Stop thinking of the newest generation of adolescence as a derivative of larger more partitioned markets. They are in themselves an incredibly powerful, yet problematic, contribution to the world’s market. According to polls conducted by Harris Interactive, a leading marketing research affiliate, American teens spent approximately 176 billion in 2005 alone. With regret to facets of social harmony, harnessing this market of youth means to have some influential bearing, almost always towards the negative. Statistics have shown us that anything visually gratifying or uncensored is marketable, especially to a demographic as unseasoned as aspiring adults. The trend is to tap into a feed of uninhibited pleasure and promote degradation of self worth in order to bait profits. The most obvious example may be the erection of pop idols. From an industry standpoint, the reward in revenue verses the miniscule initial investment of endorsement far outweighs any moral objection to a sinking standard. Often, if not always, these strategic scarecrows are implemented as redirects for silent promotion of products or services. Marketing sharpshooters are searching for advocates to convey the successful sublimation of trend-driven youth culture, graphed with the calculated responsiveness of eclipse marketing in an effort to establish an underground subculture where the product is widely accepted and endorsed.
Youth is the freshest of the farm-raised demographic, trained from birth how to think, what to eat, how to dress, and what to smell like. Not by kin, but by the fruits of a corporate staff meeting. The method of delivery is articulated culminations of mass communication, mindless entertainment, and subtle advertising. America, the world over, can only witness as the bombardment of alluring influence to, “buy into what we sell,” seeps in like liquid from television and the computer, on the side of a bus, and through air waves. The communication is pounding, but at times, makes no sound.
“Understanding the consumer’s mind…comes down to the question of appealing to and enhancing desire,” Stuart Ewen. The idea is to give a consumer just a little more than they want to see in order to give the impression that the purveyor of an announcement is on the same page. A Successful visual, or implied sense of sex, popularity, beauty, status, power, or any other attribute a young consumer desires, can easily entice an individual of developing character into an environment engineered for nothing more than to extract income from its occupants. This environment can be created and renewed between songs, or on a commercial. It can be charged with a laugh or energized by a fright. A second look begs us to identify, “that was cool.” Discovery of where it came from, and how to obtain it, are logically the next steps to the deliberate equation.
Creating a willingness to observe a message is the first, and most important, step in capturing revenue. Engaging, pleasurable diversity is quintessential to its magnetic power of allure. Pushing the boundaries of good taste has become the norm, but shock holds attention longer. The window of delivery is therefore expanded with the only casualty being integrity, not a source of revenue. Teens are hungry for the opportunity to show the world that they are adults, and pollution marketing is hungry to take the proof to a lower level, so they will listen. What is dirty becomes raunchy and what is violent becomes belligerent. The longer the model is in place, the more damage it does. Rotting our youth’s moral vitality was never the intention of the marketing analysts, just as mail was not intended for coupons, e-mail was not intended for spam and newspapers were not intended for ads, or were they?
Rebellion is another watermark of a successful selling point to the, so called, misunderstood demographic. It is in our very nature to challenge authority. Perhaps it is some portion of the psyche attempting to break from the constant demands of sober routine. What is known is that every so often surges of this primal defiance influence our decisions. Younger audiences, at times, find it more difficult to restrain. Marketing franchises are well aware of this impulse phenomenon, and like all things, seek to feed from its pull. To make an advertiser more mentally approachable by somehow embellishing their disposition of acceptance, associates a youthful audience with the prospect that, on some level, that “person” understands them. Association and acceptance are key elements to establishing rapport and building upon client credibility. A version of trust, out of its many forms, has to be earned by the advertiser, ultimately moving them into a position of empowerment and setting the stage for their tacit gimmick to take hold. Deflation of respect for authorities and anti-sterilization of conformity are but a few of the many weapons in the advertising media’s arsenal of underhanded self promotion. This trajectory is implemented solely to win the petition of an alpha trend setter amongst his sea of peers. The vacuum is targeted directly at our youth, and the social lemmings that identify with them. With the pawns in place, one can only hope that the barrage of solicitation stay on topics of commerce, and not wander into more invasive, potentially political issues.
With such devastating repercussions looming overhead, what challenge can we bring forth to the perpetuators of this downward spiral? Nothing, the machine is working as intended. It would be naive to ask for an abandonment of a thriving business model. The call to action must come from the inside. Accountability must not rest on the stacks of an indestructible, nearly self-automated, marvel of profit-harvesting ingenuity. If we ask the television to raise our youth, it will. From the first time we sit our children in front of the tube we are plugging them into the machine with our own hands. Years later when the resonation of impact cannot be undone, we must ask ourselves, has the machine reached beyond its boundaries, or did we meet it halfway?