Title: PreTeens A Lucrative, If Vulnerable, Market
Title: Accessing The 'Tween' Audience Reaches Fever Pitch With More Music, More Media
Source: Billboard
Date: May 12, 2001
Author: Chuck Taylor
Topic: Other
They might be too young to sit behind the wheel of a car, but preteen consumers have become a driving force in the music industry, fueling sales of pop product in the millions and breaking acts that top 40 radio and MTV won't touch.
The once-overlooked "tween" market -- 9- to 14-year-olds -- holds in its little pocket some $260 billion per year in spending power, according to Cincinnati-based WonderGroup Youth Marketing and Advertising. And its No. 1 purchase is music.
Thanks to savvy marketing campaigns by record labels, the ubiquity of kid-focused outlets like Radio Disney and Nickelodeon, and the dogged development of artists with which the demographic can readily identify, the preadolescent age group has not only backed the lucrative pop stable of such acts as 'N Sync, Britney Spears, and Backstreet Boys -- it has single-handedly supported its own set of similarly aged superstar artists.
Jive's 13-year-old Aaron Carter is the poster child for the tween movement. Thanks to tenacious marketing, his buoyant pop, R&B, and rap showcase Aaron's Party, released last October, has moved 1.7 million copies, according to SoundScan; a recent Disney Channel concert special, catering to the preteen set, helped catapult the album to No. 4 on The Billboard 200 in the April 21 issue, representing a one-week gain of 73.5%. Carter, the brother of Backstreet Boy Nick, kicks off a 45-date headlining U.S. tour on June 15.
In addition, Abba Generation, the debut from Swedish foursome A*Teens, shifted 582,000 units, and in the past two months, the group's MCA follow-up, Teen Spirit, has sold 183,000 copies with little support from top 40 radio. Likewise, youth quartet Steps, from the U.K., has never achieved a radio hit here, but it rang up 201,000 copies of its Step One last year on Jive; the group's second set is due this summer.
Further, British boy/girl ensemble S Club 7 began its campaign here in November 1999 with a half-hour music-inclusive comedy on the Fox Family Channel and has just scored its first U.S. hit, "Never Had a Dream Come True," which reaches No. 10 on The Billboard Hot 100 this issue. Its 2000 eponymous debut sold 311,000 copies; the current A&M/Interscope follow-up, 7, has surpassed it and is gaining momentum, with sales of 358,000.
The group just scored its third No. 1 single in the U.K.
And there are likely more where those acts came from. Despite top 40 radio's downtrend in playing youth-oriented pop music, labels have a full arsenal of prepubescent artists in the wings, ready to serve an audience that is not only literally growing in a modern post-baby boom but is also as media savvy as -- and more loyal than -- any other age group.
"This is the age where kids start appreciating and owning their own music, separate and distinct from their parents," says WonderGroup executive VP Greg Livingston, who, with colleagues Dave Siegel and Tim Coffey, wrote The Great Tween Buying Machine, out from Paramount Market Publishing May 6. "It's a time when they have evolved from individual play to social play -- and in some cases, music is the first thing that replaces toys for this group. It becomes part of their sense of belonging, and so they are very passionate about who they like and what their friends listen to."
Music is "innate to human existence from our earliest days, and the record business has figured out how to harness and motivate young kids," adds Tom Corson, executive VP of worldwide marketing and sales for J Records, whose O-Town has significant juvenile appeal. "There's media on all levels now that is super-serving programming to this audience. As long as we're developing artists with substance, they will come."
Paul Marabito, a buyer for South Plainfield, N.J.-based, 10-outlet Compact Disc World chain, says, "Labels take a handful of acts and drive them into the public eye to reach the kids. There's a lot of marketing involved. If the labels can attract that [tween] buying power, they're going to sell a good chunk of music."
AN ATTENTIVE TARGET
There are certainly compelling reasons for labels to draw tweens into the musical lair. For one, they are surprisingly tuned-in and decisive, making them attentive targets for music marketing.
"Kids are no longer babies when they're 7 and 8 years old," says Linda Ferrando, senior VP of Atlantic Records. "They have a lot of things coming at them: radio, sometimes 200 channels of television, the Internet, magazines, they're talking to their friends at school, and they have the ability to juggle these. As a result, they know what they want -- and they want it now."
