Demographic Reality Test: Teenagers As Brand-addicted Mall Rats
June 7, 2008 by Eric Eggertson
Filed under Marketing
In business, politics and all the other areas of society that try to influence behavior, we work hard at understanding how people act, and why they do what they do.
Yet, generation after generation, there has been an almost automatic dismissal of teen culture as being poisoned by selfishness.
“Kids these days don’t show enough respect for (insert institution here).”
This goes back to the days of Caesar, and no doubt even before there were tablets to record human thought.
The accumulation of research over the last 20 years consistently shows that young people are more aware of social issues than we think they are.
The latest report refutes the idea that young people view the local mall as their favorite refuge.
We know so little about the sub-cultures around us. It’s like our familiarity with them blinds us to the patterns that don’t match our preconceptions.
We can do better.
