When I was a teenager, I remember, one prevailing reaction I had to the media coverage of my generation -- it was jaded and wrong. Whether television, newspaper or radio, I always felt that adults were painting pictures of my peer group not in an effort to understand our teenage angst but rather to demonize its manifestations. Teens were something to be feared -- as was the march of time.

If your brand is doing something great, let teens know about it! They're not the biggest social sharers, so you can't count on Facebook and Twitter broadcasting to drive results.

Capturing the heart of teen consumers is no easy task. They have completely different motivations than their tween and young adult counterparts. I believe that there are three things that matter to the teen consumer: inspiration, disruption, and value.

After the market crashed a few years ago, marketers went back to basics in terms of Super Bowl commercial components. Since then, however, the economy has been on the way up, and commercial complexities have reflected this. In the evolution of things, there was an expectation that this year's commercials would be geared toward the web and social media. However, that certainly was not the case.

At the end of 2010, Harris Interactive released its first Youth EquiTrend Study in which it identified the brands with the highest equity among 8-12, 13-17, and 18-24 year olds. Compared side-by-side, the results make for some interesting reading.

I wasn't completely surprised to see that the majority of teens did not find the show as controversial as everyone else does, which at the end of the day makes it seem like teens aren't as quick to react or engage, and as a result are harder to access.

Marketers who use Super Bowl commercials as guaranteed opportunities to showcase products to millions of Americans cannot forget that the audience will be heavily populated with teenaged viewers. Everyone talks about Super Bowl commercials, but the most efficient way to capitalize on this fact is to produce commercials that pique the interest of the highly social, connected teen market.

For marketers, the message is to admit that we don't know what we don't know. Dr. Frank's team has only begun to chart the relationship between social technologies and at-risk behaviors within teen populations and he could use our help.

The potent mixture of mobile, social, and photo-sharing is going to be big for teens in 2011, and here's the why/how of it.