The Five Biggest Themes of What Teens Want West

I think Chet raised the bar with his fantastic summary of What Teens Want East. I'm really sweating this post! Hopefully it will be half as informative and entertaining if not nearly as clear and coherent (I only came up with five themes as opposed to 10!).

I was at What Teens Want West yesterday in Marina Del Rey (lovely place) listening to presentations, networking, meeting readers and feeling somewhat validated about a lot of what I've been blogging about for the past couple of years. The big theme was authenticity, which I've learned is the buzz word in youth marketing. Teens want it, heck, we all want it, but what teens want is largely based on where they are at developmentally, which hasn't really changed over time. They want their friends [all the time], they want a happy family life, they want to do well in school, they want stuff [lots of it], they want to show the world who they are and what they can do, they want mentors and adults they can look up to, they want to have fun and experience the rush of being young and alive and indestructable….

Here's my humble attempt at summarizing what the other experts in the room said:

The Basics
Authenticity
Letting Go
The Tribes
They Are In Their Own Totally Wired World

Newsletter readers: come to Ypulse.com to read the full post.

1. The Basics

The folks at Next Step (college prep mag) did a big survey of their readers and literally sang their results in between sessions. Of course their survey said their readers still want to read in the magazine in print vs. going all digital. I didn't get all of their stats. One I did write down was which states have the most teens:

Where the teens are:
California has most teens - 12 percent
Texas - 8 percent
New York - 6 percent
Florida - 5 percent
Illinois - 4 percent

Jim Taylor of the Harrison Group had the most complete profile - they just completed their teen study (and are selling it) - he whipped through his slides so quickly I couldn't get all the numbers. This is the third teen study Taylor has done so he talks a lot about things going up or down in comparison to the two previous studies. Here's what I got:

Money & Spending
* There are 25.2 million teens ages 13-18.
* They have more money than any of the previous generations (i.e. a $195 billion market)
- The average annual income per teen is $2,205.24 w/allowance and money from working it's $5500-$6K
- Teens work on average of 18 hours a week.
- 10 percent have their own credit card. Half are fixed limit cards.

* The top five teen purchases are:
- Clothes
- Eating out
- Automobiles
- Movies (making a big comeback)
- Cell phones

Politics & Religion
* They are patriotic — 87 percent say "They are proud to be an American" but not enough to enlist — 92 percent don’t want to join the military.
* In terms of their political views, liberalism is up. If allowed to vote, Democrats would win right now, but they are still very conservative about money, personal decisions, etc. (overall this is a very conservative generation)
* Religion and spirituality stayed solid if uncommitted

Friends & Family
* Friendships relationships are the center of every young person’s life - teens surveyed said they will stay close to their best friend for life.
* Seventy five percent want to be judged based on their character
* They saw a strong decline in cruel bullying (although the teens who will "get back at anyone who disrespects me" went up 15 points)
* I found this one fascinating: This generation of teenagers who would rather be teens forever than grow up (60 percent)
* They want their mommies. Moms moving up relationship scale – big gap between moms and dads. They said can’t talk to dad about anything. Sex, school, hygene. Fathers disappearing in a significant way. Stepparents get no respect.

Stuff: Shopping & Brands
* Role of celebs is to authenticate the validity of an experience. Not really setting fashion anymore…
* Materialism has rocketed as has the importance of wearing the right brands and shopping. Teens who love to shop is up 62 percent.
* Of the big box stores: Wal-Mart is number one, Target then Best Buy. But Wal-Mart is also down 13 points in terms of brand affection.
* Teens love clothes that tout specific brands/designer labels or types of music, that are iconic or have symbols and are trendy.

The top 10 teen brands are:
Sony
Taco Bell
Coke
Burger King
Target
Microsoft
Nike
iPod
McDonald’s
Mountain Dew

Armani is also way up as are luxury goods in general. The two top car brands teens said they wanted/aspired to were Mercedes and BMW

Jim's summary portrait of teens right now:

Teens are now their own heroes (don’t need to look outside) – they are big on self love. They know how to market themselves, enroll friends, are self congratulating. They are building their own hero mythology, creating their own legends.

