Ubiquitous connectivity
Young people are growing up during a period when the digital media are rapidly approaching anytime/anyplace connectivity. Although concerns about a digital divide remain, there is growing evidence that online access is increasingly available to most adolescents, including African-American and Hispanic youth. For example, Hispanic youth are avid users, or, as the industry explains, a “significant sub-market” for mobile communications, and a recent study reported that more than 90% of African-American teens were online, spending some 26 hours a week on the Internet [[61], [62]]. The growth of residential broadband use, the emergence of the “mobile Web” and wireless networks, and a range of services, such as instant messaging and texting, have created an “always-on” Internet experience. Marketers are designing campaigns that take advantage of young peoples' constant connectivity to technology, their multi-tasking behaviors, and the fluidity of their media experiences. This “360 strategy” is one of the core principles of contemporary youth marketing, aimed at reaching viewers and users repeatedly wherever they are—in cyberspace, listening to music via a portable player, or watching television. Interactive marketers are not just tapping into these new patterns but are also actively cultivating and promoting them to foster ongoing relationships with brands. Teens are engaging with a growing range of advertising-supported and other commercial digital activities, from online videos to social networks to gaming. For example, instant message services are building communication “environments” around particular brands, encouraging individuals to use them as a way of defining who they are to their friends and acquaintances [[8], [63]]. Internet-enabled cell phones are fueling the dramatic growth of new services, including mobile video and mobile social networks, many of them advertising-based. Many food, beverage, and quick-service restaurant companies in the U.S.—including Coca-Cola, Burger King, Pepsi, KFC, and McDonald's—are using various forms of mobile marketing, such as text messaging, electronic coupons, and video “mobisodes,” to promote their products. Increasingly, mobile users will be receiving targeted electronic pitches, based on their profiles and actual street locations [[12], [64]].
Growing consolidation within the entertainment media, advertising, and technology fields further enhances the ability of companies to deploy a variety of advertising and brand promotion strategies across a wide spectrum of media properties, all of them designed to build user awareness of a particular brand or product [65].
Personalization
This generation of young people has grown used to customizing and personalizing their interactive media experiences. This can include assembling an individual play list on an MP3 player, creating a personal profile on a social networking site, or designing an avatar to represent oneself in virtual online worlds [48]. As one global market research study reported, “youth thrive on self-directed, self-programmed usage of technology and media,” actively seeking, choosing, and modifying products and services that “suit their moods and desires” [66]. Whereas earlier generations turned to conventional media to deal with their moods and explore their identities, today's teenagers have an unprecedented array of powerful new digital tools to help them with these processes [[67], [68], [69], [70]]. For example, social networking platforms provide an accessible, user-friendly template for creating and expressing one's public and private persona in cyberspace [[71], [72]]. Teenagers can use these tools on a daily or even minute-by-minute basis for constant attention to, and adjustments in, their personal images [73].
This increasing personalization of technology has also created new opportunities for digital marketers. Market research has shown that members of the so-called “My Media Generation” are more receptive to advertising that is tailored to their specific needs and inserted into these personalized media experiences [48]. Behavioral targeting—a form of database or “customer relationship” marketing (CRM)—enables companies to develop unique, long-term relationships with individual customers. Its goal is to create personalized marketing and sales appeals based on a customer's unique preferences, behaviors, and psychological profile. Behavioral targeting has become a core strategy of contemporary youth marketing, a linchpin of many digital media campaigns—not only online, but also on cell phones, video games, and other new platforms [[74], [75]].
Social networking sites are particularly effective for behavioral targeting. Digital marketers are closely tracking the content that young people post, their verbal and nonverbal behaviors, and even their psychological states of mind [[76], [77], [78]]. As its media kit for advertisers explains, “MySpace users want to share personal information—it's a fundamental part of how they express themselves and connect with others…. The freely expressed data in a user's profile offers marketers more authentic, powerful, and direct targeting beyond common proxy methods.” The company's “hypertargeting” plan offers its advertising clients a “detailed profile of each user and their friends, including age, gender, location and interests,” providing access to its large teenage user base [79]. “For advertisers, it's the potential for a level of intimacy that they could never have dreamed of 20 years ago,” explained one MySpace executive [80].
Recent innovations in technology and software have created a sophisticated and rapidly evolving data collection apparatus, including the growing use of “personalization engines” for behavioral advertising. By compiling demographic data, purchasing history, and responses to past advertising messages, digital marketers can create and refine advertising messages tuned precisely to the psychographic and behavioral patterns of the individual. Advertising executives for some of the largest food and beverage companies frequently speak of the importance of such behavioral targeting to their efforts [81]. For example, the My Coke Rewards program encourages consumers to use special personal identification number (PIN) codes from Coke products to go online and access a Web site where they can earn a variety of rewards, such as downloadable ring tones, sports, and entertainment. According to Coca-Cola's technological partner company, Fair Isaac, this “next-generation” promotion is “the most sophisticated example of how brands can utilize code promotions to capture behavioral and psychographic information about consumers” [82].
