AGE SUBCULTURES

1
AGE SUBCULTURES
2
Age and Consumer Identity

• General marketing strategies are often modified
  to fit specific age groups. Why?

• Age exerts a significant influence on identity
• Consumers undergo predictable changes in their
  values, lifestyles, and consumption patterns as
  they move through their life cycle
• Marketers need to know how to communicate with
  members of an age group in their own language.

3
Age Subcultures
What is an Age Cohort?
people of similar ages who have undergone similar
experiences.
How would you segment the Canadian market by age?

• Children
• Preteens
• Teens
• Generation Xers
• Baby Boomers
• The Elderly

4
Canadian Population as at July 1, 2002
5
Age Structure of the Canadian Population

• under 25 1996 34 2002 31.9
• 25 - 64 years old 1996 54 2002 55.4
• 65 years or older 1996 11 2002 12.7
• 50 of youth under the age of 25 or 4,831,650
  people reported an origin other than British,
  French or Canadian.

6
CHILDREN AS CONSUMERS
7
Children in the Marketplace
How do Children impact the Marketplace?

• Directly influence the spending of their parents.
• Indirectly influence the spending of their
  parents necessities
• also have substantial spending power and
  purchase several products

8
Parental Yielding
9

• In 1997 US Children ages 4 to 12 spent or
  influenced the spending of over 500 billion (
  includes necessities such as food, clothing and
  housing)
• spent almost 25 billion of their own money.
• Directly influenced 188 billion of their
  parents' spending
• indirectly influenced another 300 billion.
• average of 12,500 for each of USAs 40 million
  kids
• In 1998, kids aged 12-19, spent roughly 94
  billion of their own money.
• Children's spending has roughly doubled every ten
  years for the past three decades.

10
Children as Consumers in Training

• Consumer socialization process by which people
  children acquire skills, knowledge, attitudes
  relevant to their functioning as consumers in the
  marketplace.

11

• How does it Occur?

• observation,
• shared shopping experiences,
• direct experience
• Parental influence
• television

12
Consumer Socialization

• Influence of Parents
• Authoritarian parents - restrictive with a
  negative view about advertising.
• Neglecting parents - detached from kids and
  exercise little control over what their children
  do.
• Indulgent parents - less restrictive and want
  children to learn about buying.

13
How does Television Influence Children to be
consumers?

• Teaches children about a cultures values, myths,
  and idealized images.
• It's estimated the average child sees between
  20,000-40,000 commercials every year

14
(No Transcript)
15
Bullwinkle plugs Trix in 1960.
16
Cognitive Development

• Children differ from adults, and can be
  segmented on such psychological factors as
  cognitive development ability to comprehend
  concepts of increasing complexity, knowledge, and
  experience
• three broad stages of development
• ages 3 to 7 (perceptual stage),
• ages 7 to 11 (analytical stage),
• ages 11 to 16 (reflective stage).
• Each stage captures shifts in youths knowledge,
  development, decision-making skills, and purchase
  influence strategies.
• Kids cognitive defenses are not yet developed
  enough to filter out commercial appeals.
• At six months of age, babies are forming mental
  images of corporate logos and mascots.

17

• 2 Billion annually is spent marketing to kids
• New math
• "Will is saving his allowance to buy a pair of
  Nike shoes that cost 68.25. If Will earns 3.25
  per week, how many weeks will Will need to save?
• Channel One -- the advertising-driven, in-school
  TV network -- is in about 40 of the country's
  secondary schools. It got there by giving free
  video equipment to financially strapped schools.
  Schools give their students as an audience in
  exchange. Channel One now has daily access to 8
  million kids in grades 6-12.

18
In Oct 1998 ZapMe! Corp. provided 230 schools in
the USA with free computer labs with free
Internet access, computers, tech support, and
maintenance. In exchange, the schools must
promise that a student will use each computer for
at least 4 hours daily while a banner ad appears
constantly on the screen. The computers that can
monitor students' Internet browsing habits and
break down the data by gender, grade level, and
zip code. Another 6,000 schools have applied to
the program. With a large captive audience
schools offer an efficient, inexpensive locale
for polling large numbers of children. Opening
schools to marketers is also an attractive way
for schools to raise funds. What do you think
about Market research companies doing research in
schools?
19
Because children differ from adults in cognitive
development, knowledge, experience, and ability
to comprehend concepts of increasing complexity,
they do not react the same as adults to the
efforts of marketers. Consequently, serious
ethical issues surround marketing to children. If
you were a government official responsible for
protecting children from unscrupulous marketers,
what advertising guidelines would you set?
20

