Register Here : Online Marketing to Generation Net

By T. Eve Greenaway, WireTap. Posted January 29, 2002.

Giant mergers, corporate buy-outs and large-format advertising. It's been a chaotic year for the Internet. But that hasn't stopped teens in America from spending a lot of their time online. If anything, the number of teens with regular access (now at seventy five percent) is expected to go up, as wireless technology becomes increasingly more affordable. At the same time, recent changes in the digital landscape have affected what teens are doing when they log on. Many of these shifts are being driven by commercial forces and will likely have an impact not fully visible for years to come.

If the Internet is being reduced to a marketplace, then it is young people who will shape and be shaped by its increasingly commercially-driven architecture. Teens and young adults will come of age taking the Internet for granted, as their parents did television, as their grandparents did telephones. So it is these new "net natives" who must be vigilant in their participation online, lest they end up buying into a process meant to train and prime them for a life of passive consumption.

	Involve youth superficially in the shaping of their own image, say the most savvy marketers, and you'll have them hooked. Give them a sense that choosing a cell phone color is an important part of their identity and you'll have them.

For corporations, getting teens to talk is the key to a good marketing strategy -- not about just anything, but about themselves. Involve youth superficially in the shaping of their own image, say the most savvy marketers, and you'll have them hooked. Give them a sense that choosing a cell phone color is an important part of their identity and you'll have them. Meanwhile, count on their limited access to real cultural participation. If you've seen MTV's Total Request Live, you understand.

It's a complex tactic. But according to the new study by the Center for Media Education on teen culture online it's a pervasive one. The study, released in December, was called "TeenSites.com: A Field Guide to the New Digital Landscape." Rather than focusing on the impact of the Internet of teens, the study is meant to be a map of what is available for them online.

And what a map it turned out to be. Compiling existing research on the Internet as well as on technology and adolescent development, "TeenSites" highlights a number of noteworthy trends and statistics, focusing on the commercial aspects of the Web and their alternatives. It goes into the economics behind some of the most popular teen web sites. It discusses the way many have shifted their business models in the last year, as well as the ripple effects these shifts are expected to have on teen culture. The study also looks at the forces shaping young people's social and political engagement online, and makes a number of recommendations for public policy.

Perhaps most noteworthy is the way Teensites brings to light market research tactics that exploit young people's innate desire to express themselves.

Because teens have the energy and potential to be such active members of our culture, its disappointing to see them get channeled into these subtle yet manipulative research tools. Once she is hooked on online participation, even the most savvy teen is vulnerable to the system of gathering and quantifying personal information.

The fear here is that the Internet may cause teens to believe in their power to effect product development before they'll believe in their power to effect the world. Even worse, they may begin to equate the two.

"Learn About Free Stuff, Offers and Contests"

Surprisingly, most teens are not going online to buy anything. In fact, the study reports that only 2% of teens are logging on with that intention. But most companies are focusing on teens because they want to appear, at the very least, to value their opinions. Also, teens have sway over their parents' spending. The authors of "TeenSites" put it best when they say that the web enables marketers to create "a constant feedback loop that monitors not only the interests and tastes of teens, but also some of their most intimate communications and patterns."

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