Study Finds Generation Y More Ethnically Diverse.

If you want to reach the ‘tweens market, you have to know one thing above all: It’s not just one market.

That’s the finding of a new study, The Taylor Kids Pulse, by Portsmouth, N.H., based Taylor Research and Consulting Group Inc. It’s a study of 871 boys and girls ages 8 to 15 conducted in August and September. The study finds the age group represents 40% of the 70 million Generation Y consumers, as big as the Baby Boom generation with more money to spend and more influence over what their families buy and use.

Yet today’s tweener might be harder to reach. Today’s children are more unique than their predecessor generations. They’re more ethnically diverse, have a larger variation in living arrangements and a greater distinction between the “haves” and the “have-nots.” And today there’s more of everything: Hundreds of magazines, TV networks and Web sites devoted to children. There are more sports to play, more to watch and other alternatives like the Web and video games that cut into the time for traditional pursuits.

“Generation Y is simply not an extension of previous generations,” said Scott Taylor, principal of Taylor Research and Consulting Group Inc.

Planners who want to go after this age group should know that instead of one monolithic demographic, there are four subgroups: boys ages 8-11; girls ages 8-11; boys ages 12-15; and girls ages 12-15. And while there are common traits – homework and TV watching, for example – they follow different paths in sports participation, watching sports on TV, reading, video games and use of the telephone, Instant Messenger and the Internet.

“The most important finding in the study of these four age groups are, to me, the dramatic differences in terms of their interests, in terms of their behavior, in terms of the attitudes,” Taylor said.

While boys and girls under 12 are more interested and active in outdoors play, the study found that after age 12, boys and girls underwent a dramatic shift in their habits. Young teenage boys spent more time with video games and less time in other pursuits, in line with the teenage tendency to separate from others to find the self. Yet at the same time, young teenage girls went the other way, spending more time connecting with friends over the Internet, Instant Messaging and the telephone.

“At the same time boys are disconnecting, girls are trying to connect,” he said.

The study found that brand is extremely important to young children, with intense branding like the X-Games appealing to this age group and older boys above all.

By Paul Gough
Courtesy of http://www.MediaPost.com