• by Paul Gough , January 15, 2003

When marketing to teen-agers online, the fundamental things apply. Namely, know your audience.

That’s one of the lessons from panel discussion on the topic Tuesday evening at the Advertising Club’s New York offices. The panel included three Internet advertising professionals and three youth, and was moderated by MediaPost’s editor John Gaffney.

Today’s teen-agers are more savvy and know and reject when they’re being marketed to in a fake or corporate way, panelists said. That extends to the Internet as a way of life.

“This generation is so smart, so intelligent beyond all possible dreams about using the Internet … The Internet is an interactive experience for teens. If it [an advertising effort] isn’t interactive, we have a problem,” said Mark Jung, CEO of IGN Entertainment.

Jung suggested advertisers create interactive experiences, preferably educational, that can forge connections between brands and teen-agers.

“Otherwise, the user is saying, ‘This is no value to me whatsoever,’” he said.

Sean Black, vice president of Beyond Interactive, believed the key to be creating more experiential marketing and advertainment, providing content that teens want. He cited neopets.com as a site that seamlessly blends content and advertising. Black said it’s important to make sure it doesn’t turn into a traditional ad model.

That effort has led to online games that blend content and advertising, although the teens say they often don’t continue once they realize it’s an ad. In other cases, the teens said, they don’t remember what companies sponsor ads online.

Samantha Skey of 360 Youth said that’s a downfall of Internet marketing even if you’re able to create an integrated program.

“Sometimes the brand awareness at the end of the day is not there, and that’s a problem. The objective is how do you do games and have value as an advertiser,” Skey said.

Black said it’s more challenging to market to teenagers as there are laws that differentiate marketing to youth compared to adults. Database fulfillment and couponing, among other typical marketing efforts to adults, don’t apply to children. And he said the response rate drops off dramatically if the children are asked to get their parents’ permission.

“It’s something we’re having a lot of difficulty with,” Black said. One way is to send product-related messages to children.

Jung said it’s risky to run passive advertising on interactive games. He said it didn’t matter whether it’s a banner, tower or interstitial.

“It’s still passive. The message is there but it can be blanked out,” he said. Advertisers would do well to take care with their messaging and provide value-added services. Display ads are doomed in marketing to teenagers, he said.

“Frankly, you’re wasting your money,” Jung said.