They don’t want you to talk to them unless it’s on their terms. They only see the elevator going up and often don’t understand the downside. They are in their own universe, where they can write their own script on how to succeed.

Big business is the emerging villain and is seen as robbing the environment and screwing up the gasoline flow. Bush is now the personification of adult dopeyness. This generation’s motto: "You can’t buy me."

Shopping is now a social sport.

Boy-girl hook-ups are ticking down. The recent uptick in oral sex has led girls to want more friendships. There are now more boy/girl friendships vs. hooking up.

Teens want to be left alone. They want their freedom. They are cleaning up the mess of Boomers. They are moving left politically but not decisively. Electoral politics not an important experience for them — it remains an adult sport. They want peace in the Middle East.

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2. Authenticity

Christina Norman on authenticity
This was the BIG theme of the day. Christina Norman, president of MTV, gave the keynote and listed authenticity in her top five trends. She described this generation as being very spin savvy. They have grown up on the 24-hour news cycle and watched heroes become criminals overnight. They are comfortable with paradoxes, pick and choose ideology that’s right for them, and know there is always more than meets the eye. They are also masters of spin themselves (and can spin using websites like Termpaperrelief.com as simply being an efficient way to get work done.)

Norman emphasized that teens value the real thing (she cited the rise of Panic at the Disco), are embracing "old school brands" like Hershey who are creating retro Ts with old school logos, or playing Asteroids on XBox to experience the origin of the games they now love. They're into classic rock and 80s music (she mentioned how "Laguna Beach" revived Journey's "Don't Stop Believin"). They like models who look "real" (DOVE campaign, American Apparel models). She also talked about the risks of rampant commercialism invading social networks, of being fake (Lonelygirl) or of bringing blatant commercialism to a DIY community (P. Diddy and Burger King on YouTube). Basically, she said it's a time of experimentation for marketers - they have to see what breaks through, what connects and what will bring backlash.

American Apparel
There was a panel of folks from American Apparel, who basically embody a lot of authenticity in how they built and run their business. They are sweatshop free, they listen to their customers and incorporate their feedback into their designs, and everyone from the sewers to the CEO work in one big L.A. factory together. They advertise mostly in alternative weeklies. They are connecting with their customers in Second Life where they've sold 4-5K pieces of virtual clothing. My big beef with American Apparel is the "indie porn" approach to their ads. They claim they are not targeting teens (and that everyone in their ads is in their 20s), but teens are a huge if not driving force in their business, and the ads are as provocative as the old Calvin Klein ads. They may be more "authentic" than Abercrombie's catalogues (and Abercrombie does target teens), but I think they cross a line. And that, combined with their CEO's lascivious ways, stands in great contrast to everything they do right (which is a lot).

Christina Norman also mentioned that this generation of teens is growing up faster — porn is just a click away, and they've see it all. It's hard to shock them. Crude humor is the norm, sex is not as shocking and they are not titilated by skin anymore….This was in the context of needing to remember that kids are still kids. They are not mini-adults and that they are interacting with the world from a youth point of view (impatient, impulsive, teen rites of passage important, etc.). I think most teens will just roll their eyes at some of American Apparel's most provocative ads.

Jessica Weiner
Jess was a breath of fresh air — the conscience of the conference. She spoke about how real girls actually feel about themselves as a result of all of this marketing and impossible beauty standards. She used the following stats from a recent Dove Fund survey of girls from around the world:

- 1/4 girls surveyed globally would consider plastic surgery
- In the U.S., girls begin obsessing about their looks at age 13
- Eating disorders start on average as young as 12
- In Canada and the UK, and Saudi Arabia girls are dieting on average beginning at age 13
- 25 percent of girls ages 15-17 have avoided going to a social event b/c they felt bad about their looks, 18 percent avoided trying out for a team or a club

She also read emails from girls who are writing into the With Jess feature now on Marykateandashley.com and talked about the delicate dance of using a celebrity driven site to promote her message of self esteem and getting involved (becoming "actionists").

