Kids today possess product knowledge and buying influence far beyond their years, and marketers must adapt to this new reality or risk forever playing catch-up with their forward-thinking competitors. Kidfluence explores this new dynamic of marketing, and outlines how marketers and advertisers can better understand the "adultified" members of Generation Y. The youth market is without question the primary driving force behind a wide range of family purchases, but reaching that market requires a revised set of skills, approaches, and techniques.
"In the new family model, kids feel like a valuable part of the family unit and grow up believing they have the right to vote on all issues affecting the family. In fact, today's parents go so far as to say it is unfair not to include younger members of the family in buying decisions."
How is it that these children have so much sway with their parents? Do the parents feel guilty because they both work outside of the home and they buy them things to make them happy? Then I read that families are operating more like democracies and actually treating their children as if they were adults. Digitas says families are acting more like democracies in general. "We're treating our kids more like adults than ever before," the company said in a report about the findings. When its researchers interviewed a panel of 10-to-13-year-olds, they found that kids today are tech-savvy and demanding: All of the kids either had a cell phone or knew when they'd be getting their own. (Nickelodeon found that about half of kids get a say on what cell phone they get.)