To Hollywood, these kids are among the most coveted demographic because of their insatiable appetite for entertainment. And yet they're the most difficult to corral, with elusive, often unexpected tastes and a penchant for ever-evolving technology. They're sophisticated, demand authenticity and bristle at even the slightest hint of condescension.
"They are smarter than we think," said Jenny Wall, who heads integrated marketing for Crew Creative, a Los Angeles agency that develops teen-targeted campaigns for TV networks and movie studios. "What's going to be hard for us is that every day it changes.... I would be lying if I said I knew exactly how to reach them. They are \o7hard \f7to reach. You have to make sure you're very targeted and very direct with your message."
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday September 15, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 39 words Type of Material: Correction
Entertainment poll: An Aug. 11 front-page story on the Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll on how teenagers consume entertainment incorrectly stated that 14-year-old Julia Schwartz aspired to be a dance studio owner. She aspires to be a dance company owner.
Often called Generation Y, the Millennials or Echo Boomers, these kids are known by economists, sociologists and marketing experts as optimistic team players and rule-followers, born into "child-centered" families and raised as part of the most celebrated, protected and overscheduled generation in memory. Technology has been so much a part of their lives that, to them, life before e-mail and the Internet was "the Stone Age."
The girls of Julia's age were influenced by the late-1990s "girl power" phenomenon and now are often more accomplished, higher achievers than their male counterparts, economist and historian Neil Howe said. They're also more likely to use technology to socialize, according to the survey findings. More than half of teenage girls reported regular instant-messaging, about two-thirds report writing and reading e-mail regularly and just under half report visiting social networking sites.
"Today it's the girls at the front of generational change," Howe said.
Julia, like a lot of girls her age, is constantly linked to her friends by technology. In fact, the two weeks she spent this summer at sleep-away camp was one of the rare occasions she didn't have access to a cellphone or a computer. Campers who wanted to keep in touch exchanged MySpace.com addresses and AOL Instant Messenger screen names -- not snail-mail addresses and phone numbers.
During class time at school, she said, it's common to see kids texting or talking to each other on their cellphones from across the room.
"I know people who are really, really fast," she said. "They can write, like, an entire sentence in five seconds."