Gretchen Bleiler
Gretchen Bleiler won a silver medal in the Olympics for snowboarding — while I don't think she used the word authenticity, she basically kept talking about how important it was for her to choose sponsors who represent the lifestyle she actually lives and breaths, as well as the challenge of not alienating the core snowboarding community. She also mentioned an event she's helping to plan in Aspen — the first all-girls half pipe contest. It will feature the top women snowboarders from around the world and have an environmental hook (she supports Stopglobalwarming.org).

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3. Letting go

To me this was the big theme related to user-generated content at the conference. The implication was that if brands let go and let teens do what they will do around them or with them, they will be seen as being more authentic. The example of course was the Chevy Tahoe ad, and how Chevy left the negative ads people made about their SUV on the website somehow making them cooler in the eyes of young people. For some reason I don't think this reassured a lot of big brands.

This theme also came up in the context of brands advertising in communities where there is potential for unmoderated content (whether it's next to teens cursing like sailors, sketchy photos or copyrighted or "adult" videos). The response from folks on the online communities panel (Doppleganger, Scion/Whyville, YouTube and Tagged) was to go beyond the banner and choose participation vs. interruption (btw the teens from the closing panel also said over and over "no pop-ups and no text message ads."), create a more integrated experience, and if you're really freaked, make it one you can control (meaning a separate channel or space). You just have to realize that it's this aspect of these sites (Wild West, not censoring or "over-protecting") that bring teen eyeballs. Their message was of course: Take the risk. You want to be where the eyeballs are. Advertisers need to be participants and be ready to accept negative feedback.

A variation on this theme came up in the music panel — it was bascially the reality that there are no more gatekeepers. Fans are choosing artists whether they are with big record labels or not. Ashlee Simpson’s second record went platinum with basically no radio play. Communities now make music popular first. The panelists also talked about the huge shift from being an album-based economy to being a song-based economy. A great song or a weak song will drive fluctuations in an artist's popularty.

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4. The Tribes

Christina Norman called them identity tribes and said this generation is the most diverse group of teens in history. She mentioned the latest population story that predicted the 300 millionth American will most likely be born in L.A., and be non-white. She talked about how young gay people now have role models out in the media, and how many teens view traditional gender roles antiquated and wrong. They've grown up with more tolerance for diversity. She said identity tribes are more inclusive then cliques of the past. Part of this stems from making virtual friends that span geography, gender, race and interests. Teens are rallying around their passions and ideas, not "sameness." She also mentioned that teens will have identifiers only people within their tribe will know and pointed to canvas sneakers worn by a group of vegatarians. Tribes can form around music, ethnicity or specific issues/activism. She also mentioned that Think MTV will be developing its own social networking site for activists to be called Thinkubator (sounds a lot like YouthNoise).

Jim Taylor picked up on this in his presentation listing his version of the tribes and noting whether they have grown or shrunk according to his latest research. He spoke about these same tribes in 2004. Here's the refresher:

1. A-listers (used Elle Woods from "Legally Blond" as an image) They stand out by fitting in and doing well. The lesson at the end of A-lister movies is that they are not awful, they are tolerant. They feel it is a public service to vet info out and tell you what's "neat," they are celebrities in their own world. These are the teens marketers want for their youth panels, "it" girls, teen influencers, etc. He said this group grew the most, fueled by the shopping/fashion surge. He also mentioned a new feature of this tribe. They now feel like it's important to break rules and be naughty occasionally.

2. American Dreamers (used Pat Tillman, the poor football player that died in Afghanistan – disturbing!!!) They are squeaky clean followers, happy, self-directed hard workers, accepting, looking for a mission, willing to fight for what they believe in, highly religious. Lucky magazine is a tool that shows them what's hot now – it tells them how do I look good, do the right thing, make the right choice. He said this group went down one point.

