Marketing to the future: reaching teens and young adults requires a radically different approach.

Remember that TV commercial with the tag line. "This is not your father's Oldsmobile"?

The car company was trying to make itself relevant to a younger generation--a wise move, if Oldsmobile wants to ensure a viable future. Attracting the attention of today's frenzied young consumer

"Young consumers are simply a very important market," says Mike Gatti, executive vice president of the Retail Advertising & Marketing Association, a division of the National Retail Federation, Washington, D.C. (www .rama-nrf.org). "Young people have their own money and make their own buying decisions; and, as a market, they are growing even more important as society changes. Parents are getting more and more time starved, and they treat their children more like adults than the previous generation of parents did."

Marketers need to both recognize and take advantage of the fact technology is a huge part of young peoples' lives, Gatti notes.

A recent study by Harris Interactive, Rochester, N.Y. (www .harrisinteractive.com), and Teen Research Unlimited (TRU), Northbrook, Ill. (www.teenresearch .com), shows, in an average week, people between the ages of 13 and 24 spend 16.7 hours online (excluding e-mail), 13.6 hours watching television, 12.0 hours listening to the radio, 7.7 hours talking on the phone, and 6.0 hours reading books and magazines for personal enjoyment.

Another study, commissioned by the Carnegie Corp. of New York, New York, N.Y. (www.carnegie.org), shows 44 percent of young people visit a Web news portal every day, while only 19 percent read a newspaper daily. Twelve percent says they never read a newspaper.

You need to talk to young people at their level, understanding they are very Internet savvy and they use all kinds of media simultaneously," Gatti says. "They might be instant messaging on their computer or text messaging on their phones while they're watching their favorite TV show. Mobile promotions are going to become a very significant marketing tool to reach the youth segment.

"You really have to get the right media mix and deliver the right message to them. You have to become part of their world," he adds.

Making the youth connection