Echo Boom

As I lay in bed this morning listening to the news, I must admit feeling a little bit disheartened when I learned that many girls, some as young as nine years old are now using steroids. What’s more, these girls aren’t just using steroids to look more fit but as a means to control their weight... This is usually the moment where I put my hands in the air and say ‘what is the world coming to’ and my poor husband is left listening to me as I generally take the next few moments to go on an appropriate rant.

Today, however, I’ve decided to share a few thoughts, as the issue of body image is a serious one. This is a concern that is by no means new, yet what has changed is that kids are starting to worry about their bodies at younger and younger ages. What’s more, this issue, that is traditionally associated with girls, is now having an impact on young boys. Many ads found in teen magazines such as teen people, teen cosmo, or teen vogue show young tweens and teens who are impossibly thin and buff. This coupled with the specific tactics used by marketers who have spent significant time and resources mapping the inner workings of the tween landscape; leaves kids with even more social pressures and anxieties then ever before.

Alissa Quart, author of Branded also points out that there is a noticeable increase in the number of young boys who are taking steroids. One of the most popular body building websites for tweens and teens is teenbodybuilding.com. Here kids can read testimonials about other tweens and teens who have successfully ‘pumped themselves up’. If they like what they read they can purchase any number of suppliments such as creatine, anabolic flavones or various amino acid mixtures to ensure faster results for their workouts. Oh yeah and one other thing – after doing a bit of research, I found out that none of these suppliments have gone through any medical testing to assure that they are indeed safe with no side effects…

Ever heard of age compression? The first time I encountered this term was on a CBC documentary called “Buying Into Sexy’. After doing a bit of research I learned that this term began to circulate among toy manufacturers to explain a recent phenomenon that is leaving Barbie in the closet and Bratz in the lime light.

Put simply, age compression is "pushing adult products and teen attitude on younger and younger kids". This phenomenon has left the toy industry scrambling as the new peak age for playing with dolls and toys is just 8 years old. Kids are no longer kids, they are tweens and they are growing up fast. Marketers have already figured this out and they have spared no expense advertising directly to this demographic with over 1.2 Billion dollars spent last year on advertising to this valuable demographic.

David Siegel, author of the “The Great Tween Buying Machine” writes:

"Tweens are an extremely profitable consumer segment. The size, spending power, needs and target ability of this group presents a serious financial opportunity to today’s marketers.”

What's the result? Tweens are now in the driver seat and marketers are targeting them directly for a whole number of products... products that were traditionally marketed uniquely to mom and dad.

Below is a study I came across that I thought some of you might find interesting, put out by a Canadian marketing agency called Youthography:


Young Canadians' ascendant influence on household spending over the past generation has made many companies, across an increasing array of categories, start to change the focus of their marketing strategies - from the “gatekeeper” (mom, dad, primary care-givers) to the “gatecrasher” (the youth in the household who increasingly tend to call a lot of the shots when it comes to purchase decisions).

As expected, young people feel they exert significant influence on food purchases such as chips and salty snacks, soft drinks and other non-alcoholic beverages as well as take-out or delivery foods; they've been highly regarded experts in these fields for time immemorial.

However, take a look at the influence teens (and even some tweens) have on larger ticket items; two-thirds of our teen respondents feel they wield power on the home front when it comes to computer purchases while 6 in 10 feel they can sway home electronics purchases. Mom and/or Dad continue to have troubles programming the “whatchamacallit” and, as we become an increasingly gizmo-focused culture, are turning more and more to their younger, faster and more gizmo-friendly progeny for assistance and guidance.

Family travel is also becoming a very youth-influenced industry as parents strive to find vacations that can suit the whole family in new and different ways. Coming soon to an inbox near you; kid oriented packages and brochures from travel companies.

After many months of looking at various blogs, listening to my husband tell me about RSS feeds, to wrapping my head around the emerging importance of live links…. I have finally managed to peel myself off the couch and start my very own blog.

The focus here will be on a newly emerging and powerful consumer demographic that marketers are desperately scrambling to understand and cater too. A demographic that was said to influence 130 billion dollars worth of purchases in North America – that’s 20% of all consumer purchases – and who also managed to spend over 30 billion dollars out of their own pockets just last year.

Who are these influential people? Meet Generation Y or the Echo Boom Generation otherwise known as the tweens; the most powerful consumers in North America.

As a grad student, who is about to start my MA in cultural studies and critical theory at McMaster in the fall, I am both disturbed and fascinated at the impact marketing is having on our children. As a generation raised almost exclusively on the internet, they are savvier, more adept at using technology and have rightfully come to expect that everything is literally right at their fingertips, just one click away from an answer, a friend, or a purchase. Leaving the obvious question – just what are or rather what will be the effects?

Gone are the times that marketers believed that in order to target kids they had to aim ads directly at the mothers. Instead stores like Abercrombie and Fitch or Limited Too or Ever Girl have realized the value in targeting kids directly. Brands like these are no longer satisfied in promoting just their clothes, rather their aim is to extend themselves into as many aspects of kids lives as possible – and it’s working. As a result a new kind of media literacy is necessary. Not one that aims to tell kids about why products are bad because of the sweatshop it was made in but one that tells them how they are being used and targeted, one that empowers kids by informing them about the real power that they hold.

So there you go, my first entry, my first blog and the focus of my MA thesis. Hopefully this strikes a cord with some of you out there and I look forward to future discussions and updates.