The Merchant of Cool: Teens, Culture & MTV

The PBS special report on The Merchant of Cool: Teens, Culture and MTV, shed much light on what the five major media giants, Universal Vivendi, Disney, Viacom, AOL/Time Warner, and Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp do to keep up with the pace of the demands of teen consumers. Interesting enough, this report was originally reported in 2001, almost ten years ago. When one is viewing the report, that person would have to consider the trends of the timeframe then versus to what the marketing trends are now.

The importance of the teen market is a growing part of the global economy. The PBS report stated that the teen market is valued at $150 billion. A report distributed by Packaged Facts now says that the teen market buying power is expected to surpass $200 billion by 2011. New technology and information contribute daily to the youth culture, but sometimes in an overt way. Teens do not particularly prefer being obviously sold to with huge advertising messages. This is where they will take their buying power elsewhere.

The new trends now are that teen consumers realistically have buying power. More so now in 2010 than back in 2001 when the report aired, teens want to be heard and seen. They also demand respect and will clearly take their business to the next competitor if retailers do not deliver. (Yarrow & O'Donnell, 2009). It goes without saying that the teen market plays an important role in the retail and sales industry of today. Gone are the days where most kids are asking permission from their parents to purchase something. Some parents provide their teens with guilt money and credit cards, perhaps contributing to one of the most emerging consumer markets of all time. Items such as music, clothing, jewelry, food, and electronics are accessible to purchase over the internet at any given time. Some teens are full-fledged entrepreneurs, particularly online, thus creating streams of revenue to purchase products of their liking. However, these consumers will go away if marketers are not successful in giving them what they want in simplistic formats.

Teens know they are valuable. The message that they deliver to marketers prove so in television shows such as MTV. In the report, MTV appeared as being a major player of giving teens what they want. MTV has proven to be an established brand to the teen market when they delivered a TV show tailored just for them, Total Request Live (TRL). TRL had daily guests, received requests for songs via voting polls, ringtones from cell phones, airplay and internet buzz, and an attentive audience for ten years. MTV was successful in using the same media mediums to market and promote the top music to the teens who was asking for it in the first place.

MTV also made their music diverse for the TRL audience. It was not just about hip-hop or pop genres, but all music, as the show proved with the Limp Bizkit segment that performs a rare rap music mixed with rock. In this case, marketers tended to stray away from thinking responsively to its audience, making overnight successes of Limp Bizkit. The show eventually went off the air in 2008, and teens wanted more. MTV became more competitive with presenting shows that were more provocative and catering to the "it" crowd that teens quickly grasped. MTV used research methods such as visiting teens' homes and researched the trends of clothes, music and even delved in what teens' peers prefer to purchase. This created an upward shift of marketing boom, particularly because of the increasing accessibility of the internet. It also created a culture that has been hard to cease due to the popularity of crude reality TV shows.

Sprite is a company with products, like its parent Coca-Cola that aims to make everyone happy. (www.thecoca-colacompany.com). According to the PBS report, teens were drawn to particular products through music, hence the increase in sales Sprite saw when they started using pop music and dancers in their commercials in the late 80's to early 90's. However, teens were interviewed in a focus group that also remembered those commercials and thought the music and dancing was over the top.

Hip-hop is a growing genre of music that teens can relate to, because through it, they are able to tell a message to the world. Sprite used this marketing method and created hip-hop songs that sent messages to the listeners of hip-hop. In doing this, the teens felt a connection to Sprite; therefore, they trusted the brand, wanted more and would cater to it, if the marketing and advertising was done properly. The "Obey Your Thirst" slogan was born and respected in the world of hip-hop, which positioned a product that teens used to relate to a music they admired as well as a product that was respected. Another marketing strategy Sprite's marketers used to keep teens involved with their product was to create an anti-marketing commercial with celebrity basketball player Grant Hill.

Marketers have been criticized for bringing down the teen market since they are not studying this market properly. Marketers fail to attract to the teen segment as consumers because they are not talking to them, asking what they would like to buy and their brands are perceived as not as loyal to some of these teen consumers. (Moses, 2000). As Schiff stated in her report, How to Market to Teens, she interviewed companies that catered to teen consumers and the message was to "keep it real and keep it simple." A company should be authentic, understanding and as other critics have said, listen to their audience. Teens are relatively unresponsive to brands, but responsive to cool. If a company is not speaking their language carefully and delivering precise messages, marketers will lose. Some teens have big egos, because of their known buying power and again, will quickly go to a competitor of choice if the brand is not speaking to them directly.

Focus groups are a great way for any company to get an in-depth glimpse at what any consumer wants. The report clearly used focus groups to find out what male teens like in terms of food, music and clothing. This form of marketing not only allows the marketer to form a bond with its consumers, but to actually get a chance to listen to how to make this market grow.

What I did discover after viewing the report towards the ending, is that sometimes the message is too loud and not too clear. MTV researchers took the average young male's point of view as being cool, as wanting to be crude, when they did in-person visits for market research. Creating reality TV shows that were meant to be funny for the teen audience can oftentimes be viewed as degrading to parents of teens. The presence of sexuality in both reality and primetime TV is geared towards teens who have made it clear that they are proud to be premature adults and do not mind being labeled a sex object. Particularly for young females, through pop music by certain artists such as Britney Spears, they receive a message that states it is okay to show your sex appeal, even at such a young age. Naturally they buy into the midriff clothing, skin tight clothes, plastic surgery, and call it fashion. Meanwhile, retailers are receiving billions of dollars. Research in this case can be tricky, because marketers know that teens will buy into almost anything, particularly if they perceive that this is the way to dress, look and talk. (Quart, 2003).

The writers in the report noted that they are aware of what they are doing, but claim it is movies that do business. The youth culture for the past fifteen years is unified, particularly online, due to the accessible medium allowing a voice for teens to express their emotions. According to movie producers in the teen genre, they create movies for teens who are already exposed to sexuality so why not? This form of thinking from marketers creates a challenge: similar needs do not always lead to similar behaviors of the entire segment.

Generation Y is a huge market, particularly in this era, no doubt about that. However, it is still important to consider that these teens will not be teens forever. Marketers should understand that being cool for the moment is one thing, but to try to reverse what is sold to them does not necessarily always go away as they try to grow and become responsible adults in the future.

Works Cited:

Frontline: The Merchants of Cool: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/

Open Happiness - Press Release - Coca-Cola. (n.d.). Coca-Cola: The Coca-Cola Company. Retrieved September 25, 2010, from http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/presscenter/

Moses, E. (2000). The $100 Billion Allowance: How to Get Your Share of the Global Teen Market. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Quart, A. (2004). Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers. New York: Basic Books.

Schiff, J. (n.d.). How to Market to Teens: Keep It Real and Simple - eCommerce-Guide.com. ECommerce-Guide to News, Reviews and Technology Solutions - ECommerce-Guide. Retrieved September 23, 2010, from http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/news/trends/article.php/3699986/How-to-Market-to-Teens-Keep-It-Real-and-Simple.htm

Teen Market to Surpass $200 Billion by 2011, Despite Population Decline. (n.d.). MarketingCharts: charts and data for marketers in web and Excel format. Retrieved September 25, 2010, from http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/teen-market-to-surpass-200-billion-by-2011-despite-population-decline-817/

Foster, B. (n.d.). Generation Y embraces personal digital devices - NASDAQ.com. NASDAQ Community Home. Retrieved September 24, 2010, from http://community.nasdaq.com/News/2010-09/generation-y-embraces-personal-digital-devices.aspx?storyid=37535