, and can squander hours on YouTube, Wikipedia, or any number of engrossing sites. I’ve got a pretty busy and demanding schedule, and I don’t sleep much.” — Max Cho, 15, Shorecrest High School sophomore They’re a marketer’s dream — young, plugged in, consumer-driven and numerous. There’s just one problem with the so-called millennials: figuring out how they think. It’s a pressing question for anyone trying to court the huge demo known variously as echo boomers […]
Published: Sunday, February 18, 2007 By EVE TAHMINCIOGLU MANY of today’s teenagers are sitting on a growing pile of consumer electronics — items like MP3 players and laptops. And as they acquire the latest models, more of them are realizing that they can turn their older gadgets into cold hard cash. Consider Greg Stoft, 18, who lives with his parents in Fremont, Calif. He wanted to buy a $45 skateboard, but he doesn’t work and his parents recently decided to tighten the purse strings, he said. To get the money, he decided to sell his used iPod Nano on Craigslist, […]
Aired KCRA 3: Tuesday, February 13, 2007 With its 50 million subscribers, MySpace.com has become synonymous with teenage socialization and communication. The images on the site range from tame to tawdry. If you have a teenager, he or she probably has a profile.
Aired: Thursday, February 8, 2007 By Marnie MacLean News 8 WMTW FREEPORT, Maine — They’re only 6 years old, but Lucy and Gracie know what a cell phone can do and how to use one. Even babies seem to have a sense of how they work. News 8 spoke with five mothers in Freeport. All of them have young children, and all agree that when it comes to technology, kids are king. “They’re completely capable. There’s no learning curve,” Kim Wing said.
Published: November 13, 2006 By Gary Rudman If you want to reach teens this holiday season, make sure your messages are interesting and engaging, but even more importantly, simple and clear. Teens suffer from brain blur due to a proliferation of inputs bombarding them—from personal technology as well as marketers continually trying to sell them products and services.
Published: Monday, October 30, 2006 By Gary Rudman As Christmas approaches, most marketers and advertisers are focusing on traditional media to deliver messages to teens, a market segment that USA Today recently called “the top of the consumer food chain.” Though the “Flux Gen,” or “Gen Y,” has a disproportionate influence on family spending and more purchasing power than previous generations, teens have never been harder to reach. Having grown up in a digitally oriented world, far apart from the one inhabited by those of us making the media-buying decisions, teens have become a marketing enigma. To succeed with teens […]