A tween is described as the in-between of being a kid and a adolescent, a kid who is in his/her late childhood old ages and early teenage old ages. The tween age group has been equivocally defined as prepubertal persons between the ages of eight to fourteen, nine to twelve or eight to twelve. The undetermined age group is a consequence of tweens being a new demographic group. Persons within this age group are get downing to develop a sense of individuality and are dying to further a self image. They are armed with the cognition of merchandise trade names that encompasses the market today. It is estimated that tweens have the disbursement power to the sum of 40 billion dollars in the United States entirely and this is non inclusive of what parents and other household grownups spent straight for them.
As the mediate age group, James McNeal ‘s three points on selling to kids could be applied. The first point, as stated above, tweens have progressively big sums of money to pass in their ain right. Second, they are possible clients whose trueness could be won now and reaped for benefit subsequently. This could use to merchandises such as skin care or makeup. Third, tweens are influential subscribers in family determinations about outgos such as nutrient, films, games and even autos. ( W. Varney 1994, pp. 58 )
An of import differentiation to observe is that tweens of this epoch are brought up together with the usage of engineering. They are non inclined to merely one signifier of media ( which was traditionally believed to be the telecasting ) but are unfastened and have entree to legion others such as the cyberspace and computing machine games which allows them to get information and basically take gatekeepers ( parents or defenders ) from the image. With the cyberspace excessively, tweens are ‘becoming more knowing about a merchandise than their parents ‘ ( citied in Tapscott. D 1998, pp. 186 ) . It can non be made certain whether it ‘s the media industry that is aging the kid or that kids are merely maturating faster but tweens have made a marked consequence in the economic system that warrants adequate attending for the development of merchandises, services and retail shops – such as Build-A-Bear and Paint Your Own Pottery that are targeted to the tween age group.
Corporations net income on the insecurities that tweens have on being accepted by their equals. Tweens of this epoch are witting of what they should or should non look like, how to act, what to listen to and are of the age whereby they could understand what they see on telecasting unlike immature kids below the age of five who ‘lack the ability to know apart systematically between programmed and commercials ‘ ( citied in Kunkel, Dale 1994, pp. 32 ) . Tweens would welcome merchandises that could help their self image of being cool and sophisticated. Merchandises such as apparels, particularly clothes worn or endorsed by their graven images, could even go a necessity. It should be noted that media and civilization plays an of import function in finding what is considered to be cool.
The age compaction phenomenon could besides explicate tweens passing wont. Age compaction is a tendency that sees tweens disregarding traditional playthings in favor of more mature merchandises targeted specific to adolescents such as nomadic phones, electronic equipment such as music participants and picture games. With the promotion of engineering, it has become easier to utilize such devices. A prima illustration would be the Apple iTouch that is popular amongst a broad audience due to its simpleness and unsophisticated characteristics.
Ad catered for the tween audience could be seen on telecasting through commercials and merchandise arrangement on shows. Product arrangement is a signifier of advertizement where goods ( autos, drinks – Pepsi, coca Cola, electronics – laptops, music participants ) and services ( telecommunication, internet supplier ) are promoted in a less advertorial manner such as being incorporated into a plot line. Product arrangement could be seen in assorted signifiers of media such as films, picture games and books. An illustration of this would be the film ‘Transformer ‘ released in 2007. The film integrated autos manufactured by General Motors ( GM ) as characters in the plot line. In video games, merchandise arrangement could be in the signifier of practical autos ( from vehicular trade names such as Chrysler or Lamborghini ) stand foring the existent autos in world.
Viral selling is another signifier of advertizement popular for the tween market. It is besides known as word of oral cavity selling that is dependent on people send oning something ( merchandise, service, etc ) to a figure of audiences. Hotmail and Facebook are illustrations of successful viral selling. Girls Intelligence Agency ( GIA ) is a US-based company that specializes in female viral selling. Its method of roll uping research is irregular as the company ‘hires ‘ influential female tweens who are the alpha amongst their group of friends to be ‘spies ‘ . The company provides merchandises to their ‘spies ‘ to be introduced to their group of friends after which they would describe back their findings to the company. GIA has high profile clients such as Mattel, Disney and Warner Brothers.
To aim tweens through commercials, they would hold to basically be placed during, after or before programmes that are geared to the age group such as the of all time popular Disney channel and Nickelodeon. Other signifier of advertisement includes the common hoardings, magazine, newspapers and the cyberspace.
Tweens are capable of being trade name understanding as reported by Martin Lindstrom, president of Buyology Inc ( How trade name understanding are tweens? , 2009 ) . Tweens of today are enormously in tuned with trade names that they are able to acknowledge a trade name merely be hearing a jangle – start-up music of a Mac computing machine, by a odor – aroma from playdoh and their logo – Nike.
Let ‘s measure tween manner and its advertisement. Fashion is peculiarly popular with female tweens. Advertisement for manner in today ‘s universe is perchance inclined to be a negative influence. This is so because advertizements that are aimed at the tween market are saturated with images of urgently thin, beautiful and extremely sexualised immature people. This will impact a tween person ‘s perceptual experience towards gender and organic structure image.
Fashion trade names such as Calvin Kline and Abercrombie and Fitch uses provocative selling runs having theoretical accounts every bit immature as 13 old ages old. These trade names are non merely selling apparels but grown-up gender. The advertizements represent that tweens have to be of a certain organic structure type and act in provocative manner to accomplish the ego image they desire and what is deemed to be cool in today ‘s context. It is the earnest responsibility of parents to educate their kids on healthy gender and eating to let their kids the chance to do a right determination. Parents should besides take note that information about sex could be gathered virtually anyplace from magazines, the cyberspace, films and telecasting.
Tween manner is non merely dominated by high-level branded sellers such as those stated above but besides entry-level 1s such as Target and K-Mart. To increase gross revenues for their companies, these companies have aligned themselves with tween graven images such as Miley Cyrus ( with Wallmart ) and Selena Gomez ( K-Mart ) who are popular personalities with a broad followers.
The targeted audience for tween manner could differ in societal position and intended consumers – division between high-ranking manner users and entry-level 1s, idealisation – dependant on the selling run of the trade name, medium – where the advertizements appear in and merchandise class – merchandise could be denims, sport jackets and anything else but their chief focal point group is the same, tween manner are targeted for tweens. ( Fowles. J 1995, pp. 174 )
Apparels are one of the top merchandises for tweens as parents would profess them as being a necessity while tweens could take the trade name and manner of their dress that is up to their outlook.
As stated above, civilization excessively plays a function in make up one’s minding what is cool for a tween. It might be cool for a tween to be have oning a Bikini on the beach in the United States but that is unacceptable if she were to be populating in a more conservative state such as Malaysia which is a society of Aspirationals with strong Islamic beliefs ( cited in Ewing. M 2000, pp. 241 ) . In Singapore for illustration, the state holds house to the construct of household where household members are culturally bound to continue the household in which instance, it is extremely dubious that a tween would dress up in a manner that will convey embarrassment or trouble the household.
In decision, the promotion of clip has brought about the development of the tween age group. Tweens have made a large adequate impact on the economic system that sellers are developing merchandises, services and retails specifically targeted for them. Though it should be noted that tweens aspire to be adolescents therefore there is ever the possibility that they might reject specifically tween designed merchandises for more sophisticated merchandise. In illustration, tweens might reject a tween nomadic phone such as the Verizon Blitz for a more sophisticated device such as a Blackberry. Tweens will go on to be empowered and issues that antecedently relate to adolescents will be a beginning if involvement to the age group.