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Communicating With 12-19 Year Olds
Posted By: Vendita* on 9/7/2006 8:07 PM (CST) 250 Points
Hi everyone

I'm working on a communications/social marketing plan targeting adolescents (12-19 years). The objectives for the plan are structured around increasing levels of physical activity among this age group.

My dilemma is that, while I feel like I'm still in touch with the young generation (I'm only in my early 30s after all!), I'm pretty sure that the 12-19 year olds won't see it that way!

So, I'd like a bit of advice please around the most appropriate ways to communicate to adolescents. My thoughts so far are: texting (SMS), web-based, pod casting, radio, and tv.

I'd appreciate any information or guidance on the above, especially if you've had experience with this sort of thing!

Many thanks

Posted by: Stafford Member Response
9/7/2006 8:33 PM (CST)
Two pieces of advice:

1) Go for what you think appeals to 17-25 year olds and you should hit the right target.

2) I find that "kids these days" are more serious and global-minded than "we were." Oftentimes, they like charity work, volunteering, considering the big questions of the world, as opposed to the mallrats, jocks, burn-outs and eggheads that our generation was.

I'd run an essay contest at a couple of local high schools... present the question to them "how do communicate with 12 - 19 year olds to get you to exercise more?" Offer a $500 prize to the winning essay.

G'luck!

- Stafford
 
Posted by: genemunro* Member Response
9/8/2006 1:20 AM (CST)
I'm not looking for points here, all I have to say is that Stafford is exactly right. You may need to splinter your efforts to reach the 15-19's though, as there are still many different social groups within that demographic, eg: Emo, Straight Edge etc etc
 
Posted by: W.M.M.A. Accepted Answer
9/8/2006 6:57 AM (CST)
12/13 year olds know what they want.

As I tell my customers, to know what you clients want....ask them.

A group of 12 year olds approached me two months ago, before school started...with an idea for a business.

They developed the marketing plan and business strategies, presented the concept...everything. They asked me to be their counselor, but all decisions are to be made by them...good of bad.

They said we succeed by ourselves and fail by ourselves...but, we won't fail...this is a great idea.

Also, they presented a funding plan that included my company fronting the web and graphic costs, to be repaid as revenue comes in.

I asked why they were "doing this"? They responded, we want to help our parents to pay for our college. If we can pay for it ourselves, they can retire earlier.

And, if this works, we can graduate from college and already have a company, and a job.

THESE KIDS ARE BRILLIANT. When I was 12, I could barely chew gun and ride my bicycle at the same time. As I recall, I did crash a lot.

The entrepreneurs of tomorrow, are literally opening their businesses....TOMORROW, and they will be competing with nearly every person on this forum, very soon.

Get a group of kids together...talk with them. They will provide you answers.

Randall
WMMA
 
Posted by: sash* Member Response
9/8/2006 8:29 AM (CST)
the essay idea is good. in fact you must also go for this one!

you can get more data by conducting a survey, a research by making a questionnaire in which you ask those type of questions which you want answers to, like do they enjoy sms, how frequent they sms, or how valuable is their i-pod or PDA to them, what functions they might want in them so on.

you can arrange to visit colleges, universities, even go out to high-traffic areas where 12-19 years hang out the most, malls, cafés etc.

Sash
 
Posted by: Frank Hurtte Member Response
9/8/2006 8:54 AM (CST)
i definitely agree with the aim for 20 year olds if you want to hit the early teen target.

As far as communicataing... I suggest you cruise through some of the young bands and entertainer websites. Not only do these people know the trends in many instances they are setting the trends...

Check out www.theclickfive.com
 
Posted by: darcy.moen Accepted Answer
9/8/2006 9:08 AM (CST)
I have a client running a similar project: http://www.checkmatepanels.com/youth/
You two must be twins seperated at birth because your question and project mirrors a couple of the projects currently running or very recently ran. Dean runs the focus groups, crunches data and writes the reports, while my firm builds the data gathering web sites that enable the focus groups to operate online.

Dean has recently been working a youth project nearly identical to what you describe. You might consider calling him and talking to him about the data he has gathered from our work together. I can't go into details publicly, but I can assure you...your project and the one Checkmate recently ran would have some strong parallels. Our client owns the data, but you may be able to work something out to share results....its always nice to compare data between regions...so you and our clinet may be better off for it. Never hurts to ask, right?

