Echo Boom

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.