Historically, these kids' loyalty to their favorite acts tops that of other age groups. And loyalty translates into repeat business. "This demographic is passionate, and they seem to embrace what they feel is theirs," says David Leach, executive VP of marketing/promotion for Edel Entertainment. "As kids get a little older, their loyalties change quicker, but these 8- to 14-year-olds hang in there."
And buying the record is only part of the equation. "They have to have the T-shirt, the calendar, teddy bear, the glow stick, the laminates -- the merchandising end of it is five notches above [an adult act like] the Rolling Stones," attests Brian Lukow, co-creator/manager of new Edel teen act Dream Street (whose debut album streets in July).
The J Records male trio LFO had a 1999 top five hit in "Summer Girls" that crossed all pop demographics. Rich Cronin, the act's lead singer/songwriter, recalls, "I can't tell you how many times moms told me that their daughters made them run right out and buy our record and then played it all summer long. Those kids love getting to know their favorite groups. And if it's fun to them, they stay."
THE PIED PIPERS
Playing the role of Pied Piper for this demographic -- and serving as a pretty good pal for the record labels, too -- are three cable TV outlets that practically own the tween market: Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, and Fox Family Channel, all of which have penetration to about 80 million U.S. homes. Along with Radio Disney, which broadcasts on 52 stations nationwide and is streamed over the Internet, each has carved a successful niche for kid-friendly programming, with a focus on music.
Working with record labels, these channels' steady diet of music videos, concerts, and artist appearances in original series provide a persistent, influential audio-visual assault -- one that often garners easy parental approval over the wares of other sources.
"Those outlets are like the Good Housekeeping seal," Paul Orescan, VP/marketing director at MCA, home of A*Teens, says. "Parents are concerned about content, but they don't worry about the artists they see on the television shows after school. So when the kids see their albums at Wal-Mart and say, 'Hey, this is great,' they have no fears about buying it."
Nickelodeon -- the top-rated network for tweens -- has championed music for kids with an exhaustive supply of special programming and series. These include on-air concerts featuring Spears and Will Smith; the annual All That Music and More Festival tour, which last year hit 40 markets with such teen-centric acts as B*Witched, Blaque, Sammie, and Angela Via; the soundtrack to Rugrats in Paris, which included Baha Men's top 40 hit "Who Let the Dogs Out"; and the Kids' Choice Awards, which has drawn such acts as Goo Goo Dolls, Jennifer Lopez, Mandy Moore, and Jessica Simpson. The network also offers a nightly videoclip countdown, tallied from online votes -- as many as a million per week.
"We recognize tweens as a powerful economic force, and we want to be the eye of the hurricane," Albie Hecht, president of TV/film production for Nickelodeon, says. "These kids are making music part of the fabric of their lives, and they're good at multitasking, so we want them to interact with Nick."
Nickelodeon aims to integrate music acts throughout its schedule, so that "our audience gets an up-close-and-personal point of view -- they feel like they know these artists," Hecht says. "It drives a much more emotional connection to the artist than you find in other places."
TWEENS BEHIND THE SCENES
Similarly, Fox Family Channel recognizes the allure of music programming, with a quarterly "Front Row Center" concert series (featuring such acts as Shaggy, Vitamin C, and SoulDecision) and Total Access 24/7, a half-hour magazine-style show that takes tweens behind the scenes with music and movie celebrities. The network also has branded itself as the home of the S Club 7 series.
The network's latest music-intensive foray is Great Pretenders, a game show during which kids lip-sync to and dress up like their favorite singers. The show is hosted by RCA female trio Wild Orchid (whose third album, Fire, is due this summer).
According to Wild Orchid member Stephanie Rydel, Great Pretenders is an ideal reflection of how young pop stars serve as role models for tweens: "This isn't just about singing along to lyrics. It's fashion, it's identifying with peers, it's about lifestyle."
Fox has positioned itself as "a steppingstone between Nickelodeon and MTV," Joel Andryc, executive VP of kids programming and development for Fox Family Channel/Fox Kids Network, says. "Our audience grows up quickly, and they're throwing away their Barbies and action figures a lot faster and throwing money into music and fashion. We follow the trends of what pop culture is dictating to them, and they have an insatiable appetite for music, which we're feeding in an interactive way with the game show, videos, and our other lifestyle programming."
