Editor’s note: Lynn Kaladjian is director of sales and marketing at Doyle Research Associates, Inc., Chicago.

Remember that old saying, "Children should be seen and not heard."? Back in the 1950s and ’60s, many marketers of kids’ products and services actually viewed their core customers this way. Times have changed and marketers have come a long way with their approach to marketing products and services to kids. Today, there probably isn’t a kid marketer out there who doesn’t realize the importance of listening to the unique and specific wants of this influential, ever-changing market of consumers.

Prior to World War II, there was a relatively small market for children’s products and services. Over the past 40 years, the children’s market has evolved into one of the fastest growing and most influential of markets. Today, kids spending continues to boom. Kids under the age of 12 reportedly have discretionary income in excess of $15 billion. In fact, no other consumer group has a larger proportion of their income earmarked as discretionary. They are also influencing over $165 billion of their parents’ spending annually. Savvy marketers realize the significance of this market from another perspective - these kid consumers represent their future. Eventually, this population may become customers for life.

Paralleling the boom in the kids’ market is the growth of child-oriented marketing and research efforts. As the children’s market matures, marketers are beginning to explore niche marketing by income, culture and media habits. Research techniques used with children are also becoming more specialized and moving beyond traditional research and into more alternative research.

Before we can look at different ways to utilize children in research, it is vital to understand and appreciate just what’s involved in working with this group of consumers in marketing research. Kids are more fragile and vulnerable than adults and therefore must be handled with kid gloves to protect their interests and ensure they have a positive experience. Whether you are a client, qualitative or quantitative researcher or recruiter, the following principles should help insure that your research with children is productive.

Principles of working with children

Establish rapport

When working with any respondents, it’s critical to establish good rapport. It’s even more crucial with children. Childhood is a time of great uncertainty and children seek comfort and understanding in their lives. For children to be most productive in group sessions, they need to feel that they are in a non-threatening environment. Entering the focus group setting can be a rather intimidating experience for a child, since it’s not an environment that most kids are familiar with. The moderator must minimize the potential for intimidation.
Floor seating is another way to make kids feel more at ease. We recommend floor seating for kids 6th grade and younger. This increases their comfort during the sessions and minimizes the potential intimidation of a more formal conference room setting.

While kids do need structure and ground rules, moderators should be careful not to convey any hint of negative authority. This approach will only succeed in stifling the flow of communication necessary for a productive interview. If kids sense that they are being talked down to, you are also at risk of losing their "buy in" and overall support for the interview. Treat kids with honesty and respect and, above all, never forget that they are doing you a favor by being there.

The moderator and client also need to establish rapport. It’s essential for both client and moderator to be on the same page in terms of their expectations for each project. Both parties must set a reasonable and attainable agenda for each project so that goals can easily be met.

Concrete language/visuals

Children, particularly 6- to 8-year-olds, have limited understanding of abstract concepts and have restricted verbal abilities. Therefore, keep questions direct, simple and precise. Sometimes children will have trouble supporting preferences and answering "why." It’s important for both moderator and client to keep this fact in mind when establishing objectives.

Clients need to develop concepts and copy with children’s limitations in mind. The key guideline for the development of such visual stimuli is to keep it uncluttered, simple and to the point. Children cannot understand abstract representations and will take everything at face value. Therefore, visuals need to be as literal as possible. For example, visuals may include any of the following: illustrations that are accurate and true to life; photos, if the product is not available to show; a video of the product in action; prototypes; and ideally, the product itself.

Listen to your consumers

Kids have fresh, energetic and enthusiastic responses and tend to be very eager to participate in group sessions. Because kids are accustomed to playing by adult rules and conforming to adult expectations, they feel very important that they have been given the opportunity to express their own opinions. Let kids know that they have been selected to participate in the focus group because they are the "experts" and their help is greatly needed.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you know kids based on your individual experiences (or your own kids). Furthermore, clients should avoid setting preconceived notions on the outcome of group sessions only to feel disappointed when the actual outcome contradicts their own expectations. Clients will get the most out of their research when they maintain an open mind and truly listen to their customers. In other words, allow your groups of kids to teach you what they know about your subject matter.

Have a sense of humor

Laugh a little. It’s very important to have a sense of humor and not take yourself or the group process too seriously. In other words, it’s O.K. to genuinely have some fun; after all, kids are fun to be with. While children can be quite challenging to work with, they come with their own unique set of qualities, insights and abilities which make working with this population very refreshing.

Experiment with different projective techniques

Projective techniques are another way to allow and encourage children to express themselves in a variety of ways. Drawing exercises can help children reveal thoughts and ideas that they cannot verbalize. Personification can help establish the child’s perception of a product or manufacturer by relating it to a person, place or thing. An excellent technique for brand and user imagery research is picture sorts, which reveal consumers’ behavioral and lifestyle perceptions of a brand and can liberate children’s true feelings.

