Surf, chat 'sticky' for online teens

By DITA DE BONI

As a online ad/marketer, do you know what is faht, styly or rude? Do you make sure to avoid anything that could be seen as budget, stink or tack?

If so, your "sticky" sites could be just the dope for capturing a highly selective teenage audience with plenty of disposable cash.

The only problem, according to a study by the Universal McCann advertising agency in Auckland, is that teenagers are wary of buying things over the net and have told researchers they would not be too distressed if it disappeared tomorrow.

"Adults make a big deal of the internet and turn it into something really amazing and huge," says general manager Glenda Wynyard. "But these kids have grown up with it, and despite using it everyday, it's not a big deal for them."

The agency's findings suggest teens have fairly specific requirements from their online time, with the spectacle of them sifting through porn, drugs and homemade weapons sites less of a reality than a preference for actual surfing, rugby and music sites for boys and chat rooms, e-mags and e-mail sites for girls.

The media product division of McCann Erickson set up panel discussions - called Pulse - with teen groups nationwide to give its clients more crunchy information on internet use by this most valuable of consumer groups

Ms Wynyard is confident the discussions have provided a valuable picture of youngsters' e-habits.

Statistical studies confirm the value of cornering the high-spending teen market. In New Zealand last year, a community of almost 200,000 teenagers below 17 were regularly online at home.

While homes with internet access are most commonly headed by dual-income parents, almost all of the Pulse teens could use the web either at home or at school and had almost all been online within days of being interviewed.

New Zealand's online population overall lags behind Australia and the United States, but we are expected to catch up.

An estimated 83 per cent of US teenagers, for example, have access to the internet at home, and households with teens are almost 45 per cent more likely to be online than households without teens.

US teens are the age group with the largest percentage online - a full 41 per cent compared with 30 per cent of 40 to 49-year-olds.

Overwhelmingly, the most common teen uses of the net in Western countries are researching school projects and playing games. NFO Interactive Research last year added keeping up to date on sports, learning more about movies and television shows, and news and current events.

While teenagers also delve into less-than-wholesome websites, one factor inhibiting illicit forays is often the central position of the computer in the home and the use of so-called "web nannies" in schools and institutions.

And, in terms of panel-based research, the fact is that boys are "susceptible to telling porkies when amongst peers," says Ms Wynyard.

In New Zealand, the penetration of online access has not translated into a thriving teenage e-commerce industry.

She says that is perhaps because Kiwi teens do not have credit cards to the same extent as their North American counterparts.

In addition, both sexes surveyed said they felt uncomfortable buying products over the web, citing security concerns.

Findings from both genders suggest that teens are less wowed by the online world than adults, saying they would not be too concerned if internet access was taken away.

But that is where the similarities between the genders largely ended.

"Girls view the internet as their 'new best friend'," says Ms Wynyard. "It's an extension of their social roles, perhaps, where communicating and building relationships are important."

The females' favourite sites include Dolly, Pennywise and popular chat site ICQ.com. Net-savvy girls link up after coming home from school and many spend up to two hours on websites. Most of them go to chat rooms.

"We found that at school, research was the primary motivation to get on the web, while at home it was definitely e-mail that drove the girls."

For boys surveyed, games were one of the most important uses of online time, averaging about 2-3 hours a week, but much more for some respondents. Most boys had a PlayStation or Nintendo, says Ms Wynyard.

"The entire provincial group owned one of these games."

The teen boys provided some valuable insight into why banner advertising has not registered well with many online advertisers.

"We found there was not a high recall of banner ads, with most saying that they just noticed them at the top of a page," says Ms Wynyard.

"They can't stand banners that take too long to download, and several reported being very disappointed when they clicked through from an interesting-looking banner to a boring site."

Another finding from the survey was that girls tended to listen simultaneously to TV, CDs or the radio while online, and if there were two phone lines or a mobile, girls would also talk to friends while navigating their favourite sites.

Boys reported having only the TV on if they were "messing around" or "waiting for downloads," with both sexes saying that their time on the internet had cut into television viewing time.

The team at Universal McCann says today's teens are not paying as much attention to their TVs as their predecessors, with the average 12 hours a week of viewing filled with their favourite programmes.

But US research by ACNielsen last year concluded that access to the internet did little to change overall household TV use, and that online homes had been light TV viewers before they had access to the web.

"The real question is how to integrate the internet - one that [ad/marketers] are still grappling with," says Ms Wynyard.

"Most teens expect companies they deal with to have websites, and that in itself is significant. It seems the best solution is a convergence of all media teens use to get the message across better."