VOLUME 25

Table of Contents

Heard on the Playground

What's New This Month

Tech Trends

Kids

Tweens

Teens

Trend Watch

Heard on the Playground

Important Food Issues Straight from Kids’ and Tweens’ Mouths

We recently attended a special radio program hosted by one of our good friends, master chef Jimmy Gherardi.  He took cooking questions from the special live audience of over 50 kids and tweens.  The program provided some reminders for food marketers to chew on. 

1.  School Lunch Is an Important and Unfulfilled Opportunity - This meal is the center of their day, both figuratively and literally, so they have a particular interest in it.  Questions ranged from how to keep their sandwich from getting smashed in their lunchbox to the omnipresent complaint of poor food in their cafeteria.  Institutional food service programs, like other consumer goods companies, have realized the power that kids and tweens have in the cafeteria and continue to offer the tastes kids want, while still meeting key nutritional guidelines.

2.  The Ability to Personalize Food Is a Key Driver - Many of the kids and tweens spoke of a special recipe or concoction that they invented.  For most, it was just making a special tweak to a common food, but to them, adding a personal touch to something, like Doritos to a turkey sandwich, truly makes a food more enjoyable, and it definitely makes “just for me” in their eyes.  These are often the preliminary steps kids will take toward developing an openness for new tastes.

3. Tweens Look to Further Expand Culinary Tastes - Kids and tweens are exposed to a variety of new foods, inspired in large part by the continued growth of ethnic diversity in society.  Tweens in particular are at a developmental level where they are willing to try new things, with food being a particular way to explore.  They will take the safety of a known taste like chicken nuggets and add more exciting flavor with sweet and sour or a spicy buffalo sauce.  The older they are, the further out they are willing to explore.  

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What's New This Month

Kids Driving Vacation Destinations as Families Travel More

Society is seeing attitudinal shifts in parents as they focus less on career and more on family.  According to the Travel Industry Association of America, households with kids took just under 119 million leisure trips in 2002, up 23% from 1994’s total of 96.6 million.  As the trend of families spending more time together continues to increase, vacations will be a central activity, and companies and facilities that develop special amenities for kids will appeal to the whole family.

Now, a hotel is going to take it one step further and re-design itself to appeal to kids and their parents.  Holiday Inn® Hotels & Resorts recently announced a partnership with Nickelodeon to develop the first “Nick-themed” hotel by early 2005, aptly named Nickelodeon Family Suites by Holiday Inn.  Located in Lake Buena Vista, the current hotel and its 800 suites, including two- and three-bedroom Kidsuites® are already located near Orlando ’s major theme-park attractions, including Universal Studios Florida, the parent company of Nickelodeon.

With an estimated $20-million-dollar transformation, the hotel plans to be even more kid friendly, including “Nick-decorated” bedrooms with bunk or twin beds and a TV/Video console.  When they aren’t watching a SpongeBob video, kids will be able to check out the two large pools, complete with waterslides and flumes, poolside games and the game room.  Just to make sure they don’t sleep the day away, there will be wake-up calls from Nick stars.  That way, no one will miss the daily character breakfasts or live entertainment featuring Nick characters.  Bringing the entertainment and fun of Nickelodeon directly into the hotel environment provides a model for other resorts wishing to attract families to follow.

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Tech Trends

New Wireless Products Offer More to Key Generation Y Market

Two new offerings from cellular phone giant Nokia continue the trend of fusing communication with multimedia entertainment, something many multi-tasking tweens and teens have been doing from the comfort of their own room for years.  Now, however, they’ll be able to take this to the streets, or anywhere else they desire and still be constantly in touch with their friends. The N-Gage™ game deck and the 3300 Music Phone tap into two worlds that teens and young adults are heavily involved in—video games and music.

N-Gage's most touted feature is that it allows players to wirelessly challenge other gamers across the street or across the country.  Users can store and play MP3s, listen to FM radio, surf the web, sync the device with their Microsoft Outlook calendar and send text messages.  Oh yeah, they can also make phone calls. 