Ubiquitous connectivity
Young people are growing up during a period when the digital media are rapidly approaching anytime/anyplace connectivity. Although concerns about a digital divide remain, there is growing evidence that online access is increasingly available to most adolescents, including African-American and Hispanic youth. For example, Hispanic youth are avid users, or, as the industry explains, a “significant sub-market” for mobile communications, and a recent study reported that more than 90% of African-American teens were online, spending some 26 hours a week on the Internet [[61], [62]]. The growth of residential broadband use, the emergence of the “mobile Web” and wireless networks, and a range of services, such as instant messaging and texting, have created an “always-on” Internet experience. Marketers are designing campaigns that take advantage of young peoples' constant connectivity to technology, their multi-tasking behaviors, and the fluidity of their media experiences. This “360 strategy” is one of the core principles of contemporary youth marketing, aimed at reaching viewers and users repeatedly wherever they are—in cyberspace, listening to music via a portable player, or watching television. Interactive marketers are not just tapping into these new patterns but are also actively cultivating and promoting them to foster ongoing relationships with brands. Teens are engaging with a growing range of advertising-supported and other commercial digital activities, from online videos to social networks to gaming. For example, instant message services are building communication “environments” around particular brands, encouraging individuals to use them as a way of defining who they are to their friends and acquaintances [[8], [63]]. Internet-enabled cell phones are fueling the dramatic growth of new services, including mobile video and mobile social networks, many of them advertising-based. Many food, beverage, and quick-service restaurant companies in the U.S.—including Coca-Cola, Burger King, Pepsi, KFC, and McDonald's—are using various forms of mobile marketing, such as text messaging, electronic coupons, and video “mobisodes,” to promote their products. Increasingly, mobile users will be receiving targeted electronic pitches, based on their profiles and actual street locations [[12], [64]].
Growing consolidation within the entertainment media, advertising, and technology fields further enhances the ability of companies to deploy a variety of advertising and brand promotion strategies across a wide spectrum of media properties, all of them designed to build user awareness of a particular brand or product [65].
Personalization
This generation of young people has grown used to customizing and personalizing their interactive media experiences. This can include assembling an individual play list on an MP3 player, creating a personal profile on a social networking site, or designing an avatar to represent oneself in virtual online worlds [48]. As one global market research study reported, “youth thrive on self-directed, self-programmed usage of technology and media,” actively seeking, choosing, and modifying products and services that “suit their moods and desires” [66]. Whereas earlier generations turned to conventional media to deal with their moods and explore their identities, today's teenagers have an unprecedented array of powerful new digital tools to help them with these processes [[67], [68], [69], [70]]. For example, social networking platforms provide an accessible, user-friendly template for creating and expressing one's public and private persona in cyberspace [[71], [72]]. Teenagers can use these tools on a daily or even minute-by-minute basis for constant attention to, and adjustments in, their personal images [73].
This increasing personalization of technology has also created new opportunities for digital marketers. Market research has shown that members of the so-called “My Media Generation” are more receptive to advertising that is tailored to their specific needs and inserted into these personalized media experiences [48]. Behavioral targeting—a form of database or “customer relationship” marketing (CRM)—enables companies to develop unique, long-term relationships with individual customers. Its goal is to create personalized marketing and sales appeals based on a customer's unique preferences, behaviors, and psychological profile. Behavioral targeting has become a core strategy of contemporary youth marketing, a linchpin of many digital media campaigns—not only online, but also on cell phones, video games, and other new platforms [[74], [75]].
Social networking sites are particularly effective for behavioral targeting. Digital marketers are closely tracking the content that young people post, their verbal and nonverbal behaviors, and even their psychological states of mind [[76], [77], [78]]. As its media kit for advertisers explains, “MySpace users want to share personal information—it's a fundamental part of how they express themselves and connect with others…. The freely expressed data in a user's profile offers marketers more authentic, powerful, and direct targeting beyond common proxy methods.” The company's “hypertargeting” plan offers its advertising clients a “detailed profile of each user and their friends, including age, gender, location and interests,” providing access to its large teenage user base [79]. “For advertisers, it's the potential for a level of intimacy that they could never have dreamed of 20 years ago,” explained one MySpace executive [80].
Recent innovations in technology and software have created a sophisticated and rapidly evolving data collection apparatus, including the growing use of “personalization engines” for behavioral advertising. By compiling demographic data, purchasing history, and responses to past advertising messages, digital marketers can create and refine advertising messages tuned precisely to the psychographic and behavioral patterns of the individual. Advertising executives for some of the largest food and beverage companies frequently speak of the importance of such behavioral targeting to their efforts [81]. For example, the My Coke Rewards program encourages consumers to use special personal identification number (PIN) codes from Coke products to go online and access a Web site where they can earn a variety of rewards, such as downloadable ring tones, sports, and entertainment. According to Coca-Cola's technological partner company, Fair Isaac, this “next-generation” promotion is “the most sophisticated example of how brands can utilize code promotions to capture behavioral and psychographic information about consumers” [82].
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