Many people describe the teenage years as a time of growth, transition and change. Physical growth and change is only part of the story; many teens can be "different people" in a matter of months or from one year to the next in what interests and disinterests them, what they like and dislike, what they consider important and unimportant, what they find "in'' and "out." Indeed, this volatile period of time possesses a real challenge to marketers who appeal in one way or another to the teen market.

How, then, do these companies stay abreast of this market, not to mention in perpetual tune with it? Moreover, how do some of them appeal to 13 year-olds while still attracting the 19 year-olds, a span of ages and individuals who are often times as different as night and day?

For up-to-date knowledge of teens, primary data is critical because it defines teens in the here-and-now. For all types of marketers, Teenage Research Unlimited (TRW) research services provide this kind of data.

TRU provides marketers with a base for tracking, understanding and reaching teens through primary, syndicated and customized studies. Together, these services give comprehensive, authoritative and timely data on the vital and changing teen market.

The firm's media/market studies are what it's best known for. These studies are fielded twice a year and provide a continuous tracking and invaluable segmentation of the U. S. teenage market.

Included in the major study, whose primary users are advertisers, agencies and media, is a six-month update study which gives semi-annual tracking data. For each wave, there are 2,000 respondents between the ages of 12-19, with age and sex balanced according to U.S. Census data. The research methodology is a self-administered questionnaire with follow-up mailing to nonrespondents. On the average, the response rate is better than 50%.

To monitor the teen market, each wave consistently tracks certain significant questions. To offer subscribers continual flow of information, each major study also includes new questions and expands on existing ones.

In each major study, the following subjects are typically measured:

  • 150 product categories: Usage/consumption, intended purchase and ownership;
  • 90 magazines: Average-issue readership;
  • All network prime-time and daytime shows: Average weekly/daily audience;
  • Major cable networks: Availability and hours viewed weekly plus viewing by day part;
  • Radio, newspapers: Format and section preferences;
  • Economic power: How much teens earn, spend and work; checking accounts, savings accounts, credit card access and usage;
  • Purchase influence: How teens sway their families to buy a variety of specific products and services;
  • Grocery shopping: Incidence, brand decisions and type of store;
  • 35 non-athletic activities (time usage): Participation levels, from reading books and listening to recorded music to "hanging out," grocery shopping and using computers;
  • 35 athletic activities: Measured for participation in the last year, first-time participation and favorite activities;
  • Musical artists: Popularity and familiarity ratings.

The TRU studies generate a large volume of data, serving many functions for the marketer. Besides providing up-to-date information on the teen market, the data provides demographic and lifestyle segmentation of the teen market and guidelines for making creative media-buying and marketing strategy decisions. The data also demonstrates the importance of the teen market for particular product categories, customizes each wave to a subscriber's particular interests through the insertion of proprietary questions and targets geo?demographic clusters.

Attitudinal study

The attitudinal study investigates the issues that are important to today's teens. It's aim is to uncover their motivations and perceptions and tries to show how certain teen attitudes can predict consumer behavior.

The study looks into teen personalities in an attempt to understand teens as people and as consumers. Some of the issues the study explores are teen attitudes on friends, career, family, advertising, peer pressure, happiness, the media, dating, cohabitation, being alone, college and politics. Teens' answers to these questions serve a variety of functions for marketers, such as providing guidelines for making creative decisions and depicting different teen personality types, based on attitude. Marketers can also develop an attitudinal profile of the teen users or consumers of a particular brand through the insertion of proprietary questions as well as provide a comparison of the attitudes of today's adult consumers with those of tomorrow, when used together with existing adult data.

TRU subscribers

MTV Networks, Inc., New York City, a national music video network whose audience is almost half teens, "has to stay in touch with this volatile market," says Ned Greenberg, research director at MTV. That's why TRU is an important part of its research data. "It's a validator for other research we use internally. It helps us paint a picture."

Greenberg, who was one of several speakers at a TRU seminar on teens last fall, shared his thoughts on advertisers' need to tap into the teen market and how MTV has been able to do that with TRU data.

"When describing the current teen market you need extra help. With TRW's help, MTV has been better able to profile teens. For MTV, the benefit has been to understand how to better communicate with this target group.

"MTV fits into the teen market by carefully studying TRU data. MTV has learned that changing family lifestyles in the past few years have led to the evolution of a new 'brand' of teenager. Significant increases in working mothers and single parent families have given rise to a teen who is independent, responsible and overall more socially conscious than ever before."