Dean is also running a focus group and youth panel to discover what methods of communication youth today prefer. We are running a customer panel online for a large firm as well as Dean has his own panel. I can't release the exact findings of our work together in this public forum, but again, contact Dean and ask him about his white papers he offers. He has some reports he could sell you that would answer most of your questions.

But to answer your question a bit...I'll toss in what I've learned on my own.

Kids respond well to kids. There are bands of ages that get along well. A three year spread is about the maximum you can have in any age group. So, hiring a 20 year old to work with a group of 15 year olds...forget it, your 20 year old is out of touch with the group, and the 15 year olds can't identify with the older one. So, to gather meaningful data from such a group has some challenges (oh don't I know).

You are on the right track with your thoughts about texting (SMS), web-based, pod casting, radio, and tv. I wish I could tell you what I know, but my client confidentiality agreement and personal morals dictate that you'd be better served contacting Dean at http://www.checkmateresearch.com about the research he has done in this field.

Darcy Moen
Customer Loyalty Network
 
Posted by: Nadia Member Response
9/8/2006 2:22 PM (CST)
www.myspace.com

Everyone and everything is being marketed on MySpace, from movies to dog groomers. Even movie characters have their own site. Create a profile and start adding people as friends. You can send bulletins to everyone on your friend's list, create a group, even search for people who have physical activities listed as an interest.

Bands, comedians, singers, etc are all turning to MySpace as a marketing tool rather than websites. It allows them to get a little more personal with their fans, I think. An excellent example of someone using MySpace to gain popularity is Dane Cook. There's a few articles out there about how he used MySpace and his website to build a fan base before any other medium.

ps...pretty much everyone I know has a MySpace. If you want to tap into the 12-19 year olds, go there.
 
Posted by: beckyc Member Response
9/8/2006 3:17 PM (CST)
I applaud your objectives, as we definitely need to get our youth moving!

As a mother of adolescents and a consultant to companies marketing to adolescents, one of the best ways to reach kids is through competition. The essay idea is great, but to keep in the spirit of your project, how about a sports competition? Aligning with local professional or semi-professional sports teams will get the attention of the adolescents, as many of them (both boys and girls) are spending their time watching sports.

Another idea similar is to use some kind of video gaming to communicate to them. This is becoming a very popular marketing tool for companies who want to reach out to this age group. You could come up with a web-based game of your own (expensive!), or you could align with a video-game developer or publisher (one who markets sports games would be great). It would give you lots of visibility, and it would be good PR for the video game company (they get bad press about lazy gamers contributing to youth obesity).

Have fun - this is a great group of people to work with!
 
Posted by: Stafford Member Response
9/8/2006 6:55 PM (CST)
Ooooh! BeckyC - very clever.

How about a DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) contest? Video games *&* movement
 
Posted by: almadalla* Member Response
9/9/2006 2:10 AM (CST)
Stafford is right, but target the innovators in that category, they are the role model for the younger generation, do not offer prizes because innovators tent to run away from any marketing activity, they do exactly the opposite of what marketeers want them to do. If you hit in that category than you get all the early adopters and the laggards. Remember organizations are spending million to get your category of interest, just because it is the most rewarding, but never under estimate their personality. Another issue is related to their loyalty, rarely they become loyal to one product, unless your product is able to renew itself continuously.
 
Posted by: ShannonD* Accepted Answer
9/9/2006 4:27 PM (CST)
I've worked with students almost 10 years of my life. I've learned many, many things about what drives and makes students function. As a former student minister, Jr. High and High School teacher, and Basketball coach, I'll give you my own personal pointers.

Students are very difficult to communicate with unless they have they're own reasons. If that is to be a winner or starter on a team, get good grades, not get in trouble, make friends, be liked, or because it's just something they enjoy.

I find that unless you can get their friends to do it, usually they won't. When I was a coach, everything was done as a group, for reasons that would make them better. We trained for two months without even touching a basketball! Guess what, we won state in J.V. boys and Varsity girls. I didn't win, they did, because their motivation was to listen to win, and that is exactly what they would do.

