Thus, advertising to youth would stimulate spending on immediate needs but it also stimulated spending trends across the consumer's lifetime. Stimulating the youth market early in the 20th century helped create the consumer culture that persists today.
Another reason to market more aggressively to the youth market was to capitalize on changing social values. Youth became a more distinct and more politically empowered social group during the 20th century. The word "teenager" had only been coined in the 1940s, underscoring the fact that youth culture was a 20th century phenomenon. Their input in family affairs grew more pronounced, especially as women had fewer and fewer children as "fewer children increases the influence of each child," ("Targeting the Youth Market").
More empowered youth would later lead marketers to capitalize on the "nag factor." Children exposed to media advertisements start to nag their parents, which vastly increases sales (New American Dream). The nag factor reflects the overall success of the consumer mentality that first sprouted with the baby boomers generation. Throughout the 20th century, increasing numbers of children were shopping on their own, too, making their own spending decisions. They had become like a dream demographic: young people had money to spend; power to influence their parents' and their peers' spending; and would continue to spend for the rest of their lives. Captivating the youth market became one of the most important features of successful marketing campaigns.
Advertisers started to speak directly to young people, in their vernacular and on their level in order to capture this valuable demographic. Knowing that young people set trends, advertisers also started to generate feedback loops by watching how trends emerged in youth culture, mimicing those trends in product design, and later developing global consumer trends around specific products or brands. The advent of online shopping and shopping via cellular phone has increased the trend in youth purchases too. Technology has...
One of the reasons advertisers increase their focus on the youth demographic is that young people influence what their parents purchase. Beyond the nag factor, teens, tweens, young kids and toddlers can make overt suggestions to their parents based on what advertisements they saw on television. Young people can influence their parents' tastes, telling mom or dad what happens to be trendy or not. When advertisers reach young people, they indirectly reach their parents too.
Finally, Americans are obsessed with youth. Young people are a powerful consumer demographic because During the last 100 years, advertisers have increased their focus on younger age brackets, viewing youth as a dream demographic. Young people set consumer trends, influencing definitions of "cool" and making meaningful suggestions to their parents and peers. The consumer trends they develop early in life may also become lifetime spending habits, either as brand loyalty or as more global consumption values. Young people, in the marketer's eye, symbolize a lifetime of consumer spending and consumer spending habits.
Works Cited
Brailsford, Ian. "History Repeating Itself: Were Post-War American Youngsters Ripe for Harvest?" Retrieved April 3, 2007 at http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:hnYEbFPpPEsJ:www.kingston.ac.uk/cusp/Lectures/Brailsfordpaper.doc+history+repeating+itself+brailsford&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ca&client=firefox-a
New American Dream. "Thanks to Ads, Kids Won't Take No, No, No, No, No for an Answer." Retrieved April 3, 2007 at http://www.newdream.org/kids/poll.php
Targeting the Youth Market." Retrieved April 3, 2007 at http://www.sba.gov/gopher/Business-Development/Success-Series/Vol7/youth.txt