Disney Channel -- which in the past has drummed up considerable sales for artists with its concert series -- is retooling its music-oriented programming away from individual-artist performances, instead linking popular artists with its original half-hour series. Pop trio BBMak is scheduled to perform on an upcoming episode of teen comedy Even Stevens, while Carter is set to guest on the channel's popular Lizzie McGuire.
Disney Channel's original prime-time movie The Luck of the Irish (which debuted in March) featured Irish teen artist Samantha Mumba, who performed the track "What's It Gonna Be" from her album Gotta Tell You -- which, with additional exposure from a Disney Channel concert special, saw a three-week sales spike last month, reaching a new peak of No. 67 April 28 on The Billboard 200, with sales of 261,000 to date.
"It's all about getting your face out there, and these appearances on the Disney Channel have absolutely done wonders," Mumba says. "You want people to hear the music, and marketing is the biggest part of it."
Explaining Disney Channel's new direction, executive VP of original programming Gary Marsh says, "Record labels have a different objective than a TV network. They're out to sell albums, and our goal is to make ourselves the first on-air and online destination for our audience. Clearly, music is a part of how we accomplish that, but by utilizing top music artists within our original series and movies, it serves a more strategic purpose for us than just increasing the profile of the artist."
Also, Marsh says, Disney Channel is also looking for major teen acts to record theme songs for upcoming original series.
LISTENING TO ITS LISTENERS
Consisting of 90% music programming, Radio Disney has found its place simply by following the lead of its listeners. The 24-hour on-air/online network logs some 600,000 calls and 15,000 E-mails per week. "We have immediate response to what our core of 9- to 12-year-olds wants to hear," PD Robin Jones says. The network, which reaches 3.2 million listeners per week, not only has helped break the careers of such core artists as A*Teens, Carter, and Spears, but also reflects (and sometimes transcends) top 40 trends with a current rotation as diverse as Nelly Furtado, James Brown, 3LW, Baha Men, Village People, and Smash Mouth.
While record labels could hardly ask for more from the partnerships they've forged with these potent kid-focused networks, developing an artist to the point where Nickelodeon and Disney take notice is still an arduous process -- especially since top 40 radio and MTV are traditionally not options. Marketing often begins at the grass-roots level, with teen press, mall tours, and the release of commercial singles to test the waters.
Carter's rise took years. In fact, he became a star in Europe two years before he garnered name recognition stateside. "We took on all of the tween mediums and pursued them over and over, focusing on the message of Aaron as an artist and Aaron's Party almost as a brand," Randy Miller, senior VP of marketing at Jive, says. "We've worked to promote this album every single day almost nonstop for close to a year. You have to continue the momentum."
Personal appearances have also been a key element. "I think touring has been one of the most important things in getting [my career] to this point," Carter says, adding that he has toured the U.S. about four times, beginning with a Wal-Mart tour and graduating to a U.S. and European warm-up slot for Spears.
As with Carter, "getting out there and meeting the fans was absolutely essential" for A&M/Interscope act S Club 7, says the group's Jon Lee. "When they see you in the flesh and shake a hand or get an autograph, they feel like they know you as a person, and they'll stick by you."
S Club 7 is a key example of an act whose marketing strategy has revolved around steady multimedia exposure. With its weekly Fox Family TV show, "we continually built awareness with marathons, behind-the-scenes interviews, a promotion with Sunny Delight with a chance to go to the Super Bowl and hang out with the band," says the network's Andryc. "We worked with teen and consumer press and online with complete persistence."
The battlefield has shifted from radio to TV, says A&M president Ron Fair. "The old model surrounding children's programming was relegated to Saturday mornings, but now there are so many outlets available at all times," he says. "From there, with S Club 7, it was a matter of coming to U.S. radio with a song that struck a nerve. Now, their established fan base will only help us sell the album."
Among the new acts being presented to the tween audience is Nick and Aaron Carter's sister Leslie Carter, whose DreamWorks single "Like Wow!" is featured in the animated film Shrek. That exposure, along with her appearance as a presenter at Nickelodeon's Kids' Choice Awards, has already put 14-year-old Carter in the tween pipeline; top 40 radio has never heard of her, but "Like Wow!" reached the top 15 on Hot 100 Sales in late April.
