Gary Pope: Building Identities and Teens

In his latest column, Gary Pope, co-founder and CEO, Kids Industries, talks about the sometimes confusing world of teens.

BUILDING IDENTIES AND TEENS

Nearly 80 years ago (sometime in 1944), Americans started to use the word teenager as a shorthand to describe the developing consumer segment that marketers realised had their own spending power and the ambition to exert it.

And as youth began to get marketed to, they were enabled to double down on this new-found identity and make the most of it.

The optimism that followed the end of World War Two cemented the attitudes of this burgeoning group and by the time the 1950’s arrived…well, we’ve all seen Grease. Well, maybe teens today haven’t, but if you’ve got time to read this then the chances are you have. If not, I recommend you Google it.

For the next 50 years it was pretty straightforward, really. Music led fashion, fashion led music and as the genres emerged so did the style tribes…the Rockers, the Teddy Boys, the Mods, Skins, Punks, Casuals, Goths, Nu-Metallers, Soulstrels, Clubbers, Skaters and Emos. It was all so easy.

Fast forward to today and the period of adolescence, as anyone who has had one of these creatures sleep, eat, repeat in their house will firmly attest, is more difficult than it has ever been. The internet has done away with the clarity of obvious style tribes and replaced them with a cornucopia of possible options in which to invest your tumultuous teenage self. And don’t even get me started on the role social media plays.

But some things never change…

When we first opened KI, twenty years ago, we cemented a foundation for our business that we’ve built on ever since. Understanding the development of children and young people gives us a rock-solid base from which to make decisions about the wide range of projects we deliver for our clients. Knowing what happens to the brain and the body in a developing human being enables us to research, design and create based on science. And whilst the environment in which young people grow has changed unrecognisably in just a few generations, the biological development of our species has not. Evolutionary steps don’t just happen because Snapchat has released a new filter.

As puberty begins the brain starts to rationalise - it gets rid of the unused stuff of childhood and starts to strengthen those connections that matter more to the individual. The last part of the brain to go through this rationalising process during development is the prefrontal cortex. And this is the part of the brain that is all about planning, making decisions, thinking through consequences, controlling impulses…sound familiar? See it’s not them, it’s their brains.

During this developmental journey teens rely on the amygdala - the reptilian brain - to make decisions and solve problems. This is a little piece of

ancient brain at the bottom that is associated with emotions, impulses and instinctive behaviour. And when your world is in flux, anchoring around shared preferences is a great coping mechanism.

Teens project the identity they “think” the world needs to see of them, sometimes to comic effect. They choose the brands, the imagery, the music, the sporting teams and entertainment experiences that matter to them - that they can badge themselves with so as to signal solidarity to others that might think like them. And that is where licensing comes in.

But as with so much of our world today, media ubiquity and access has made a substantial difference - not least in the expectations consumers have of the brands they choose

to advocate. Teens now expect every brand to have a continuum of experience across every extension and touchpoint - it’s a fact of our always on, instant consumption culture. So the demand is there and actually, so is the supply, even if the brand itself is relatively small. The rise and rise of micro-brands and niches that would never have seen a Consumer Products line, are now building their very own loyal fandom. But it’s worth remembering that today’s teenagers don’t call it licensing - far too commercial. No, it’s a collaboration. Money still changes hands in the same way, but nomenclature is important in the hyper-authentic world of the twenty-first century teen. the chances are you’d likely find yourself cast in the role of George McFly - the geek that was destined to forever have his butt kicked. But today you can get your Avatar and Sailor Moon colourpop makeup collabs whilst stocks last…which isn’t long. Uniqlo has had t-shirt lines with Gege Akutami’s manga marvel Jujutsu Kaisen, Sui Ishida’s Tokyo Ghoul and Demon Slayer which tells the story of teenager Tanjiro Kamado’s journey to being a, well, Demon Slayer - his family was slaughtered and his younger sister Nezuko turned into a demon herself. Just the sort of dark, disidentification led content that teens

love.

And just a generation ago video games were deemed squarely for the basement dwellers - those (almost invariably) teenage boys with little hope of a social life outside of weekly Dungeons & Dragons get togethers. But that’s all changed. Animal Crossing’s cuddly little game characters have made the jump to street wear - their collab with Puma sold out for top dollar in minutes. And at the harder end, the brilliant work of Power Station Studios on Call of Duty has delivered both clever and compelling products that have broken out of the basement and firmly into the mainstream. last twenty years. The re-rise of Von Dutch, the Y2K brand that Britney, Nicole and Jay-Z made strong twenty years ago is in full effect and looks like an opportunity for extension across categories and territories as the youth of today revisit what was…as they always seem to do.

The indecision and self-discovery that comes with the teenage years has needed the support of brands since the 50’s - when the marketing men of Soho and Sixth Avenue decided that they were indeed a source of revenue. And they still are. They need brands, they want individuality and they are more likely than ever to engage with licensed products. The trick is to spot what they’re really into and to understand who they are. Without gaining that knowledge and insight, teens are going to give licensed products a hard pass. Go on, get to know them - they aren’t really that strange. I promise.