• Advertising Guidelines
• NO subliminal messages, i.e. messages below the
  threshold of normal awareness
• NO exaggeration of product characteristics such
  as performance, speed, size, etc. Results from a
  drawing, construction, craft or modeling toy or
  kit should be attainable by an average child
• NO advertising or child-oriented promotion of
  products not intended for use by children, e.g.
  drugs, medicines in pharmaceuticals, etc.
• NO advertising which directly urges children to
  buy, or ask their parents to buy, a product or
  service.
• A ban on the use of puppets, persons and
  characters (including cartoon characters) well
  known to children, to endorse or promote
  products, premiums or services

21

• If accessories seeming to be part of the purchase
  are available only at extra cost, this must be
  clearly said and shown. If toys shown together
  are sold separately, this must be made clear.
• NO advertising, except specific safety messages,
  can portray adults or children in clearly unsafe
  acts or situations (e.g. using flames or fire, or
  tossing food into the air and attempting to catch
  it in the mouth).
• Advertising cannot imply that owning or using a
  product makes the owner superior, or that without
  it a child will be open to ridicule or contempt,
  except in references to educational or health
  benefits.
• Prices must be clear and complete.

22
Assume your company manufactures and sells
bicycles targeted to the 10-12 age group. How
would you reach your target audience?
23
Marketing to Kids

• ratings for traditional Saturday morning
  television programming fell 50 percent from 1994
  to 1998.
• At the same time, radio became more popular
• Kids who say they like listening to radio a lot
• Age 6-8 45
• Age 9-11 70
• Age 12-14 80
• In many families, it is the school aged children
  who are the computer experts, rather than the
  adults.
• Web sites with special kid-friendly graphics
  may attract their attention to your company

24
Teenagers in the Marketplace
25
Teen Facts

• Teenage Marketing and Lifestyle Survey that
  children ages 12 to 19 spent more than 153
  billion in 1999, up from 140 billion in 1998
• Teens also spend 56 of his or her own money and
  28 of his or her parents money per week. Most
  of the money they spend is discretionary.
• Teens also influence substantial additional
  family spending by expressing their preferences
  for certain products or brands that their parents
  then purchase
• Teens are trendsetters both for their peers and
  for younger children who emulate them
• Teens are future consumers by winning the
  business of a teen, a company may be able to
  create a lifelong loyal customer.
• Teens are a growing market last estimate 29
  million expected to be 35 million by 2010
• Teens, in contrast to adults, are able to spend
  much of their money on discretionary purchases
  like movies, CDs, and electronic games

26

• How would you characterize teenagers in terms of
  their
• Needs
• Values
• Lifestyles
• Attitudes
• Interests

What are the implications of these things for the
marketing mix?
27

• Marketing to Teens
• Marketers view teens as savvy about marketing
  and likely to reject messages perceived as
  patronizing or trying too hard to be cool, so
  that marketing to teens calls for more subtle
  methods.
• Advertisers have found that teens have little
  patience for hype or pretentious ads and prefer
  ads that talk to them in realistic ways and focus
  on their actual lifestyles.

28

• age aspiration
• Children watch their older siblings, those ahead
  of them in school, older children in the
  neighborhood etc. Generally, youth aspire up in
  their consumer behaviour, trying to live a step
  or two ahead of where they really are.
• Marketers take advantage of childrens behaviour
  to link their strategies for marketing to the
  teen and tween cohorts by presenting older teens
  in the media, and desire aspects of their
  lifestyles and behaviours.
• For example, to reach 12- to 15-year-olds,
  advertisers might use 17-year-old actors, who
  will appeal to children their own age as well as
  to younger children,

29

• Direct Mail
• Because teens do not receive the volume of mail
  that adults do, they may be more attentive to
  direct marketing offers
• go where they are.
• There are a multitude of media and vehicles
  targeted at youth, such as cable music networks,
  teen-oriented magazines, teen-oriented Web sites,
  and lifestyle special events
• substantial numbers of youth also comprise the
  audience of media intended for a general
  audience, such as general circulation magazines
  or television shows that are popular with both
  adults and children.
• The Internet
• offering free samples T-shirts, CDs etc. teens
  who spread the word
• Teen sites or through email
• obtain consumer feedback while promoting
  products.
• One recent survey indicates that 2/3 of
  teenagers have either researched products or
  purchased products online.

30

• street or lifestyle marketing.
• involves making a product a natural part of
  teens lifestyles
• The goal is to reach teens where they hang out
  at concerts, coffee shops, arcades, and other
  gathering spots.
• Specific tactics include hanging posters, giving
  away CDs or T-shirts, distributing flyers or
  postcards with the marketing message, generating
  word of mouth.

