Psy 322 Week 3

Marketing for Teenagers

Phil Bray

PSY/322

June 21, 2012

Vanessa Torres

Marketing for Teenagers

For this week’s assignment, I decided to discuss different facets of the teenager group as it appears to the marketing world. The teenaged group of America is a large target for marketing. Anyone can see this if they ever watch MTV. These days there is only one type of commercial on this channel, it is the teenager commercial. These commercials use perception and attitude to create the marketing message. “They make many, if not most, of their purchasing decisions independently. And they have significant influence on family purchases. Perhaps most importantly, companies know that once they have “branded” a child, he or she is likely to be a customer for life, or from “cradle to grave”.” (Carney, 2007) The marketing company will influence a teenager to believe that the product will make the teenager something that other teenagers will aspire to be.

Teenagers are always looking for ways to impress other teenagers and the marketing world knows this. So, marketing firms use perception to influence the teenager community. This is done by making advertisements that make the teenager think that if he or she uses the product, he or she will instantly become more noticeable and or impressive. The first product that comes to mind in this case is shoes. We have all seen advertisements for shoes. The advertisement will state that the shoe will help you run faster, jump higher, make quicker stops. “Advertising promotes unrealistic views of the world to children who lacking a wider experience on their own and may accept the advertised version as reality.” (Rada, 2010) Now, most teenaged athletes are always looking for a way to get better without doing all the work. If a teenager is very good at a sport, other...