When I was a teacher, class work was the joy of very few students. They paid attention because parents had expectations, they didn't want to get in trouble, they wanted to go to college, or they just really liked the subject. Same applies to when I was a minister. The reasons students go to church are almost the same, but when it came to events. I had the most kids show up for what was seen as fun activites. Bowling, paintball, mazes, lock-ins with fast paced games, etc.

Why did I share all of this? Because if you want to get kids attention, you are going to need to use the active kids to get the non-active kids involved. They are your leaders who motivate the group, even the kids who don't play sports follow those who are strong, who love what they are doing.

The question you are facing is how do you tap into the leaders of your market focus to increase that physical activity. Sure, there are all kinds of cool ways to tap into teens. I would agree the internet is one of them. Myspace has been huge, but it's because the cool kids loved it and everybody followed along. Instant messanger, playstation, and Ipod's were all thanks to the cool kids. How did they tap the market? They tapped the mall, Wal-mart, Target, sporting events (including extreme sports), and were sponsers on teen favorite channels. How many times have you watched a team sport game on tv, MTV, spike TV, Disney, Comedy Central, E!, or ESPN and not seen a commercial focus that is strongly on teens? Not often I'm sure.

Depending on how you organize your event, I would strongly sugguest local radio and TV unless you have a cable budget, but I would focus on booth at Wal-mart, the mall, movie theaters, swimming pools, paintball arena's, skateboard parks, and athletic events. You do that, you'll get their attention. That is where I advertised for kids to come to my events, and I would triple to sometimes even quad-ripple my attendance and meet kids I've never heard of before who just enjoyed meeting me or liked my flyer or theme. If I said their would be a dirty events, and charge $3 for stuff to use, lol, I ended up having to go buy more before the night started because of attendance. All for a great time and many laughs.

I used to take my kids to a camp every summer called "Crosspoint" It was built around 6th to 8th graders and it was a christian sports camp. They loved it! We had to go every year and to this day they still go every summer. It's all sports, all kinds, and games. It's hard work, but they like to go to tune up on how others play or practice. The cheerleader get new routines, the track stars test their speed, the football players get new ideas, the baseball players learn new throws and catches, the tennis players new hits, the swimmers new strokes, the basketballers new shots and drills, etc. They love to compete in front of each other. Losing isn't bad if they tried, and if everyone is nasty, then nobody is trying to look cool. Give them a nasty, crazy event they can all do, and every single one of them will line up. Can't explain it, that's just the way it works. Replicate it. Safely!

Tip: If you say exercise or physical activity to a student, they are going to automatically be turned off. Sounds to much like work. Make it all sound like fun or a game, and your good to go. Kids love high energy cheerleader type people and speakers. Give them a person to work with that has a great sense of humer, a little spaz, and a big smile and kids fall in love every time. Make it a good looking guy or girl, and they are addictied. Motivators make kids move, but they need to work they crowd as well as the individual. Kids wanna see what other kids think. It's always a lot more funny to laugh with a friend, run with a friend, and play with a friend because it makes things that much better. Get them in groups and you'll have a winner every time. Get the popular groups like the football team, cheerleading squad, or in some schools, the band to sponser you, and you'll have the entire school curious quickly. Do that at every school across the nation, and you'll have a big hit and lots of communication. Go to them, find their hangouts, and get them to react.

I hope you can use some of this chaotic typing of mine to help you out!


Sorry I rambled,

Shannon D :)
 
Posted by: Vendita* Author Response
9/11/2006 9:55 PM (CST)
Wow - I'm hugely impressed with both the quantity and quality of the responses!!! Thank you to everyone who provided ideas, they are all worthwhile.
 
Posted by: auro91pe Member Response
9/17/2006 7:40 PM (CST)
HI,
Well. I just think that the best approach to almost any group is trying to stand at their level.
In the case of teens will be to discover which is the role model of the group, and from that point, to develop and strategy to involve them in our theme.
I don't like to work with youth, but one day I was challenged with a project to develop self esteem in a group from 13 to 17. I was simply scared. But trying to apply my principle, I involved them in games, music and dance. Doing what they like sharing stories related to their interests and playing special games with them at the same level, even it was monitored. permitted me to get into their lives and they learned that they can trust me and then they were able to follow my project. It was a great experience. I use to apply this technique to different projects. We always learn with fun.
Hope this will be useful to you.
Aurora
 


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