31
College Students
32
College-age Children

• About 15 million in USA,
• Market estimated between 35-60 billion and 200
  billion
• Advertisers Spend 100 Million a Year to
  Influence Them
• Usually in process of forming brand preferences
  and shopping habits
• Current and future prospects as consumers. If
  your brand targets educated (and thus wealthier)
  adults, you should begin building a relationship
  with this segment now.
• The college student market is one of the most
  important segments most brands could capture, but
  also one of the most difficult to reach.

33

• How would you characterize College students in
  terms of their
• Needs
• Values
• Lifestyles
• Attitudes
• Interests

What are the implications of these things for the
marketing mix?
34

• Products
• Apparel items, particularly hooded sweatshirts,
  and brightly colored student supplies are the
  leading product categories at campus stores
• "comfort items" such as stuffed animals,
  candles/incense, music, gifts, snacks/beverages
  and health and beauty products are also importat
  products
• In a recent survey most are considering
  purchasing computer hardware and software, home
  electronics, jewelry, clothing and concert,
  theater or event tickets.
• Travel

Advertising to this age group has typically been
very frivolous, emphasizing things like personal
freedom and expression.
35

• Promotion
• Direct mail won't work. College students usually
  don't stay in any one place for more than a year.
  
• College students listen to the radio and watch TV
  less than any other segment of the population
• ads in the college magazines or newspapers on the
  bulletin boards around campus will work better.
• Best bet will be the Internet and on-line
  services. 35 of college students own a computer
  and even more than that have access to one. Find
  out where they are hanging out and post your ads
  there.
• Eight top college student sites
  Spring-Break-Party.Com, CollegeFreshmen.Net,
  CollegeSeniors.Net, Keg-Party.Net, Magorder.Com,
  Greekspot.Com, TheSemester.Com, and
  Foreign-Student-Union.Com

36
Baby Boomers
37
1960
38
1990
39
2020
40
Baby boomers, I.e. those in their mid 30s to mid
50s have had an important impact on consumer
culture? Why?

• They created a revolution
• Power in Numbers.
• in style, politics, and consumer attitudes.
• Consumers aged 35 to 44 spend the most on
  housing, cars, and entertainment.
• Consumers aged 45 to 54 spend the most of any age
  on food, apparel, and retirement programs
• one of the most affluent sections of the
  population, controlling over 7 trillion in
  wealth

41

• While their parents often took and held jobs for
  life, baby boomers are less inclined to do so.
• Baby boomers are both widely known and regarded
  as the Me Generation.
• Many baby boomers grew up with television as a
  constant companion, teacher, baby-sitter, and
  friend.
• Many baby boomers are idealists who see their
  mission as "changing the world." They are highly
  concerned with social issues and causes.
• Baby boomers married later, divorced more often,
  had children later, and often have families that
  live together only part of the time.
• A marketer targeting a message to the baby boomer
  segment should bridge images of a rich past,
  positive images of today, and visions of what can
  be.

42
In the near future, many members of the
Baby-Boomer cohort will be passing from the stage
in their life-cycle where they have dependent
children to where all their children have left
home to start households of their own. What
impact will this have on Baby Boomers lifestyles?
How will this large group of consumers fill the
void of empty nesters
Looking ahead as a market planner, choose an
activity, product or service, whose market demand
you think would be affected (positively or
negatively) by this life-cycle change, and
explain why this would happen.
43
The Grey Market
44
The Gray Market

• The Gray Market includes people over age 65
• It is the second fastest growing segment, only
  behind the Baby Boomers.
• By 2010, one in every seven Canadians will be
  over 65.
• Today there are more than 70 million Americans
  over the age of 50. By 2015 that number will grow
  to 108 million
• This group is more diverse than any other market
  segment, spanning those at the peak of their
  careers, to active, independent seniors, to the
  elderly in need of care.
• They control over 50 of all discretionary income
  and in USA spend 60 billion annually.

45

• Most older people lead more active,
  multidimensional lives than we assume.
• Their economic health is good and getting better.
• 80 own their own home.
• 15 are now on-line and when they do go on line
  spend more time than kids
• Their three favorite things to do online in
  order are
• Chat with friends
• Get information especially news and weather
• Buy products

46
What values motivate the Gray market?
47
What are some of the things to keep in mind when
tailoring marketing strategies to older adults?
48
Guidelines for Effective Advertising to the
Elderly
49
(No Transcript)