Suzanne Humphrey encourages her 9-year-old son, Nilsen, to use the Web safely. But "he can't go online without seeing tons of ads like, 'You've won a free Tamagotchi,' or cellphone, or MP3 player," the Novato, Calif., mom said. "He sometimes believes it."
But marketers understand the power of brand loyalty -- and of establishing it early.
"Tweens are learning brands earlier, and if companies are looking to breed familiarity, they need to start earlier," said Jane Buckingham, president of the Intelligence Group, a marketing consulting firm that specializes in youth trends. "They're certainly aware of what's cool."
Perry Osgood is. The Claremont seventh-grader got an iPod shuffle, made by Apple Computer Inc., when it was released early this year. But he already wants a newer, more expensive iPod nano.
"Technology gadgets are important," he said. "Without our gadgets, like music and TV, you can be bored to death."
Perry has a cellphone too, and it didn't take him long to figure out how to use it to take videos and photos and do goofy editing like adding Zorro masks and Arnold Schwarzenegger biceps to snapshots of friends.
"He's learned more about it in two months than I have in seven years of using the things," said his mother, Nancy.
Apple doesn't target younger children with its advertising. It aims instead at older teens and college students, using appearances by such music acts as U2 and Eminem. "If you want to advertise to a tween, you're going to show a teen, not an 8-year-old," Buckingham said. "It's the shrinking of the tweens age. Ten-year-olds are acting more like 12-year-olds than they used to."
Youth marketers call that "kids getting older younger." Children grow out of toys at an earlier age and gravitate toward more grown-up diversions, influenced by TV, popular music and movies.
"If I'm going to launch a product to teens and tweens, I need to build awareness, and brand awareness really kicks in at age 7," said Malcolm Bird, senior vice president for kids and teens at Time Warner Inc.'s America Online.
Nilsen, the Novato fourth-grader, persuaded his parents to buy Sony PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Game Cube game consoles. Now, he said, "it's really hard to choose between a PlayStation Portable and Lego Mindstorms robots. They're really cool." The PlayStation Portable sells for $250; Mindstorms can cost $200. Lest there's any doubt of what he has his eyes on, Nilsen maintains a wish list of 674 items at www.lego.com-- which he can e-mail to his parents with a few keystrokes.