3. Independent Thinkers (they used an image of Green Day) They are against things, vote or die, opinionated, not tolerant, leaders by rejection, tell people what’s dumb. Capacity to be irritating, sarcastic, try things first, anti-shopping but good at it, counter culture, anti-brand, anti-mass marketing yet able to mass market (a la Green Day) – To me – the independent thinkers are really the trend spotters and where a lot is "discovered" or "cool hunted" and then later bubble up to the "A-listers." He said this group stayed the same.

4. The JBs (can't remember what that stands for — Jim Beam?) – They party hard, are always dating, have weaker parental relationships, they want to be amused. He said this group went down one point.

5. Outsiders – the Columbine kids – they are very sad. Targeted for failure, prey for teachers, futureless, low self esteem…From a marketing standpoint – one quarter of teens are outsiders – they asked what about your brand can bring them a small piece of joy in their otherwise unhappy life (clue: not guns). This group also got smaller.

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5. They Are In Their Own Totally Wired World

We know teens are totally wired. What was interesting to me about what people said on this was a) how much of their time it's taking up and b) how it is segregating them from their parents and from what's going on in the world that may be outside of their specific digital interests.

Christina Norman said we all know they are tech savvy and have a native familiarity with the Internet. What's new is that they are reinventing online creativity, putting web 2.0 to use create, share and validate. Everybody is a producer. It's not enough to watch music videos, creating their own interpretations, share the video online, and put in front of your peers. The heart of this process is validation. Teens share their work and demand feedback — voting, ranking and leaving comments, video comments, comments on photos, etc. Traditional media content is no longer just our own, it's part of an ongoing dialogue. (imitators, homages, Snakes On A Plane).

Jim Taylor's research on this was really fascinating and frightening. Basically, he said that each kid has the capacity to manage their entire universe without inclusion of anyone in the family. Games/music/computer are all in teenagers' rooms, and 58 percent of teens now have locks on their doors. Because of social networks, IM, etc. teens have an astonishing degree of reach – their networks are often 500 people thick (more if they are also a producer with tons of subscriptions to their work on YouTube). Taylor said teens are now experiencing 72 hours a week of connected behavior. The outside world is not really existing. They decide what information gets through their network gates, and if doesn’t get through, it doesn’t happen.

He said music is also a barrier that separates teens from adults — putting on iPod and tuning the world out. Overall, connected activities rising and intellectual activites are falling (reading). Teens' passion for music is up 79 percent. Seventy-two percent are listening to or downloading music (more teens downloading legal music).

Sixty-eight percent of teens have a MySpace, Xanga or Facebook profile. He claimed that the number three issue/concern amongst teens is now online predators. This is a huge shift that has literally happened in the past year (the teens I interviewed for the book did NOT say this). Jane Grenier from Teen Vogue also announced that they are partnering with the U.S. Postal Service and the Center for Missing and Exploited Children to launch an internet safety campaign called 2smart4u that will feature Hayden Panettiere from Heroes (look for it in the Dec./January issue).

Taylor said the trend in video games is that characters becoming more and more real, and soon the concept of virtual reality will lose it’s meaning. He said teens are fine with in-game ads when it increases the net authenticity of the game situation. Hate it when it detracts.

TV viewing has gone down a half an hour – teens are constantly flipping channels. They are also in control of the remote. The only time they don’t flip is when they are watching their favorite shows, which has also gone down 10 percent.

Sixty-seven percent of teens 13-18 have cellphones. Texting is up to 39 minutes a day. Average kid has 5 kids they text with in class, in between and at the movies. Text messaging to vote on TV shows is becoming a huge problem for parents (American Idol) by causing obscene phone bills. He warns there will be legislative issues over texting.

Taylor claims that the constant sharing about what you're doing all the time via technology is having the effect of making all moments all equally important. He said there is slippage in the ability to discriminate about when it's appropriate to share or communicate, i.e, teens don’t know the meaning of the word "shut up."

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