Statistics verify these facts. Greenberg says 66% of American teens fend for themselves and the family while the mother is out working. Fifty-two percent of teenage girls are responsible for family shopping and half of those are brand conscious; 23% have taken full or part-time jobs.

Teens are also big spenders, says Greenberg. Last year, they spent $70.5 billion-$30.5 billion of their own money and $40 billion of their families'. Teens' purchasing power is seen heavily in the supermarket and is growing in the home electronic industry. This information is a selling point for MTV in attracting potential advertisers.

"An advertiser can reach heavy concentrations of teens with MTV," says Greenberg. "Of all MTV viewers age 12 and older, teens represent 31.5% of the total audience."

Different folks

All teens are not created equal, that is, in their aptness to being MTV viewers.

"What TRU helps MTV establish," continues Greenberg, "is the fact that all teens are not the same. Heavy MTV viewers are on the go. They are more likely than the average teenager to attend concerts or movies, to participate in sports, to be heavy consumers and to be employed. MTV viewers are more acquisitive and influential than the average teen. When it comes to decision?making in the grocery store, teen MTV viewers play an active role."

Moreover, says Greenberg, across all product categories, MTV viewers are more likely than the average teen aged 12-17 to influence their family's purchase decisions for meals and snack foods.

This data leads to three conclusions about MTV teens which may show how advertisers can communicate with this market, says Greenberg. "They have a fast-paced lifestyle, a key socio psychological characteristic is their independence and they want to be communicated with on their own level."

Non-linear

MTV has learned that the TV generation processes information in a nonlinear, non-narrative manner. The value of non-narrative messages is evident in the advertising industry because many ads are projected in this mode, says Greenberg. These ads create a feeling for the product rather than a logical argument filled with facts and claims. MTV has thus inaugurated this concept in three ways through its music videos. According to Greenberg, "they are all non-narrative, they all move very quickly with quick cuts and no transitions and they all feature music at the foreground - not the background - to create the all-important mood, a sense impression."

Moreover, MTV program features are confirmed by TRU data, says Greenberg. Its data show "Teens are more sophisticated than ever before, especially visually; teens are willing to explore new territory (they are willing to try to understand unconventional imagery) and teens want to be taken to their limits."

In conclusion, says Greenberg, TRU helps to prove MTV teens are a valuable market that is on the go, affluent, acquisitive, influential and can be exploited when communicated at their own level.

Seventeen magazine

Selling the teen market to advertisers is equally important to those at Seventeen magazine.

"One of the challenges that we face at Seventeen, and which I believe is shared by other teen-oriented media, whether print or broadcast, is to convince advertisers of the viability and affluence of today's teen market," says Allan Kalish, research director at Seventeen. "We feel that if we can 'sell the market, we can sell the magazine.' This is exactly where TRU fits into our marketing program. The data offered by TRU is a great help in our efforts to sell the market."

Seventeen's research department has used TRU data since 1983 to look for primarily two types of data: General information on the teen market and product-oriented information.

Kalish, another speaker at the TRU seminar, explained how the Seventeen research department translates and utilizes the TRU data and how its sales staff has made use of the information for specific products and advertisers.

"As a service department," says Kalish, "the main function of a magazine's research staff is to provide both usable and understandable data to the sales staff. It does this by providing them a summary of computer data which it receives from TRU.

"A crucial part of promoting the teen market is to talk about substantial numbers of teens, i.e., in the millions, says Kalish. "In order to develop population data, we apply the TRU percentages to the total female teen 12-19 population in the U.S. Our summary begins with figures in the billions for the female teen market."

The next thing the research staff shows is the teens' financial responsibility.

"An important fact that we consistently stress, particularly to food advertisers, is the fact that teen girls have a great amount of responsibility for buying food for the home, since two-thirds have working mothers and almost half have full?time working mothers. This type of shopping and brand-related data is used for accounts such as Stouffer's, Duncan Hines and H.J. Heinz."

The report also categories all the products listed in TRU into 13 subject groups. In the area of cosmetics, for example, it's known that teen girls are heavy users of the products and information offered by TRU shows that they or their parents are also heavy purchasers of these items.

"In summary, TRU is one of our most important sources of information on the female teen market," adds Kalish. "The data is effective on a sales call, in a trade magazine ad and simply as a general overview of the teen market. We find it very helpful in our efforts to sell the market."