Reaching the Tween and Teen Markets via SMS

Filed in archive Marketing on October 31, 2006

A new use for cell phones? Coupons and advertising using SMS or Short Messaging Service, I guess this was bound to happen because Tweens and Teens live on their cell phones and are avid SMS users.

Annoying or not, door-hangers are effective at generating sales because they hit consumers where they live. Similarly, new technologies like Bluetooth, infrared, and Wi-Fi are making it easier and potentially cheaper than ever to reach consumers by mobile when they're just about to walk into a shop.

They also allow for targeted marketing. In the Boston area, a number of companies have signed up with MobileLime, a startup that allows consumers to pay for purchases with their cell phones. Users also can opt in to get text messages of special promotions -- including, yes, deals on pizza.

Raffi Hovagimian, owner of Waltham Pizza, says that more than 100 of his customers have signed up for MobileLime, most of them regulars who order pizza several times a week. When he recently started a 15% discount for MobileLime customers, he sent out text messages to customers, and he says he plans to do more mobile marketing.

Via Business 2.0

Are you using SMS in a marketing context to promote your business to tweens and teens?

Here is another revealing report about how marketers are forcing tweens to grow up and become much more sophisticated consumers.

One of the most important recent developments in advertising to kids has been the defining of a "tween" market (ages 8 to 12). No longer little children, and not yet teens, tweens are starting to develop their sense of identity and are anxious to cultivate a sophisticated self-image. And marketers are discovering there's lots of money to be made by treating tweens like teenagers.

The marketing industry is forcing tweens to grow up quickly. Industry research reveals that children 11 and older don't consider themselves children anymore. The Toy Manufacturers of America have changed their target market from birth to 14, to birth to ten years of age.

A 2000 report from the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. revealed how Hollywood routinely recruits tweens (some as young as nine) to evaluate its story concepts, commercials, theatrical trailers and rough cuts for R-rated movies.

By treating pre-adolescents as independent, mature consumers, marketers have been very successful in removing the gatekeepers (parents) from the picture - leaving tweens vulnerable to potentially unhealthy messages about body image, sexuality, relationships and violence.

From the Media and Awareness Network

Removing parents as the gatekeepers and marketing directly to tweens - Is this a good thing?

Does your business pursue the tween market? What have you learned? What works and what doesn't?