Edel's Dream Street has a self-aggrandizing, picture-filled fanzine that consumers get free with the purchase of its single "It Happens Every Time," as well as a sponsorship already in place with Kellogg. Bad Boy/Arista's platinum act Dream upped its tween momentum as the April artist of the month on NBC's Saturday-morning programming block "TNBC," which the female quartet hosted. In addition, NBCi.com featured the girls on its Web site with bios, music, and a contest.
And then there's J Records' O-Town -- which garnered inestimable publicity with its ABC reality TV series Making the Band -- and girl group Eden's Crush on London-Sire, which has its Popstars show on the WB network. Following their TV exposure, both groups scored top 10 hits on the Hot 100 singles chart, fueled by No. 1 debuts on Hot 100 Singles Sales, before radio even got into the game.
AN IMPRESSIONABLE AGE
Despite the best-laid plans, some say that if an act's song choices or image appear too contrived to tweens, all the marketing in the world won't make them bite.
"You can't fool the kids," says Charlie Walk, Columbia Records Group executive VP of promotion. "They absolutely have to connect with the music and the artist. If they see that something is real, they experience a deeper passion than adults, and they're in. Ultimately, they are the bosses."
Adds Louie Baldonieri, co-manager/creator of Dream Street, "There are those that think you can convince kids to like anything. Top to bottom, we were careful with the music, the producers, the videos, and, especially, the casting of the kids. We made sure that they had something original, because this audience can detect just another copycat act."
While tweens have strong opinions about what they like, this also makes these kids "deeply impressionable," says Dr. Daniel Anderson, a professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. "This is an age group that is in the process of formulating moral and religious stances, and frequently, they're impressed by books, movies, or music that they perceive as profound or as providing guidance in their lives. There's no question that those marketing to this group are well aware of this."
The Federal Trade Commission recently lambasted the entertainment industry for failing to institute reforms to prevent adult-oriented content from being marketed to impressionable youngsters. And beyond government, experts on child development have expressed concern over the unprecedented media barrage on today's preteens (see story, page 139).
TWEENS INTO TEENS
There is one variable that even the most marketing-savvy label can't influence: the passage of time as tweens grow into teens. The best way to uphold attention for a popular act, according to label executives, is to maintain the quality of the product and pray that the demographic and the artist will mature hand in hand. Historically, though, that has been the exception rather than the rule.
"How do you keep an audience? I don't know the answer to that," Orescan admits. "We've certainly seen past examples of teen idols being able to grow with their audience; sometimes the transition can be made and sometimes it can't. I think we're about to find that out with a number of the superstar acts out there now."
The only way to keep fans is "to continue to grow as they do," offers Taylor Hanson of the veteran teen group Hanson, whose next album on Island is anticipated in 2002. "Kids grow up, and if you stay in one place, they'll leave you behind. For us, we have to be true to what we do and be passionate and believe in it more than anyone else. At the very least, no one can discredit you for being what you are."
V2 president Richard Sanders says that his concern lies less in keeping the consumer base loyal to a particular act than in "the challenge of making sure there's enough musical diversity out there to interest them. It's the responsibility of the act to mature with the age group. We're already seeing that with Britney Spears, who went from the girl next door to a sex goddess. These artists go into a phase from being playful with tweens to being more romantically centered as they become teens."
The names may change, but it's a unanimous belief that music for this potent audience segment has become a permanent part of the musical landscape. Sanders notes, "It will never go away now, because the avenues of exposure are greater. We may not continue to see sales of 10 [million] to 15 million records like with Britney and 'N Sync, but there's nothing wrong with selling 4 [million] or 5 million."
Jive's Miller insists, "Look, Aaron Carter has the No. 4 album in the country without top 40 or MTV. I think that's proof that there's a market for new and young artists. We have the biggest generation of preteens that the world has known, and they want music that is especially for them. The youth explosion is never going to end."
But even if today's 'N Syncs become tomorrow's teeny-bop relics, there's always the opportunity for their return -- at some point in the future, anyway. Jones says, "We are creating musical allegiances that these kids are going to hang onto for a long time. I can already hear the oldies station of 2030, with Aaron and Britney and A*Teens."
