Marketing to the "Rugrats Generation" (7/5)

Marketing to the "Rugrats Generation"

Marketing to the Rugrats Generation is not child's play. Discover successful strategies, as well as your responsibilities as a kid marketer.

Kids may be small in stature, but they have a huge impact on the U.S. economy, spending an estimated $24 billion a year of their own money and influencing another $188 billion, according to a study by Texas A&M University. And that's just while they are kids. When you consider the lifetime consumer potential of these young consumers, it makes good sense to get 'em while they are young.

For example, research indicates that by the time a boy is eight years old, he knows the brand of car he wants to own, as soon as he can afford it. For this reason, General Motors (GM) has dedicated 10 percent of its U.S. marketing budget to the under-16 audience. GM is building its brand with children by investing money in educational programs, as well as establishing a presence in places children frequent, like Walt Disney World. Among the theme park's newest attractions is a racetrack that allows kids to take a GM sportster on a simulated test run in a controlled environment.

"That is a very smart marketing ploy because it makes GM seem like a more exciting brand to kids," says Lynne DeCew, head of Imagination Youth Marketing (IYM), a division of Palmer Jarvis DDB, a communications firm based in Vancouver, British Columbia. "They are not buying the car today, but they'll influence the car that their parents buy, and in another 10 years, they will be buying their first car."

But marketing to kids is not child's play. Members of the Rugrats Generation have been inundated with marketing messages since the time they were born, and winning their discretionary income requires an honest, yet sophisticated approach.

Understanding Emotional Drivers

One of the first mistakes marketers make when targeting the Rugrats Generation is not understanding the child's heart. Experts say learning what children's emotional drivers are is critical to the success of any product or service aimed at kids.

"If marketers truly understand the emotional needs of a child, they can attempt to craft a brand that fulfills those emotional needs, and do so again and again," says Gene Del Vecchio, president of CoolWorks, a California-based consulting firm specializing in kids marketing, and author of "Creating Ever-Cool: A Marketer's Guide to a Kid's Heart."

Take Mattel's Barbie doll, for instance. Barbie targets a girl's timeless emotional need for achievement. And as society changes, so does Barbie. For example, in the 1960s, when little girls wanted to be nurses, Barbie was a nurse. Today, many girls want to be doctors, and Barbie has responded to their call by donning a white coat and medical bag. Barbie is successful, in part, because she is many things to many girls.

Another emotional driver for kids is control. Since children are told when to wake up, when to go to bed, and most everything in between, manufacturers that can provide a sense of control will be rewarded by their young customers. This explains the widespread popularity of video games like Nintendo and Sega. "Nintendo creates games that allow the child to obtain control," explains Del Vecchio. "As the child's mastery and dexterity expands, they can win those games. So there's an amount of empowerment and control that they are able to achieve that they may not be able to attain in the real world."

Children's need for power is fulfilled by products like Wheaties and Power Rangers; and the need for fantasy exploration by kid-friendly companies like Disney. Then there's fear. R.L. Stine's popular book series "Goosebumps" helps children deal with their anxieties by depicting stories of children confronting and overcoming various forms of the bogeyman.

Kids have many emotional needs, and those manufacturers that do the best job of satisfying those needs are the ones children will gravitate toward. That said, be sure not to set your sites to broad. Experts say, in efforts to conduct a cost-effective campaign, many marketers make the mistake of trying to appeal to all kids with the same spiel.

"There's almost no such thing as 'something that appeals to all kids 12 and under,'" says DeCew. "Every couple of years is like 10 years in an adult's life." DeCew says a one-size-fits-all approach is almost sure to miss the mark, going over the heads of your younger consumers or appearing babyish and irrelevant to older kids. When considering emotional drivers, be sure to define your target audience and really understand them before marketing to them.

Talking to the Kids

All kids are not created equal. Besides age differences, there are some rather significant gender issues as well. What appeals to little boys probably won't appeal to little girls. Unisex is a difficult approach with children once they begin school. For that reason, Barbie doesn't try to appeal to boys, and Hotwheels doesn't bother with the girls. "The fact that girls hate Hotwheels has a lot to do with their appeal to boys," jokes DeCew.

When developing a youth marketing strategy you should be careful to avoid two common mistakes: basing things on what life was like when you were a kid, and basing things on your own children. First, things have changed dramatically since you were a child. Second, children are not mini-adults -- they are kids. And finally, your own children are rarely typical of the entire market.

Talking directly to children is the only way to find out what they really want. Del Vecchio says it is critical to involve children in new product development from the beginning and to ask kids what works. "Kids wear everything on their face," he explains. "When you show them something they love, their eyes start to glitter -- and they start to make rude comments when they see something they think is stupid."

Keeping the Brand Cool

The challenges of marketing in the kid arena are many. The first is inventing a brand kids will care about; the second is keeping that brand alive and well year after year after year. Del Vecchio says 90 percent of products directed toward kids fail, or become extinct within three years of their introduction to the market. In most adult categories, if you develop a brand that really works, it's going to be around for a while, he explains. You don't have to reinvent it every two years. In the kid marketplace, you have to constantly reinvent your brand or it will go away.

If you have a sagging brand, and you want to instantly inject it with kid appeal, using a fanciful character is one strategy that has found enormous success. The question then becomes whether to license a character or create one of your own. Your answer will depend on your budget and your commitment to the character.

