Today’s Online Teens Equal Significantly Increased Sales!

Today’s advertiser is now rethinking traditional advertising methods.  The era of television redistributed advertising dollars away from radio, in order to chase advertiser’s target markets.  The emergence of online teen dominance is forcing a similar reorganization.  The following data helps explain why FTC’s user base can bring increased visibility and sales to your products, resulting in a much better bottom line.  FTC teens are “the influencers” who set the pace within the teen markets.  Whether you obtain exposure to our teens through the FTC Chat Service, or purchase air time on Radio B3, FTC Networks is the way you can influence “the influencers.”

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Teens Now Use Net More Than TV*

Teens spend more time online than watching television, meaning marketers looking to reach this lucrative demographic need to reorient their media spending to better reflect young adults' habits, according to a study commissioned by Yahoo! and ad agency Carat North America.

Today’s teen allocation of leisure time

 
The study found that the Internet has dramatically altered media consumption in this demographic. While the stereotypical teen used to be thought of as a couch potato, that image should now be altered to be a computer geek. According to Harris, youths spend 16.7 hours online in the average week, against 13.6 hours watching TV and 12 hours listening to the radio. The phone occupied 7.7 hours. Unsurprisingly, books and magazines not related to school came in dead last at 6 hours.

The study is based on a Harris Interactive poll undertaken of 2,500 teens and young adults aged 13 to 24 and focus group research by Teen Research Unlimited.

Wenda Harris Millard, Yahoo!'s chief sales officer, said too often marketers have not changed their media habits to match those of "Millenials" -- the name some have given folks in this age group.

"Marketers have been using the same media strategies since television became the primary medium for most market segments back in the 1950s," she said in a statement. "It's time to rethink."

Yahoo! and Carat Interactive commissioned the poll as a centerpiece of its "Born to be Wired" conference, held on Yahoo!'s Sunnyvale, Calif., campus (See ChannelSeven.com's coverage and photos). The aim was to provide a venue for marketers to discuss how to tap into the changing lifestyles of the Millenials.

In addition to speeches by teen experts like historian and economist Neil Howe, author of Millenials Rising, Yahoo! had six teens reconstruct their bedrooms at its offices, so marketers could observe them.

The study estimates the young-adult population in the United States is 47 million, wielding $149 billion in annual spending. For some time, marketers have focused heavily on this demographic, although the study finds that too often they have treated the disparate group as an undifferentiated whole.

Instead, the Yahoo!/Carat model neatly divides the Millenials into six groups, each of which has different goals and habits online. For example, the "now crowd" uses media heavily and the Net for specific goals. Meanwhile, the "alter-egos.coms" go online for acceptance and to discover new things.  FTC’s teens spend considerably more time online, because the “chat” environment tends to become a part of their lives, much the same as listening to a favorite radio station for earlier generations.  Therefore, FTC’s teens tend to be a hybrid of the “now crowd” and “alter-egos.com’ers.”

In all, the study found the Millenials turn to the Internet for its limitless possibilities for entertainment, information and community -- and for the feeling of control it gives people. Focus group participants complained that TV was too structured.  FTC’s teens fit squarely into this group, since chat rooms are inherently entertainment, information and most of all community. 

The following independently gathered statistics^† demonstrate the vast reach of today’s online youth markets.  FTC offers your business direct access to the core portion of the Generation Y Groups who currently spend $196 billion per year online.

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Marketing to Online Teens^‡

In its study of US teens online, Jupiter Research forecasts 22 million teens will be using the Web by 2008.

Jupiter conducted a survey of over 1,800 online teens ages 13 to 17, and analyzed the resulting data with an eye on how marketers can reach this demographic. Overall, Jupiter found healthy growth in the number of teens online between 2004 and 2008, which will increase from 18 million to 22 million. It also found that 17% of teens are "teen influencers," a group that is highly active online, style conscious, popular and exerts a strong sway over friends and family. As a group, Jupiter found that influencers are older and wealthier than the average teen, spend at least 8 hours a week on the Net (one hour more than the average).

FTC Offers Attractive Ad Space, not Weblogs

The ways in which teens use the Net may also make it slightly more difficult in terms of marketing. The biggest areas teens differ from adults when online is in their use of instant messaging (IM) and Weblogs. Yahoo!, AOL and Microsoft have all attempted to bring more advertising into their IM applications, but due to the spartan nature of the program and people’s aversion to intrusive advertising, ads are limited to small banner ads near user’s buddy lists and pop-up ads.

Weblogs are also tricky for advertisers, as many of them are sites owned or run by individual users. These sites are often highly idiosyncratic journal-based pages that are updated with no regular schedule and subject to the whims and opinions of the users. They are numerous and often mercurial, making it hard to zero in on a prime advertising opportunity, and some might not even accept advertising. All this combines to make them a less attractive opportunity for marketing.

The Chat Room Environment Has a Dedicated and Loyal Audience

FTC’s teens average 20 hours a week in FTC chat rooms, where they do everything from make new international friends, to obtaining help with their homework.  FTC chat rooms have become a part of their lives . . . the connection with some of their best friends.  Rather than school buddies sitting around a table working on homework together, today’s teens turn to the internet, and in the case of FTC’s teens, do so predominantly.  And in the case of FTC chat room users, many do their homework while listening to Radio B3, FTC’s internet radio station heard around the world 24/7!  How can you influence the influencers? Talk to a professional advertising specialist at FTC Networks, and let us introduce your product to the customers who really make a difference!

Click here to download an Acrobat copy
 of a Profile of Today’s Teens.

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* Adapted from: Brian Morrissey, ClickZ News

† Compiled by Cone Group for shop.org

‡ Jupiter Research