Some kids may not appear to have a lot to say, but utilizing different techniques may elicit feelings and responses that otherwise might stay hidden. When both client and moderator are open to new techniques your groups can be extremely rewarding and full of rich information.

Group composition

When recruiting kids, tight age segmentation is crucial. Boys typically develop more slowly than girls and are much more physically active. Separating genders will minimize group management and maximize productive research time. It is also recommended, for developmental reasons, that there be no more than a two year/grade span within any given group.

The general rule of thumb in terms of group size and length is that the younger the children, the smaller the group. Typically, six to eight respondents for 45-minute group sessions are recommended for younger children and 75-90 minutes for children 9 and older.

Conducting focus groups with children under 6 years of age is not generally recommended and may not prove to be money well spent. The younger children are, the less capable they are of providing any richness or depth in their responses or opinions. Certain categories are better suited for focus groups with younger children (e.g., food samplings, toys).

Understand your respondents

Clients or moderators with limited qualitative or child research experience should keep in mind that child respondents are not perfect. Therefore, it’s important to allow room for failure. At times, certain groups can push your patience to its outer limits as children can be fickle, unpredictable and full of energy.
Moderators need to keep in mind that developmental levels can vary from child to child, even when kids are close in age or in the same grade. Some respondents will react better to certain stimuli and techniques than others. Even when one group goes smoothly, it does not necessarily mean the groups to follow will react in the same manner. Have faith in your child respondents and in the research project in general and children will do their best to not let you down.

Since kids have a limited attention span, it’s essential for moderators to come armed with a "bag of tricks" and feel comfortable switching gears whenever necessary. And always be ready to repeat and rephrase your questions until they are fully understood by your young respondents. Moderators need to sense when children are either bored or confused by the material being presented and be able to adjust quickly to any dynamic.

Use a little skepticism

Children have been indoctrinated early on to play nice, cooperate and follow the rules. While many times this behavior can be greatly appreciated, in research it becomes an obstacle. Children have a tendency to aim to please and many times will seek to please the moderator and/or their peers. To minimize this tendency, it’s important to encourage varied points of view and emphasize that there are no wrong answers. If children feel uncomfortable in the setting or their attention span has been pushed to its limit, they may offer answers just for the sake of answering. It is critical that kids not be pushed or forced to answer if they are unwilling, otherwise the research will suffer.

Children express themselves not only verbally, but through their body language as well. Watching a child’s facial expression when they are observing advertising or tasting a product can tell you more than anything they could put into words. If a child’s facial expression contradicts their verbal response, the facial response is most likely telling the truest story.

Alternatives to traditional qualitative research

Although the majority of research conducted among children, to date, has been traditional focus groups or in-depth interviews, marketers and researchers are beginning to broaden their ways of thinking about product development and are exploring alternatives to traditional qualitative research methods. One of the most significant leaps in marketing research has been the changing roles of children in research from evaluators to idea generators.

Idea generation

Idea generation is a non-evaluative research process that is designed to explore new ways of thinking and to generate ideas in volume. Children are one of the greatest sources available to provide marketers with novelty, fresh perspectives and kid-inspired creative direction. Since kids will ultimately get the last word on the success of a product anyway, it can prove very cost effective to go directly to your target, early on in the product development cycle.

Companies are starting to understand the real value of tapping into the fresh minds of their target as a source for innovation. Microsoft and Levi’s are two examples of companies that have taken a unique approach to kids in marketing research and have gone as far as incorporating kids as partners or consultants in the product development process.

External suppliers in the marketing research industry have also experimented with new research techniques designed to work with this segment of the population. Researchers are adapting techniques traditionally used with adults and modifying them to work effectively with children. An example of this is our company’s kideation idea generation process, which was developed to tap the creativity of kids for new product and service ideas.

Qualitative panels

Historically, consumer panels have been quantitative in nature and consisted primarily of adult respondents. Recently an underutilized research tool, the qualitative panel has been used with child respondents more frequently and with great success. Because qualitative panels do not need to be statistically representative of the U.S. child population, panels consist of 75-100 children with a good mix of ages across the 6-12 year range. Panels can offer marketers quick accessibility to kids and flexibility in terms of types of research that can be conducted.

Observational research

Observational research is a way of understanding what consumers mean through their behavior, as well as interpersonal dynamics and social behavior. Since kids are more visual than verbal, who better to observe than children? They represent a culture different than the culture researching them (adults). Additionally, children are probably the population most hampered by the traditional focus group process. Marketers may want to consider in-home "peer parties," audio or videotaped diaries, or in-store observation followed by an intercept interview.

Because of the rapid changes and developments within the children’s market, marketers need to stay abreast of new ways to relate to and work with this explosive, dynamic population of consumers. Talking to kids is the most direct way to tap the perspective so crucial in today’s competitive world of kids marketing. Besides all that, kids’ marketing is fun as it provides a wonderful journey into the thoughts and perspectives that we, as adults, have since left behind.