BY Rachel Cagle
In addition to creating advertisements aimed at teenagers, marketers should know they also care about social issues. Teen passion for these topics gives marketers another way to sway purchase decisions.
Teenagers are spending 2% more year-over-year in 2023, with the average amounting to $2,419, according to Piper Sandler’s survey of 5,690 young people with an average age of 16.2 years. These young consumers, with at least 40% working part-time, mostly spend their hard-earned money on clothing items, beauty products, food, and video game categories.
What to Feature in Advertisements Aimed at Teenagers
When it comes to shopping, most teen girls like to patronize specialty retail for beauty (75%), while only 12% go to mass retailers and drug stores for these products. The average teen spends $313 a year on core cosmetic products, with spending accounting for $123 of that total.
However, the Piper Sandler survey revealed that most female teenagers say that they prefer to spend their money more on clothing products at 28%. Although beauty items also remain a priority.
Teen girls favor brands like Nike, American Eagle, and Lululemon regarding apparel, and Coach and Louis Vuitton claim the prize as the go-to brands when it’s time to match accessories with new items of clothing.
For teen boys, eating out captures 24% of their spending. They favor Chick-fil‑A and Starbucks. Video games accounted for 12% of teen male spending. However, researchers found no significant increase in the use of VR devices over the previous year (12%.)
Teens of all genders spend money on footwear. Favorite brands include Crocs, Nike, and Hey Dude. They don’t hesitate to use buy-now-pay-later payment (BNPL) arrangements, with payments spread over four months being a popular option.
Emphasize Social and Environmental Cause Support in Advertising
Gen Z teens are very aware of the environment and what they can do to protect it. As a result, on top of their spending on apparel and products in cosmetics, 42% of teens will now try plant-based meat. Additionally, 40% will also try plant-based dairy products. Therefore, food marketers selling these products should definitely target this audience with promotions regarding new items..
Analysts report that they remain aware of and take stands on current events. They further mentioned — “Teens this spring cited the environment as their top concern. Racial equality moved up to the No. 2 concern, followed by abortion, inflation, and The Willow Project.”
The Willow Project is a proposal from ConocoPhillips to drill oil and gas in Alaska. Marketers who communicate their positions on these topics and who actively take steps to promote what they are doing can attract more teen buyers.
Favorite Media Channels for Teens
We all know that today’s teens cannot live without their phones, almost as much as they do with clothes items and cosmetics. They report that 31% of their daily video consumption is spent on Netflix. For 28%, the favorite is YouTube.
Here are the favorite social channels for this age group:
- TikTok — 37%
- SNAP — 27%
- Instagram — 23%
Your clients should be advertising on these sites to connect with their important teen audience. Members of Generation Z are also heavily influenced by digital advertisements and deals. Last year, this demographic was motivated to action by either mobile smartphone ads or text ads (62%), ads on a social network (69%), and ads on daily deals sites such as Groupon (41%), according to AudienceSCAN from SalesFuel.
They're also 16% more likely than others to click on text link ads on websites and 21% more likely to sacrifice some privacy to see relevant ads. Given their life stage and their budgets, teens are likely to respond to advertisements on clothing items and makeup.
Keep in mind that “Gen Z teens make emotion-driven and functional purchases, so brands need to be able to speak to both of these needs,” reports SuperAwesome. On the other hand, our research shows that Gen Z consumers specifically plan to buy items that help them feel comfortable (36%), healthy (31%) and successful (29%). These consumers may be fickle and quick to cancel people they distrust, but your clients can boost sales by creating advertisements aimed at teenagers.
Image by Cristiano Silva on Pexels.