Mele’s Musings

Study: Tweens Search For Products Online, Get Parents To Buy Them In Store

Search is not always about the immediate sale.  Don’t believe me?  Read this article!

Picture: Photobucket.com

Article excerpt:   It’s prime time for the back-to-school advertising onslaught, as retailers shilling laptops, apparel and school supplies hone in on parents and their school-age children. And according to new data from Performics, including search marketing in the media mix is crucial to snagging the attention and influence of tweens, as they are increasingly using search to make product recommendations and find pricing info for their parents.  Performics partnered with ROI Research to survey over 1,000 kids ages 10-14 on their Internet usage and purchasing habits, adhering to the guidelines set out by the (CASRO) for interviewing children for market research. Respondents had recommended or made a purchase within the past six months, and skewed more female (57%) than male (43%). About half of the kids surveyed lived and/or shopped in suburban areas, while about a third were from urban locales.  The research found that tweens were most involved in the recommendation or purchasing of electronics, apparel, consumer packaged goods (CPGs) and telecom items like mobile phones. And search seemed to impact their recommendations for electronics and telecom products the most. The rest: bizreport.com and mediapost.com

Musing:  Young people don’t generally have credit cards. (In fact, I just started giving my son an allowance.  He’s ten, and it’s going to take him a long time to save up for a computer at the rate he’s going).  However, they do tend to bother their parents, and give them “information” – solicited or not – on what to buy.  This article highlights two really important things: 1) it’s never too young to target kids for back to school needs – because they are searching for it anyway, and 2) search is a vital part of the research process, but if it is measured the way most search is – did it sell something in this session or not?!? – then marketers are severely undervaluing its impact.