Tween Beat Here's marketing to you, kids; why increasing numbers of entrepreneurs are selling their sights on preteen consumers.

Cargo pants are over. The Backstreet Boys are cool--and waycute. 7th Heaven is the must-see TV show on the new must-seenetwork, the WB. And, yes, computer literacy is as fundamental aslearning your ABC's.

Welcome to the wonderful world of preteen America. Oh sure, muchfuss is made over the awesome spending power of these kids'elder siblings--a.k.a., teens. Rest assured, however, that thelegions of 9- to 12-year-olds whimsically referred to as"tweens" boast a shopping force all their own.

And they're not afraid to use it. "Finally, someonewoke up and smelled the statistics," observes Karen Bokram,publisher and founding editor of Girls' Life magazine."Whichever group has the largest number of people drives theculture. The only other [comparable group to today'syoungsters] is their parents--the baby boomers--and who the hellwants to talk about them anymore?"

Who indeed? Although exact figures are hard to come by, we doknow tween purchasing dollars number in the billions--andthat's before tacking on the additional billions worth ofinfluence these kids exercise over household expenditures."More and more parents are ceding power to their kids,"agrees Dan Acuff, author of What Kids Buy & Why: ThePsychology of Marketing to Kids (Free Press). "Take fastfood--which [restaurants] do we go to? We go to the ones they want.That's a tremendous influence."

Debra Phillips is a former senior editor forEntrepreneur.

Planet Tween

No one needs to tell Nancy Dennis about this influence. As the43-year-old founder of the Toronto-based Ch!ckaboom girls'retail clothing chain, Dennis, along with partners GlennStonehouse, 49, and Arif Noor, 36, courts preteen consumers on afull-time basis. Convinced there existed an underserved market--andinspired by the success of Limited Too--Dennis opened the first oftwo Ch!ckaboom stores in 1997.

"I saw Ch!ckaboom as going one step further than LimitedToo," Dennis explains. "We really make this a store for[preteen girls]. We market to them, we talk to them, we serve them.[We view the shopping experience] through their eyes."

To that end, Dennis and her young sales staff regularly sponsorin-store events and contests geared toward the tween girl. PerhapsCh!ckaboom's most effective marketing tool, however, is thecompany's birthday club--on their birthdays, each of the3,000-plus names in Ch!ckaboom's database receives a card and a$5 gift certificate. "These little girls aren't gettingmail," Dennis points out, "so when they get somethingfrom Ch!ckaboom, they're thrilled."

For her part, Bokram is struck by the strength of mail-ordercatalogs such as the much ballyhooed Delia's--an upstart teenclothier looking to take its winning formula to tweens. "Formost people, trying to reach this girl is like trying to market tosomeone on Mars," Bokram says. "Delia's does awonderful job. It managed to build a business where there had beennothing. No one was marketing to these girls on a catalog basis;nobody thought it would work."

So much for conventional wisdom.

The Young & Technologically Restless

OK, so maybe you had already figured out the bit about tweensnot being from Mars--or Venus either, for that matter. But thatdoesn't mean those boys and girls poised on the threshold ofteendom today don't remain something of a mystery. Exactly whoare these youngsters who seem so much more mature than previousgenerations of tweens gone by--yet barely old enough to watch theteen-ridden angst of TV's hugely popular Dawson'sCreek?

"They live in a technological world," says authorAcuff, who is also president of Youth Market System Consulting andThe Character Lab in Sherman Oaks, California. "Today'spreteens are living in a more complex world."

"There's a real sophistication going on with thisgeneration," echoes Dennis. "My daughter moved fromDisney to Buffy the Vampire Slayer by age 7."

"There are so many of them--and they're sobright," adds Bokram. "They've grown up in a world ofinformation and knowledge that's unmatched. They have access tomore types of information from more sources than we could have everimagined."

So it's all the more difficult to grab their attention,right? Well, yes--and no. Although contemporary tweens enjoyentertainment options galore--to say nothing of time-consumingextracurricular pursuits like after-school sports--their minds arestill arguably more focused than many adults.