The 3300 Music Phone’s full keypad allows for text messaging, Instant Messaging and Internet e-mail account access.  Users are enabled to create, edit, send and receive messages with image sound and text.  The device acts as both an MP3 player and Stereo FM radio.  Users can transfer their favorite tunes from their PC or an external music source like a CD player onto a swappable memory card. 

Both of these products serve as excellent examples of where the wireless world is headed.  The youth market is the most fertile segment for growth, as well as the most technologically savvy.  Companies will continue to push technology with hopes of meeting these high-end expectations.

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Kids 

Hot Holiday Toys for 2003

Several sources have released their “top toys” lists, including Toys “R” Us and KB Toys.  Yahoo’s kid-based Internet Yahooligans had over 130,000 kids select their favorites from a preset list to compile their list of top ten toys.  Youth University asked our own elves to check these lists more than twice to see what items appear to be rising to the top.  They report there is no “must have” toy this year ala Tickle Me Elmo, but rather, a wide range of pined-for gifts that will be dancing in children’s heads over the next month.

Electronics Still Big for All Ages

• Xbox, GameBoy Advance SP and PlayStation 2 will once again find their way into a number of carts, along with an assortment of the latest games.  
• Learning and development offerings like Learning Thru Music and Power Touch from Fisher Price and the Little Touch LeapPad from LeapFrog will appeal to younger children. 
• Two new offerings from Hasbro, VideoNow, a portable video player, and FurReal Friends, a line of realistic, electronic plush animals, will remind youngsters that electronics come in all shapes and barking sizes.

Proliferation of 80’s Toys Give Gen X Parents Déjà Vu

• Moms hope that updated versions of Cabbage Patch Kids, Strawberry Shortcake and My Little Pony will provide their daughters with fond memories in the year 2023.
• Classic action toys for boys that have been given a modern facelift during the year and figure to be big include Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Transformers. 

Barbie Has Some Spunky Company

• Barbie will make her usual strong presence—particularly the Barbie Swan Lake doll, one of Mattel’s focuses for the year, along with other products associated with the Barbie Swan Lake movie. 
• New lines of dolls including Bratz, MyScene and Divas have been developed in the past few years with a focus on fashion, making them more appealing to older kids and tweens.
• Tween queen Hilary Duff’s new line of dolls will likely end up in the hands of many Lizzie Maguire fans. 

Some Licenses Expected to Pack a Punch

• Hulk Hands appear to be the latest in demand toys based on one of the summer’s top films.  
• Nickelodeon properties including SpongeBob Squarepants, The Fairly OddParents and Dora the Explorer will be popping up in a variety of toy offerings, benefiting from their continued popularity on television.
• Hokey Pokey Elmo will try and capture the magic of his not-so-distant relative Tickle Me Elmo.  

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Tweens 

Pop Culture, Teens and Even Moms Inspire Latest Tween Fashion

It’s not new that pop culture can influence and create new fads and trends in fashion.  What is new, however, is that mom is going along with it more and more because she is equally influenced and sometimes very supportive of many of the decisions her kids are making in what to wear as they make the transition into fashion-conscious tweens.

Tweens’ desires are tied up in things that make them look and feel cool.  They look to their older brothers and sisters, read teen magazines and follow today’s pop culture icons on the big and little screens.  Consequently, these icons demonstrate a mature look that we now find sported by today’s tweens.  Two of the hottest names with tweens in the past few years, the Olsen twins and Hilary Duff have adopted an adult-look as they have become more mainstream in the pop culture world. 

It’s important to note that today’s tweens aren’t running totally wild and out of control.  This evolution of appearance has been consistently blessed along the way by many moms, some whom also sport some of the hottest trends in fashion themselves.  All the controversy over Britney Spears’ fashion influence, however, has caused others to play “fashion police.”  Schools have re-instituted dress codes to keep underwear under wraps, midriffs covered and pants from falling off of boys’ hips because some parents seem less sensitive to some of the more outrageous fashion trends.   

