In his widely hailed research on child-age consumers, author and
Texas A&M University marketing professor James McNeal points
out that there's not one but three different children's
markets. First and foremost, there's the market created by
kids' direct spending. Second, there's the market stemming
from kids' influence over their family's purchases.
Finally, there's the market of the future--that is, courting
kids to eventually become loyal adult consumers. With so much at
stake, it's easy to see why so many eyes are on the tween-age
kids of the baby boomers. They are the present; they are also the
future.
And they aren't an easy sell. But maybe it helps for
entrepreneurs to remain somewhat young at heart themselves.
"I'm probably the perfect person for this business,"
enthuses Ch!ckaboom's Dennis, a loyal viewer of the hip TV
shows Dawson's Creek and Felicity. "I'm
a perpetual [kid] myself."