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The preface is that it is very hard to market to the teen market because trends come and go much faster than companies and their marketers can react. But this is also a very lucrative market. So marketing companies spend millions of dollars just on focus groups and trying to identify trends. While
I think this is an sorry practice, I do have an idea to try to gain market information on this demographic.
Have an online trend stock market. Teens are able to get on and buy shares in certain trends. Trends are introduced as IPO’s by marketers/entrepreneurial teens for a certain cost. Teens are given forums to discuss trends and which ones are hot and so on. The profitability of trend stocks can be determined by outside factors such as polls, media attention, music sales, whatever. This profitability gives teens extra incentive to relate the trend stock market to the real world. The teens, who are the trendsetters, will be the first to buy in to these trends will be followed in succession by certain levels of wannabes and followers until the trend peaks and everyone jumps off and on to other hot trend stocks.
Marketers and the like can follow the ebbs and flows of these trends like commodities traders, something they may be more familiar with.
Election Stock Market
http://www.nytimes....hnology/05FRAN.html
Stock Market where you invest in politics. [Op, Jul 26 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]
deadmemepool
http://www.halfbake...m/idea/deadmemepool
Another way to apply the corporate populism to teen trends. [bookworm, Jul 26 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]
Merchants of Cool
http://www.pbs.org/...ontline/shows/cool/
Frontline did an extremely interesting show on marketing to teens. Their web site is excellent as well. [EvoketheTiger, Jul 26 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]
[link]
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"Teens are able to get on and buy shares in certain trends." |
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Uh, you mean "buy" as in "use real money?" If so, what's the incentive to buy a "share"? To whom would a teen "investor" sell it? |
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Why would anybody participate? |
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I think I have an answer for you, quarterbaker. The "teen stock market" idea sounds like an exact replica of the current pop-music business model. Young, cute, marginally-talented male and female "singers" are promoted and managed by 40-something business-school grads (the kids' own parents, in some cases), who know that their peers -- all parents -- will buy their own kids anything they want. Thus, pop music (N'Sync, Backstreet, Britney, Destiny's Child) only appears to be driven by kids themselves. It's actually a baby-boomer product, paid for by boomer parents. |
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So, quarterbaker, to answer your questions ... the incentive to buy a share is the same as the incentive to buy a CD: because everyone else is doing it. A teen "investor" would sell a share (bought with Mom's money) to another teen (paying with Mom's money), presumably. People would participate for the reasons that they now attend concerts: because Mom and Dad are paying for it, and because it's something that they -- and their parents -- can brag about later. |
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It's a timely idea, EvoketheTiger ... and a sure thing, besides. |
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Do I detect a degree of cynicism in that comment, [1percent]? |
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Um, no. The difference is teenagers will buy a product; they'll buy a popular CD in order to learn the songs, or see a popular movie in order to be able to talk about it later, or go to a concert for the music or the socializing. The rationale behind trendy clothes is obvious. There's nothing to brag about in the case of owning a pseudo-stock certificate; it's just a trading card, and trading cards haven't had general fad appeal since Garbage Pail Kids. |
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Not false at all; that's been my take on it since about Bay City Rollers vintage. |
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I'd buy stock in the stock
exchange itself. |
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The idea is half-baked because I don't know exactly what the incentive is. I imagine the stocks could pay dividends in some way, whether by how well certain products are doing in the actual marketplace, how popular they are in magazines, other media outlets, etc. These dividends could be paid by the premiums that marketers pay for raw data on the market, any ideas? |
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Might be easier to impliment as
a commodities market. Pokemon
cards, Brittney Spears posters
and anime cels have real world
value and could be traded like
pork bellies or coffee. |
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"...it's just a trading card, and trading cards haven't had general fad appeal since Garbage Pail Kids." |
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Um, Bookworm...is it comfortable under that rock? <grin> Do a quick search for 'Pokemon' and 'Magic: The Gathering' for trading cards that have something close to a general fad appeal...<One current, one faded...> |
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As a teen, I'd buy into it. My business and cultural interest are my incentives, though. (I'm a high school junior/senior soon going into social sciences at a Christian college.) I doubt most teens would enjoy this. |
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Yet, MOST teens don't buy Britney Spears CDs. MOST teens don't own a full A&E wardrobe. Companies don't need MOST teens. They need niche markets. And as a poster boy of this niche market, I'm fully behind it. |
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Phoenix, I love your idea -- a commodities market is ideal for culture. That would be stinkin' fun. Anyone want to look into this? I'll put some serious effort into something this incredible. |
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-- Decaf Silicon, http://decafsilicon.blogspot.com |
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as usual, i'd lie like george bush if the press ever decides not to be corrupt and exposes his contact with aliens and dealings with enron. |
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I always lie to corporations |
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except book publishers and supermarkets, i agree with them, they r0x0r. |
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