Young people have always pushed the fashion envelope, but it’s not necessarily tweens’ and teens’ tastes that have matured.  Today’s moms are more willing to go along with these styles because women’s fashion tastes have blurred with the teen and tween.  This should continue to be the trend, particularly with Gen X moms becoming the majority in terms of having tweens.  They are the first generation that was forced to become adults before their time, so seeing their children as “Mini-me” clones will be more expected and accepted than ever before.

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Teens

New Wave of Teen Dramas Starting to Build a Following

Two networks that strive to attract the teen audience—Fox and The WB—are doing just that with The O.C. (Fox) and One Tree Hill (The WB).  These new offerings have become hot with teens, starting to develop a following that translates to a lot of “water cooler” talk in school hallways the next day.  This popularity has translated to exposure in teen magazines and other television programs like TRL on MTV.  In fact, VH1’s recent Big in ‘03 program named The O.C. as the biggest guilty pleasure, proving that it’s more than just teens that are.  Beverly Hills 90210 and Dawson’s Creek were both able to last for at least five seasons by appealing to both of these markets.   

The O.C. premiered in the summer and built a strong following as reruns filled the airwaves on other channels.  The show is centered on Ryan, a troubled teen from the other side of the tracks that is thrust into life in Orange County, an affluent community in California, and of course, its high school.  Sounds like several recent teen soap operas were put into a blender.  Nonetheless, the combination of fresh faces and a concentration to have a more teen-like dialogue have done the job in attracting the teenagers.  After a short hiatus during the baseball playoffs, the show is back on the air and benefiting from its early buzz, with its stars gracing the covers of several teen publications. 

The WB’s One Tree Hill is based on four teenagers—two guys and two girls—as they tackle the struggles of adolescence of high school in North Carolina.  No word if there are any creeks nearby.  Basketball plays a central theme in the show, with the hope that more males will be attracted to the show.  The omnipresent relationship issues and other “soap opera” characteristics should shape up to make it more of a “chick magnet” though.  At least they’ll be the ones talking about it in public.

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Trend Watch

Healthier Offerings in Cafeteria Vending Machines

Vending machines in schools—particularly their contents—have been a hot button in recent years.  Many school districts put restrictions on when students can purchase snacks and beverages.  Stonyfield Farm, the nation’s largest organic yogurt company, is teaming up with Kids First, a nutrition education organization, and some schools in Rhode Island to help vending machines lose their unhealthy rap.

Stonyfield Farm’s first healthy vending pilot will feature products like organic yogurt, string cheese, dried fruit, soy nuts and pita chips, as well as several other low-fat and low-sugar products.  Before their inclusion, all of these products met the nutritional standards set up by Kids First and, more importantly, the taste standards of teens.  With minimal sugars and fats, these foods are lean sources of protein and/or complex carbohydrates.  Currently, vending is not regulated by the USDA, so this is indeed a proactive step to offer healthier fare in an area that presently has no federal nutritional guidelines.

A few years ago, several test programs were implemented in schools to see if single-serve milk, much of which was flavored, would be more appealing to students if sold in this format.  The combination of the more appealing presentation of milk, both in package and flavor, and the vending machine distribution was judged to be a success.  Time will only tell if offering these more healthy foods, some of which are becoming more mainstream, in this similar format will gain in popularity.

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Youth University is brought to you free each month by WonderGroup.  

We hope you find Youth University valuable and helpful.  WonderGroup, a 360º youth marketing agency provides services including:  Advertising, New Product Development, Research and Promotions.  You can learn more about WonderGroup at www.wondergroup.com or by calling Greg Livingston, theshadow@wondergroup.com, at (513) 357-2950.

See you next month!