Emerging Markets the kid segment related Marketing challenges

Emerging Markets – The Kid Market is Future Growth Market to Look for

Kids are very smart today. They are exposed to powerful media and have perhaps fifty to hundred times more knowledge than what I had when I was their age.(but that is not a very illustrative example, I admit). Their exposure to the market and media is substantial and is a big challenge for the parents. The challenge lies in  trying to limit the exposure to what is  right to see and  what is likely to drag them into experimentation and trouble.

For Corporation too, especially the marketing persons, the kid segment  an attractive emerging growth market is matter to think about. The real challenge is to balance the values of today and protect them and at the same time see that we track this segment carefully enough to get a mind share for our brand, the foundation to their brand loyalty, when they are ready to spend. Marketing to children is going to be a top priority for the strategic planners of today.

It is estimated that currently US has about 23 million kids of the age group 10-14 years, China has 94 million in this age bracket and in India 123 million belong to this group. By the year 2015 this is expected to change in US to 24 million, China to 86 million and India to 129 million. Thus US, China and India combined will be the same as total market size of some of the other markets  combined today.

This will be age group 15-19 years by 2015 and will be getting into market at least for some products with a reasonable brand loyalty. The early movers may have gained some advantage over others on this segment of the kids if they focus enough on long term brand -children relations and loyalty .

Research shows that this is not a market to be taken for granted. Corporations are spending huge sums on this child segment. The media involve the kids almost every where no matter whether the product is targeted at child segment or at the grown ups.

As early as the year 1997 the children of the age group 4-12 in US are estimated to have spent 23.3 billion US dollars !The age group 12- 19 years spend 94 billion US dollars in 1998 itself. Kids are given huge pocket money as a reciprocation to their demanding studies.

As far as the kids are concerned the formula for the parents is conflict, compromise and convergence. The kids have  substantial what the marketing men call “pester Power”. Therefore the parents go through conflict first, compromise then and finally arrive at win/win solutions. There may not be an altrnate way to voercome this growing market that is beginning to give away paret of its mind to the brands. The price issue is insignificant to this segment. The peer influnece is high and the word of mouth has perhaps the highest credibility. Interestingly they do not admit this. 

Psychologists claim that four factors contribute to he pester power- the nuclear families that are divided, the guilt of the parents that they are not able to give enough time to the kids, the social changes and the kids being smarter and manipulative.

According to Psychologists ,kids are known to pass through different phases . Between 2-7 years they have more of “centration” focusing on single dimension, from 7-11 they develop more adult like thought pattern and can process data look at problems from various dimensions but they are also “cued processors” . They may have strategies but cannot spontaneously produce these strategies when needed. The become strategic processors only when they get to  12+. This would mean that much of the brand affiliations and associations may well be formed between 7-11 years.

Some cues to the Parents as Well.

It appears that it would be highly useful for parents to carefully observe their children and guide them when exposed to media. I must admit that Mr. Zig Zaglar has done a marvelous job in his book “raising kids in A Negative world” explaining the difficulties experienced by parents in raising the kid amid the  clutter of today’s media.

The emergence of Social media is also a challenge. As much as the operators of these media  are cautious and ethical there is risk of miss use by some miscreants.

As far as Marketing men are concerned the challenge is to impress their brand values on this emerging market but also keep in mind the very sensitive aspect of this segment and their parents to get across the message without overly indulging in appeals that may be sensitive.