"Kids' attention spans are better and stronger thanadults," maintains Acuff. "A lot of it is about learningand meeting challenges. The reason a video game can occupy akid's time for three hours is because it has many levels ofchallenge."

Of course, that doesn't make kids an easy sell. Warns Acuff,"Don't underestimate their intelligence."

Age Of Innocence

While you're at it, don't overestimate theirrebelliousness. Although teenagers are generally expected to go alittle James Dean on their parents--their younger counterpartsrarely opt for such adversity. "It's a conformativetime," says Acuff. "[Preteens] conform to peer pressure,trends, apparel tastes and so forth because they're anxious tobe accepted. They're moving away from the need to be lovedsolely by their parents to the need to be loved and accepted bytheir peers. It puts a lot of pressure on them."

Without question, this gives businesses a tricky balance tostrike as well. On the one hand, tweens, especially of themodern-day variety, are grown up enough to scoff at the likes ofMickey Mouse and his cartoon pals. On the other hand, this is stillan age of innocence.

"There's a gray area," acknowledges Dennis, whoseCh!ckaboom stores feature nail polish bars but refrain from sellingmakeup. "I'm a parent, and I don't want [preteens] tolook like teenagers. This isn't about loss of innocence;it's about having fun."

"When you think back to when you were 12 years old, thatwas the last time in your life when you weren't really tryingto impress [the opposite sex] that much," agrees Bokram."You're just happily plodding along, thinking about whatyou're going to do with your life. There's a feeling ofoptimism and [the idea that] the world is laid out beforeyou."

Ironically, this generation of tweens may only be matched intheir optimism by their parents--the we-can-change-the-world babyboomers. "They haven't really lived through badtimes," says Dennis of pre-millennium tweens. "That'sreally molded them. There's an optimism and confidence [aboutthem] that I see."

So who says history never repeats itself?

Here And Now

Yet to suggest there isn't anything new in tween town wouldbe misleading. Most obviously, there's a greater ethnicdiversity among preteens in the United States now. Then, too,there's the interactivity of technology. For instance, whereasbaby boomers absorbed product information through TV commercialswhile growing up, their children are able to actively explore theInternet in order to discover the latest in merchandise. Andtoday's kids aren't just connected via modem--they possesscell phones and pagers to boot. Such strong communication ties arewelcome given the phenomenon of more two-working-parenthouseholds.

"The increased percentage of working mothers has shiftedmore responsibility to the preteen," Acuff says. "By2001, [these kids will wield] something like $300 billion ininfluence."

Which is a reality that checks the heartbeats of all but themost jaded of entrepreneurs. Even corporate giants are eagerlytargeting young spenders. For starters, there's hip homefurnishings chain Pottery Barn's mail-order venture, PotteryBarn Kids. Add to that DKNY Kids, Limited Too, Gap Kids andAbercrombie & Fitch's well-publicized forays into kidswear,and you get a picture of how influential tweens are becoming. Thereare also kid-designated soaps, bottled water, radio and TVnetworks, platform shoes and--seriously!--mutual funds.

"This group definitely deserves its own stores,"insists Dennis, who predicts Ch!ckaboom's 1999 sales figureswill reach $2 million. "People say to me, `This is such anarrow niche.' It's not. It's a fantastic niche, andit's only getting better."

In Sharp Focus

For her money, Dennis thinks preteen girls in particular makefor a better market niche than preteen boys--and the consensusseems to be that she's right. "The only thing freakier tomarketers than young girls is young boys," Bokram wryly pointsout. "As tough as girls are, girls also represent predictableeconomic stuff--clothes, makeup, shoes, accessories. Guys justgenerally aren't as conscious of fashion--they prefer somethingsimple like khakis."

Just like their teen counterparts, as a matter of fact. Thatsaid, however, entrepreneurs are cautioned against linking tweenstoo closely to teens. Popular perceptions to the contrary, tweensaren't merely teenagers in miniaturized form. Funny as it maysound, there's a big difference between being 10 years old andbeing 14.

"There's this school of thought by less sophisticatedmarketers that maintains if you're reaching 15-year-olds, thenyou'll get the 12-year-olds, too," says Bokram."That's simply not true."

