THE INTENSIFICATION OF YOUTH MEDIA AND MARKETING

Transcription

1 THE INTENSIFICATION OF YOUTH MEDIA AND MARKETING A TIMELINE FROM 1920 S - S CMNS SPRING 2016 LOEWE CHAN

2 1920 RADIO After the end of WWI, radio broadcasting began in Europe and the U.S., along with Europe s most famous broadcasting station, the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) in 1922 (Wyman, 2008). The station aired classical music and variety programs, mostly functioning as public service, but began to run advertisements in the late 1920 s with the introduction of new stations. The first radio advertisement in 1923 was broadcasted by WEAF, an AT&T toll station in New York (Advertising Age, 2003).

3 RADIO The Great Depression in the s created the Golden Age of Radio. People did not have money to spare and sought to radio broadcasts to distract themselves from everyday struggles. By 1935, more than 22 million American homes had radios, and it became a family medium, where families would sit around the radio and listen to shows and consequently, the advertisements in between (Cyber College, 2012). FILM The film industry was still a relatively new idea, with Disney entering the scene in children film with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 (IMDb, 2016). With the end of the Great Depression in the late s, people cinemas and the film industry began to grow, replacing the radio with the Golden Age of Film. Family-oriented films continued to be produced during and post-wwii from adaptations of popular children s literature.

4 THE TEENAGER The end of WWII brought the existence of a new demographic: the baby boomers, the wealthiest and largest generation up to that time. Baby boomers had an excess of food, apparel, and income, creating a new market of adolescents for businesses. In 1944, LIFE magazine introduced a new breed of American citizen: the teenager (Cosgrove, 2013). New fashion trends and entertainment products were made to facilitate the new needs of teenagers. The film industry continued to boom and cartoons and comics hit mainstream with Bugs Bunny () along with the first Captain America Comic (1941) (Rosenberg, 2016).

5 TV TV became the favourite mass media as the adoption of TV became a necessity for the American household. Children s programming was also developed with shows like the Mickey Mouse Club and Howdy Doody. The TV commercial was soon born and by mid-s, sponsors were leaving radio for TV (US History, 2014). This lead to a commercialization in children programming, where shows were no longer about educating the audience. Instead, celebrities and entertainment culture penetrated the home and family time, which now constituted of the family watching TV as a method of bonding. The family life became mediatized around TV instead of actual family life (Lecture 6).

6 TV, TOYS, THEME PARKS The popular toys of the s (Barbie, GI Joe) showed a heavy influence from children s TV shows and pop culture (The People History, 2016). Since the s, entertainment industries such as Disney and Warner Bros. had been intensifying the commercialization of children culture. The Disneyland theme park opened in 1955 and was booming by the 60 s, along with a wide selection of Saturday morning cartoons and commercials (Lecture 6). CULTURAL WASTELAND This decade sparked a new debate of TV becoming a cultural wasteland (Lecture 6). Critics saw aspects of comedy and violence in TV programming to be mass-produced and viewed children audiences as especially vulnerable, lacking the ability to critically analyze what they see in TV shows and advertisements.

7 $$$ The major social changes of the s included new women s rights, causing a new idea of dual-income families. Parents now had more financial support to adhere to a child s wants and needs. This impacted marketers because the children s market became increasingly attractive, even though the purchasing power was still mostly in the parent s hands. TV With parents being busier than before, media (i.e. TV) such as Sesame Street, which included educational benefits for children became the babysitter in a shifting family structure. Young people were watching more TV than before and what they are watching has changed. Programming became focused on domestic, interpersonal rivalry, crime, and the supernatural, projecting values of moral rightness and personal triumph. These program features were mostly male-centred, which also brought a new type of gender segmentation - the pink and blue world that marketers took full advantage of (Lecture 6).

