Branding
T-Commerce: The Net/Teen/Consumer Equation
By Martin Lindstrom
Nine months ago, Visa and American Express placed bets on the
teen generation: Each company launched its own new-look card.
Both cards targeted an audience that would stun most people --
teenagers from 12 to 18.
Since the launch of both products, an estimated 300,000 teens in
the U.S. have signed up for the debit cards. Both cards can be
controlled by parents, who have supervision over every detail,
including which establishments the card may be used in.
This concept has lots of positive and negative angles. But, for
now, let's concentrate on one sure thing: These teen products
are probably here to stay.
Why? Well, they're bound to become invaluable marketing tools.
They simultaneously enthrall their target market (donating a
sense of consumer independence a teenager is unlikely to
renounce) and give marketers a ready set of enviable
opportunities. Let's summarize the situation: Teens, the fastest
growing of market segments -- which also happens to be the
largest online audience segment, the quickest-learning online
segment, and the segment likely to become the biggest spending
group in consumerdom -- are now able to purchase stuff online.
Nevertheless, few marketers seem to have recognized the
opportunity this new development presents. Visit some of the
largest teen sites, and read the small print. It advises that
only persons 18 years of age and over are allowed to make
purchases. And if this condition isn't stipulated, at least 1
site in 10 presumes itself to be addressing grownups in the
e-commerce zone. This approach is negligent of the fact that, by
now, at least 300,000 potential teen visitors have their own
debit cards.
Once, the Internet market was aimed at adults and visited and
patronized by them. But all that changed last November. The
change has given birth to an active e-commerce consumer group
that brings with it new characteristics and demands -- criteria
that are quite different from those of the adult online
consumer.
Teens, for instance, don't necessarily fancy the same type of
warranties or purchase guarantees that grownups demand. This is
an audience substantially more computer and Internet literate
than other online consumer groups. This audience is also
constantly looking for a different selection of products. But it
is also highly brand loyal, yet it adapts readily to new brands
that manage to hit the right note and appeal to the consumers'
profile appropriately.
In short, this is a user group that, by this analysis, may yet
offer the most attractive prospects for ongoing online
patronage. The teen consumer group is fundamental to the future
well-being of Internet commerce.
Several decades ago, an Australian bank established a
school-banking system, giving all kids direct access to their
own bank accounts. The bank was, and still is, appealing to the
youngest of audiences by introducing children to banking in
their infants-school years. The rationale is, of course, that
school banking introduces these young minds to the habit of
banking, to the concepts of saving and investing. Even though
the school-banking system costs a fortune to operate, it still
runs today. Why? Because the strategy behind the rationale
remains cogent: School-banking introduces customers to their
bank early in life and, every year, adds new future-adult
customers to this infant foundation.
All research demonstrates that loyalty is created in the
consumer's younger years. Brands that appeal to teens will be
remembered by those teens as they enter their adult consumer
lives. And those brands will enjoy a loyalty from that early-won
group that is unlike the loyalty they will ever receive from any
other consumer group.
Whether I like the launch of debit cards for teens or not,
undoubtedly the innovation represents the real genesis of a new
online audience -- the teens. Here's an audience that has always
-- always -- had access to the Internet. For this group, the
Internet has nothing to do with computer fear; for this group,
computer fear does not exist. The Net has always been there, as
has the instrument for accessing it.
Net + teen card + consumer instincts = yet another term:
"T-Commerce." |
 |