It's a vital lesson for kid-targeting companies tolearn--and stick with. "I don't want the teens,"Dennis says. "I think when you go into business, you have tobe very focused on who you're going after. I don't want tobe all things to all people."

And this condition of sharp focus extends to resisting the urgeto market to tweens' parents rather than to tweens themselves.Admittedly, parents are most likely to provide kids with thefinancial wherewithal to make purchases, but kids are still theultimate decision-makers. Again, it's a tricky balance tostrike.

Young At Heart

In his widely hailed research on child-age consumers, author andTexas A&M University marketing professor James McNeal pointsout that there's not one but three different children'smarkets. First and foremost, there's the market created bykids' direct spending. Second, there's the market stemmingfrom kids' influence over their family's purchases.Finally, there's the market of the future--that is, courtingkids to eventually become loyal adult consumers. With so much atstake, it's easy to see why so many eyes are on the tween-agekids of the baby boomers. They are the present; they are also thefuture.

And they aren't an easy sell. But maybe it helps forentrepreneurs 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 TVshows Dawson's Creek and Felicity. "I'ma perpetual [kid] myself."

Growing Strong

What's it like to be a tween in 1999? It means readingeverything from Teen People to YM to Girls'Life to a whole range of skateboarding and surfing magazines.It means having your own e-mail address--or at least being on yourway to getting one. It means, ultimately, being who you are.

Like 11-year-old Taylor Carico, who listens to teenage singingsuperstar Britney Spears and plays volleyball twice a week."I'm so busy," says the tween, citing a shoppingpreference for department stores like Macy's and Nordstrom. Howmuch do friends influence her buying decisions? "I don'tusually copy what friends wear," Carico says. "I justwear what I'm comfortable with."

"A lot of my friends buy stuff they see in magazines,"offers Cassie Kreitner, 11, who frequently shops at Limited Too andOld Navy. Describing her generation as "talkative,"Kreitner says peer pressure goes only so far: "With clothing,if I see someone [wearing something I like], I might get somethingsimilar to it, but not exactly the same."

For 11-year-old Ricky Norris, watching Pokémon on TV is afavorite way to spend time--as is occasionally acting in TVcommercials. Like a lot of tweens, Norris also enjoys auto-racing(as a spectator, not a participant) and playing hockey. What'scool to him? Vans, Billabong clothing--and Mom surprising him withgifts of new threads.

"We [shop] together," says Amanda Limburg of herselfand her mother. "We look through the store, and I pick outwhat I like, and she picks out what she likes, and we agree on whatto get." Although she still enjoys visiting Disneyland, this11-year-old admits she's outgrown some Disney stuff and leanstowards such stores as Limited Too, Old Navy and the Gap. How doesshe view today's tweens? Replies Limburg, "We'reweird, I think."

On The Tween Tip

Feeling lost in preteen USA? Here's a handy road map to getyou tuned in to the latest and greatest according to today'stweens.

HOT TV SHOWS:

• Charmed

• Dawson's Creek

• Rugrats

• 7th Heaven

Ones to watch for this season: New fall TV offerings from thecreators of Dawson's Creek (Wasteland), Partyof Five (Time Of Your Life), and 7th Heaven(Safe Harbor)

HOT READS:

• American Girl

• Delia's mail-order catalog

• Girls' Life

• Teen

• Teen People

HOT BRANDS:

• Abercrombie & Fitch

• Billabong

• Bonnie Bell

• Limited Too

• Pottery Barn Kids

• Rampage Girls

• Skechers

• Steve Madden

• Union Bay

• Vans

HOT ACTIVITIES:

• Chatting with friends via e-mail

• Shopping

• Studying (Yep, it's cool to be smart.)

HOT MARKETING APPROACH:

Acknowledging the intelligence of today's tweens, à laArizona Jeans' recent TV advertising campaign featuring a groupof media-savvy kids mocking the lengths to which companies go toappear hip. So nix any attempt to adopt the latest lingo orover-zealous effort to reach tweens at their level. As theyoungsters advise: "Just show us the jeans."

Contact Sources

Ch!ckaboom, (416) 782-6162

Girls' Life,http://www.girlslife.com

Youth Market System, (818) 783-5551, dacuffq@aol.com