8 DEREGULATION Deregulation in s due to President Ronald Reagan allowed marketers and advertisers to target children in ways they weren t able to before. One year after deregulation passed, the top ten bestselling toys all had their own TV shows (Barbaro & Earp, 2008). Critics argued that children programming was nothing more but a program-length commercial with an infinite amount of ways to spin-off into tie-in products for profit. VIDEO GAMES Video games came into society with PacMan in and continued with Nintendo (1983), Sega (1984), Japanese Role-playing Games (1987), and finally, the hand-held gaming console (1989) (Smith G., 2012). This increased screen time for youth and helped lead into the beginning of the virtual world in the s.

9 YOUTH + ONLINE The idea of youth demonization instilled a new hostility towards youth in the late s and early s. Due to recession and economic pressure, and issues between race and class, youth became the hot topic for societal issues (Lecture 7). A decline in youth and public spaces also lead to the privatization of youth experiences, and this was amplified with the affluent usage of a new household technology: the computer. The online space became a safe place for youth to be versus the decline in public spaces. Online spaces were fast to become commercialized through popular game websites that had sponsored advertisements tailored to children of different ages, genders, and interests. This brought forth new marketing techniques such as cross marketing, the use of new spaces ( hidden curriculum in schools ), viral marketing, and branding (Lecture 7). MOBILE The rise of the mobile device also becomes a major trend in the late s as the number of youth cell phone usage rises.

10 INTERNET + SOCIAL MEDIA The dot-com bubble burst in the celebrated the new favourite medium: the Internet (Peter, 2004). Social media platforms popped up throughout the s: Facebook (2004), Youtube (2005), Twitter (2006), and Tumblr (2007) and allowed youth to make their own media content while constructing their own identities. Search engine optimization, blogging, and the concept of inbound marketing quickly followed. Marketing techniques were focused on information sharing, user-centered design, collaboration, and creating value for customers in addition to selling. TV viewing declined to more than 50 hours per week, replacing family viewing time with bedroom culture (Smith A. W., 1999).

11 BIG SPENDERS and the current decade sees the fruits of labour planted into youth consumers from the s and s.in 2011, American teenagers (13-19 years old) possessed approximately $200 billion of buying power, making them a major decision maker in household and individual purchases (MediaSmarts, 2012). The widespread connectivity technological advances in mobile devices enable have also significantly increased screen time for youth in a wide selection of platforms including websites, social media, marketing, and other streaming applications. Youth, and especially teenagers or tweens are big-spender markets for advertisers and are classified as digital nomads or natives, relishing in hyper sociality and a prosumer culture.

12 REFERENCES Advertising Age. (2003). History: 1920s. Retrieved from Advertising Age: Barbaro, A., & Earp, J. (2008). Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood. Media Education Foundation. Retrieved from org/assets/products/134/studyguide_134.pdf Cosgrove, B. (2013, September 28). The Invention of Teenagers: LIFE and the Triumph of Youth Culture. Retrieved from Time: the-invention-of-teenagers-life-and-the-triumph-of-youth-culture/ Cyber College. (2012, April 16). The Golden Age of Radio. Retrieved from Cyber College: IMDb. (2016). Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Retrieved from IMDb: MediaSmarts. (2012). Advertising, marketing, and consumerism and children/youth online. Retrieved from Media Smarts: privacy/advertising-marketing-consumerism-children-youth-online Peter, I. (2004). History of the Internet - the Dotcom bubble. Retrieved from Net History: dotcom.html Rosenberg, J. (2016, January 3). s Timeline. Retrieved from About Education: Smith, A. W. (1999, March 21). The rise of `bedroom culture spells trouble for our children. Retrieved from Independent: arts-entertainment/the-rise-of-bedroom-culture-spells-trouble-for-our-children html Smith, G. (2012, August 31). A Brief History of Video Games: The Icon Years ( 1989). Retrieved from Future Blue: com/2012/08/31/a-brief-history-of-video-games-the-icon-years--1989/ The People History. (2016). s News, Events, Popular Culture and Prices. Retrieved from The People History: html US History. (2014). 53c. Land of Television. Retrieved from U.S. History: Wyman, L. (2008). Radio. Retrieved from The History of Communication Technology: