Marketers To Target New Teen Sub-Brands
The youth market has been categorised in to eight new sub-brands designed to help advertisers to reach this increasingly lucrative audience.
New research from brand consultancy, The Webb Partnership, shows that there are approximately 6.8 million 10 to 18 year-olds living in the UK, with a value of £101 billion to UK businesses.
The study claims that the teen market has evolved over recent years and that segmentation based solely on music preference fails to give marketers an adequate picture of this increasingly complex and difficult to reach demographic.
The Webb Partnership has used the research to create eight different youth sub-brands; Goth, Geek, Mosher, Scally, Sk8ter, Sporty, Towny and Trendy. It has also identified the best way to market to each group.
Surprisingly, the fastest growing group is Goth, which makes up 6% of respondents. According to The Webb Partnership, these consumers can be targeted through specialist magazines like Kerrang!, or in ad slots during programmes like the The Osbournes.
The most lucrative groups are the Sk8ter and Trendy teens. According to the study: “Sk8ters spend a fortune, Quicksilver is a billion dollar brand thanks to this group, but they have no mainstream retail guru, instead opting for lots of independents.”
The Trendy group, comprises aspirational teens that are most likely to go to university and move to big cities. According to The Webb Partnership, subtle advertising is the best way to reach this group and careful product placement is preferable to large ad campaigns.
At the other end of the scale is the Scally, which comprises: “Girls that look and dress older than they are, that wear loads of gold and hoops and have unenviable nick-names.” This group has very little money and advertisers are urged to stick to drinks and snacks promotions.
The largest group is Towny, which makes up 23% of respondents, who are identified as easy to advertise to and relatively affluent.
14% of respondents fell in to the Mosher category, which is an updated version of the nineties grunge phase. The Webb Partnership believes this group needs a chain store to buy jeans and tour T-shirts and advises advertisers to utilise the slots during Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
Sporty (10%) and Geek (15%) were the other niche groups, both of which were deemed to be difficult to reach via TV advertising.
Geoff Webb, chief executive of the Webb Partnership, commented: “This research has implications for all retailers and not just the traditional youth retail chains such as TopShop, Legends and Game. Currently there are large groups of 10 to 18 year olds that have no chain.”
The Webb Partnership: 07050 222222 www.thewebbpartnership.com
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