As telephones steadily evolve into miniature computers, becoming mobile, personal entertainment and communication centers, advertisers are increasingly pursuing the much-desired youth demographic through their cell phones.
Advertisers are realizing that if they want to reach teens, they need their number — literally.
"They’re not watching TV, you’re not reaching them in other places," said Andrew Miller, chief executive of Quattro Wireless, a mobile advertising network. "Mobile is where they congregate."
It may all seem a little bothersome, but teens don’t mind receiving messages about products on their phones, says Nic Covey, director of insights at research firm Nielsen Mobile. Nielsen said teens were nearly twice more likely than adults to trust and respond to advertising and pitches on mobile phones.
Yes, we know teens are even more gullible than adults, which is saying a lot. . . .
The story notes, however, that some teens aren’t quite so open to persuasion:
Not all teens are so readily accessible, of course. Molly Nadeau, a senior at Fairfax High in Los Angeles, loves the trendy and inexpensive fashions of Forever 21 Inc., but that doesn’t mean she wants to be inundated with blurbs about its latest blouses or jewelry on her mobile phone.
"Once they have my number, I just think the ads would come 24/7," she said. "I wouldn’t want that." That wouldn’t make her father happy, Nadeau noted, since he pays the phone bill and her plan doesn’t allow for unlimited text messages.
Marketers claim they are sensitive to such resistance, saying that’s why they craft the ads more in terms of useful information teens would want to get on their phones.
Meaning: they disguise the ads to look like real information, and figure the dummies won’t know the difference.
Also:
Some teens do mind, however, if advertisers bug them too overtly, said Alyson Hyder, media director for California at Avenue A/Razorfish, a digital marketing firm.
"They will be quick to turn on the backlash," Hyder said. That’s why "brands that target the teen audience are looking at more authentic ways to insert themselves into the conversation, as opposed to advertising."
Meaning, they disguise the ads to look like real information, and figure the dummies won’t know the difference. (repetition intended)
The advertisers are banking that P. T. Barnum was right when he said that there’s a sucker born every minute. In fact, they’re banking on the possibility that he underestimated it dramatically.