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 […]
Vigeos & Insights
INDIANAPOLIS STAR FEATURES – INDIANA LIVING By Courtenay Edelhart A teen’s lifeline: When should parents cut the cord to new gadgets? Michael Harris was studying in an East Coast technology program for teenagers last summer when he called home to Indianapolis to plead for a laptop.
Published: Saturday, April 8, 2006 By Ylan Q. Mui Washington Post Staff Writer Six-year-old Scotty Lefkowitz and his big sister, Gwen, 11, had all the makings for a perfect lemonade stand. Until their neighbors came along. The siblings had set up a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies, fresh strawberries and a cold pitcher of lemonade on a table underneath the cherry blossoms in front of their home in the tony Kenwood neighborhood of Bethesda. Their laminated signs flapped in the warm spring breeze: $1 for lemonade. But a few houses down Dorset Avenue, the neighbors were selling for just 25 […]
Published: Saturday April. 08, 2006 By BUZZ McCLAIN Special to the Star-Telegram “Dad, I want IMMMMMMMMMM!” The note was from my 11-year old daughter, via e-mail, sent from her mom’s laptop in the next room. It’s how the modern family communicates. Not really, but Samantha knew it was a sure way to get my attention and get me working on it. Things sent by e-mail get done, just as surely as putting a grocery item on the refrigerator marker board means it will get purchased on the next trip to the store. IM stands for Instant Messaging, and it’s been […]
By Gary Rudman Edited by Becky Ebenkamp In an environment of accelerated change, where the evolution of technology has become the primary force behind pop culture, teen life is shifting faster today than at any other time in history. Modern technology is reprogramming today’s teenagers, who grew up playing with integrated circuits alongside their Legos. The pace at which new must-have technologies are being introduced into popular culture demands that teens upgrade their personal operating systems at a breakneck pace.