MRG Meeting – Understanding And Researching Kids
A discussion of whether the ‘global kid’ exists was the subject of the first speaker at the MRG meeting at Leo Burnett on 11 May. Denise Gardiner, head of research at the advertising agency, gave attendees a sneak preview of the speech she plans to give at this year’s Kid Power Conference in Barcelona, and she was keen to emphasize that ‘we should never underestimate kids’.
Gardiner outlined a belief that children generally present a challenge to people in terms of communication – they have an intense yet short concentration span, boundless energy and their minds tend to work in ways which the average adult finds difficult if not impossible to understand. However, the perceptions and stereotypes which people have of kids are generally universal.
As Gardiner pointed out, the experience of being a child in the late nineties is far removed from the childhood most present day adults experienced. The advances in technology and progress in society have altered many realms of children’s lives. In the present day, children have a plethora of choice in many sectors of their lives. The variety of marketed brands and leisure pursuits is almost overwhelming, and kids are acquiring more and more disposable income of their own, giving them more power in being gatekeepers of some of their own desires.
As well as this, factors such as the fragmentation of the family and the increasing number of women joining the work force has given more independence to children. More ‘latch key kids’ means that more children are spending a greater amount of time home alone, thus giving them more control of what they choose to do with some of their leisure time. This proliferation of choice is exacerbated by the expansion of available media itself. 16.2% of children can surf the net at home, and 53% of them have access to PC games. Also, in 1998 for example, 76% of secondary schools provided internet access, and with the consistent expansion of the internet, this could only have increased in 1999.
Leo Burnett has developed an internet tool called Kidscope to attempt to tap into the culture of kids. With this research project, it is hoped that an understanding of the relationship between children and the media will be gained, and in turn the knowledge of this relationship will be used to make business more efficient. Kidscope stretched across 11 countries, include Hong Kong, the UK, the US, Italy and Germany. One of the findings so far, for example, is that in the UK, sport was found to be one of the most important things to children, followed by video games, computers and television, and then cinema and music. In the US however, for example, the radio tends to be more important to children than the TV. These few examples of the preferences of kids provide industry with invaluable information in the formulation of, for example, adverts, and the scheduling of adverts and programming.
Gardiner concluded from the study that as travel and technology expand, the world is shrinking, and although this affects the differences between children, both in the same and in other countries, key themes and interests do exist. She commented: “Global marketing is possible due to key themes, for example sports, but local implementation is necessary.”
The second half of the evening was presented by Lucy Gregory and Noel Gladstone of the Cartoon Network. Drawing on Cartoon Network Track surveys, along with studies by Continental Research, Gladstone examined why it is important to understand kids’ lives. To illustrate this, he noted that by 2002 a third of the world’s population will be teenagers with most countries holding large numbers of old and young people, with relatively few middle-agers.
Gladstone highlighted the rapid changes in technology and media expansion which children of today have experienced. Kids, he said, find technology exciting and entertaining and want to use it to the full.
Researching children, however, can be tricky as not only do adults often find it difficult to communicate with them, but kids also have many preconceptions about adults which lead them to behave in a certain way. For this reason it is important to stay in touch with a kid’s point of view, says Gregory. Anyone researching kids, she says, should be constantly aware of their environment, the other people in their lives, their changing attitudes and the media and technology which surrounds them and to which they are subjected.
In order to do this, Cartoon Network issues its survey children with photo diaries and collage boards, as well as using focus groups. More empirical data are gained through a Cartoon Network viewing panel and tracking studies in cable/satellite and non-cable/satellite homes.
One of the findings of the Cartoon Network research is that 59% of children have a television set in their bedroom; 50% have a radio, 38% a games console, 35% a hi-fi and 23% have a video recorder. The surveys also show that kids like to collect things, partly as a means of giving themselves an identity and partly to offer them a ‘playground currency’ when relating to their friends.
Kids are very much involved in the decision which the parents make, says Gregory. For example, 83% of those surveyed influence which new snacks or crisps their parents bought and 57% had input when the family bought a new computer. They also watch around 20 hours of television per week, according to BARB, and so will be very influenced by products they see advertised around their favourite programmes.
The internet is starting to play a big role in children’s lives, with many schools now offering online access. Also, the proportion of homes with a PC has increased from 39% to 45% between 1997 and 1998. As children often embrace new technology a lot more quickly than adults, the internet is an area which they are very aware. In this sense, children are perhaps good indicators of whether the internet is being used effectively by companies who are moving online. As Lucy Gregory says: “Kids expect big brands to have a presence in the online world – why wouldn’t they?”