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Belch: Advertising and
Promotion, Sixth Edition
IMC PERSPECTIVE 4-1
106
II. Integrated Marketing
Program Situation Analysis
4. Perspectives on
Consumer Behavior
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2003
Retailers Seek Bonanza in Tweens and Female Surfers
Tweens—the age group so named because its members
are between early childhood and the teenage years, (7 to
14)—spend an estimated $90 billion a year, and they are
doing so with a newfound independence. The days of
mom bringing home new school clothes for the tween
are in the past. Due in part to dual working parents’
spending less time on their kids as well as indulging
them more when they do, youngsters in this age group
have more freedom to choose their own clothes. Add in
television, magazines, the Internet, and other media, and
girls in particular, have become more fashion-conscious
and trendy. Clothing manufacturers and retailers have
taken notice—to the chagrin of many parents.
Retail giant Wal-Mart has doubled floor space for
preteen girls over the past year. Sears now offers
trendier clothes for the age group and has sponsored
concert tours for Christina Aguilera and Backstreet
Boys—both popular with preteens. While these chains
are doing well, it is the specialty retailers that are
really capturing the market. Limited Too, which offers
trendy clothes, glittery makeup, and extras like instore
ear piercing, dominates the apparel niche. Girl
Mania offers hairstyling and birthday parties, while
Club Libby Lu in Chicago greets customers with a glittering
of “fairy dust” and allows them to mix their own
shower gel, moisturizer, and lip gloss. Bath & Body
Works offers pedicure kits for the 4- to 12-year-old set.
Many of these tweens are driving another retail
niche market upward—surf apparel. The changing profile
of the surfer—the number of young females has
roxy.com
substantially increased—has led to opportunities for
brands previously only marketed to males. Quicksilver
Inc., a Huntington Beach, California, surf wear company,
recently predicted that revenue for girls’ products
will eclipse sales to men and boys by the year
2004. Another southern California company, Billabong
USA, has seen a 50 percent increase in girls’ surf wear
over the last three years. While already on the
increase, the $2.4 billion market was expected to
explode in the summer of 2002 when the girls’ surf
movie “Blue Crush” was released. (Just the release of
movie trailers has already led to surf schools being
swamped with enrollments.) The big winner is
expected to be Billabong, whose name will be prominently
displayed on the girls’ wetsuit shirt as a result
of a product placement arrangement with Universal
Studios. Many of those in the industry consider the
placement a major coup. Others like Pacific Sunwear
have invested in other promotional opportunities. Pac-
Sun will spend a record $10 million on marketing in
magazines such as Seventeen, Teen People, and YM.
Not everyone is happy, however. Many parents and
consumer advocates feel that the companies are taking
advantage of tweens, who they contend are overly
impressionable and insecure at this stage of their
lives. They contend that girls who are “barely past
Beanie Babies” are being pushed too quickly toward
mascara and navel rings. Consider Abercrombie &
Fitch, for example. In just one of the recent controversies
surrounding the retailer, thong underwear bearing
the words “wink wink” and “eye candy” were being
marketed to 9- and 10-year-olds. The company was deluged
with e-mails from people enraged with the strategy.
While Marshal Cohen of NPDFashion-World notes
that Abercrombie is “all about selling sex, even to the
younger kid,” the company response was that sex is in
the eye of the beholder and their products are
designed with only prurient purposes in mind.
However, a number of people are concerned enough
to fight back. One organization, Girls, Inc., a New
York–based nonprofit, holds meetings in schools, in
homes, and elsewhere to talk with tween girls about
the messages they receive from TV, videos, and magazine
ads. The organization recently offered a program
called Body IMAGEination intended to help girls age 7
to 11 deal with peer pressures to dress more provocatively.
The organization has a huge battle ahead!
Sources: Leslie Earnest, “Apparel Retailers Catch New Girls’ Surfing
Wave,” Los Angeles Times, July 5, 2002, latimes.com, pp. 1–3;
Leslie Earnest, “‘Tweens: From Dolls to Thongs,” Los Angeles
Times, June 27, 2002, p. 1.