Market Research at Branding Strategy Insider

You may be surprised to learn that close to 80 per cent of all brands purchased by parents is controlled by their offspring. But what will undoubtedly startle you are the figures that show a whopping 67 per cent of all car purchases is also determined by the children of the home – and not by the parents. Tweens (8- 14 year olds) are an increasingly powerful and smart consumer group, which in 2002 alone, spent and influenced an astounding €1.88 trillion.

Did you know that an average British kid between 8 and 13 years of age is exposed to 22,000 television commercials a year? In fact these kids are exposed to more than 300,000 commercial messages each year if we include radio, television, print ads, billboards, and the Internet. These figures are from project BRANDchild – the world’s largest study on tweens and their relationship with brands.

So it’s not surprising that research from the BRANDchild study indicates that on average, kids are 40 per cent more difficult to communicate with than adults. The challenge then becomes how to cut through the clutter in order to gain the attention of this generation, while at the same time ensuring that your message is perceived as relevant, honest and on the right side of the law.

1. For you and me, there are three communication channels: offline, online and wireless. For kids there is only one – a combination of all. Kids don’t distinguish between chatting online, text messaging on the phone or watching television – it’s one and the same thing. It is important to bear this in mind when you develop your direct strategy Direct shouldn’t be seen as classic direct mail or just magazines, it should include every channel which creates a direct relationship with kids – covering everything from chat rooms to product placement in computer games.

2. Why? Because today’s kids expect to see an integrated flow across all channels. The BRANDchild study clearly shows that brands, which only use one, channel – or maybe use several channels but don’t create a synergy in the message between the multiple channels will lose. I call this Domino Branding. If all the bricks are correctly in place, they will lead to a chain effect of events. Each one an independent entity although totally dependent on the whole. Leaving out one brick may destroy the total outcome.

via brandingstrategyinsider.com

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