For example, says DeCew, Disney's Mulan is a great character for a tie-in with the movie and video release, but will this character still have appeal in two years? It's hard to say. There are some evergreen properties, like Winnie the Pooh, who have a life span of up to 13 years for girls. Other characters, like Barney, have a huge appeal for preschoolers, but by the time a child enters grammar school, they usually have an active dislike for the purple dinosaur.

The alternative is creating your own proprietary character. The idea here is to craft the character in such a way that it will have a natural association with your brand, like Rice Krispies' Snap, Crackle and Pop. Giving your brand a fun personality will increase the chance that kids will listen to your marketing message.

Contests are another effective attention-getter for children and therefore are highly popular with kids and kid marketers alike. "The best contests combine elements of fun, fantasy and free stuff -- three things that really appeal to kids," says DeCew. She says a properly executed contest -- one with imaginative prizes, lots of secondary prizes, playful ways to enter and entertaining advertising -- can enhance a brand's personality. Nickelodeon, for example, gave away free prizes to kid viewers during the entire month of its 20th birthday bash.

DeCew strongly cautions, however, that you must be aware of the ethical concerns and special legal requirements of such promotions. "Check everything with a lawyer who specializes in marketing, and don't use or pass on any data collected without permission of the parents," she advises.

Supporting Education and Community

DeCew also warns about marketing in the school system and urges marketers not to use advertising to sell their products in the classroom. "You need to be seen as contributing something to the school environment, rather than just trying to sell your product," she insists.

Barbara Parsky, executive vice president/general manager of Porter Novelli's Los Angeles office, which operates a growing kid's marketing practice, says her firm works with services like Scholastic to develop curriculum programs that teach kids about a variety of subjects. In addition, she encourages marketers to take mobile programs to the schools that are designed to help kids apply the learning of that curriculum with hands-on activities that allow them to interact with the products or services.

"Taking classroom learning into real application can be very valuable in augmenting the educational process," explains Parsky. "When you go to kids and you teach them through their schools about products or services, I think that tells kids that you are looking out for their best interests, that you know they are smart."

This strategy works off campus, too, in places where children spend a lot of time, like libraries, community organizations, state fairs, children's hospitals and so on. Parsky says it's about getting to the heart of understanding kids and respecting their intelligence by reaching out to them in places they live, play and shop.

Getting Your Message Out

Using the media to get your message out can also be very effective. TV is, by far, the most potent kid's marketing vehicle, but it's no longer the only ride in town. Experts say kids magazines and comic books have become much more important than they once were. While adults tend to read magazines and toss them away, kids collect these periodicals as information guides for their young lives.

Radio is also becoming more important in the lives of today's active youth that spends much more time riding in cars than in decades past. Radio Disney, for example, offers programming specifically for kids and allows marketers a means for targeted delivery of their messages.

Finally, the Internet is beginning to make inroads with children. And experts say it is going to become a much more important medium in the future, in terms of communicating brand benefits to tech-savvy kids. Jupiter Communications estimates kids will account for $100 million in e-commerce in 2002, and teens will account for a whopping $1.2 billion.

Abiding by the Rules

The Internet, though it has opened many new doors for kid marketers, is facing significant challenges from an ethical standpoint. It's often difficult for adults to tell the difference between advertising and editorial content on the Net. And for kids, it's even more difficult to discern.

"Whenever you are letting kids go on to an advertising section of your site, you should make it clear that they are entering an advertising section of the site," says John Feldman, attorney with the New York City-based Promotion Marketing Association, a not-for-profit trade association representing the promotions industry.

Another area of concern is data mining, the ability of marketers to find out personal information about you and use if for financial gain. This is an unethical practice when dealing with children because kids do not understand the realities of data mining or the dangers of giving out their name and number. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act was created in attempts to protect children from these and other unfair practices. At its root, the Act requires parental consent before you collect or use any personal information about a child.

Regardless of the medium, when marketing to children, you have to keep in mind that kids are more vulnerable in many ways. Caveat emptor, or let the buyer beware, simply does not apply to kids. "What we are talking about with kid marketing is a concept of fairness, or unfairness as the case may be," says Feldman. "Even though an advertisement may be truthful, it still may be an unfair practice to market to kids in a particular way."

Most kid-oriented marketing is self-regulated by the television networks, organizations like the Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU), and watchdog groups like the Center for Media Education (CME). These groups have established specific guidelines for kid marketing.

Children's network television programming, for example, must clearly announce commercial breaks. And advertisers are prohibited from licensing characters to sell a product or service during a cartoon that features the same character -- it is confusing to youngsters, and they don't understand that the show has ended and a commercial has begun. Celebrities and real-life product endorsers can be used in kid's marketing, but they must not be identified with the product through their profession. In other words, it is appropriate for Michael Jordan to sell Big Macs to young kids, but not Nikes.

Network television also has strict guidelines in regard to showing kids in safe situations and living life in moderation. For example, you can't show a kid stuffing his face with junk food on network TV, and it's unfair to suggest a sugared cereal will meet a kid's nutritional requirements. You can only show cereal "as part of a complete breakfast."

Finally, unreasonable expectations of product quality or performance cannot be simulated, either directly or indirectly, by advertising. For example, you can't show a toy plane flying if it really doesn't fly. And you can't use animation and fantasy to such a degree that it fools kids into unreasonable expectations.

Of course, there's another reason, besides regulations, to be straightforward with your young audiences: They'll turn on you if you are dishonest with them. The underlying ethical mantra is that editorial and advertising cannot be mixed when marketing to the Rugrats Generation.