L&E Workshop Video | Growing Up Digital: Marketing to Kids in a Tech-Forward World

Call them Generation Z, iGen, or Digital Natives, today’s kids are the first generation born into the Internet-connected world. How they use technology to interact with brands, and how marketers use technology to reach them, makes them uniquely different from any previous generation. And yet, there are timeless truths associated with how kids develop, what they need, and how they learn, think and behave.

With buying power of $1.2 trillion annually, kids have a three-way impact on our economy: as influencers in family decisions, as direct purchasers, and as consumers of the future. Consider:

More than 65% of parents take kids’ views into consideration when they are making family purchases.
More than 25% of parents ask kids for advice when they are buying for themselves.
Kids are interacting with media more often and for longer periods of time than their predecessors.
Kids spend much of that time with social media that didn’t even exist a decade ago.

Getting and keeping traction with kids requires an understanding of how they think and act, and what they respond to in product development, marketing, and communications. On May 15, 2015, Megan Nerz and Rebecca Presler of MLN Research led a workshop on marketing to kids at L&E Research’s Raleigh facility. This workshop will help you:

Understand the similarities and differences between today’s kids and generations before them.
Explore key consumer insights across gender, developmental stage, age, and product category.
Investigate how some of today’s leading marketers are applying these insights to engage and retain these youngest consumers.

Watch the workshop video today!

About Megan Nerz

Megan Loughlin Nerz is a cofounder of MLN Research, which opened its qualitative doors in 1987. She started her career as the Director of Children’s Research at the Gene Reilly Group in 1979, but her involvement with kids and research goes back to the 1978 Federal Trade Commission hearings on the effects of TV Advertising on Children. She has an academic background in marketing and communications research and child development and extensive experience in working with kids and teens and in all types of qualitative research settings.

Megan’s approach to qualitative research with children was profiled in an article appearing in the textbook, Business Research Methods, by Donald R. Cooper and Pamela S. Schindler (McGraw Hill, Eight edition, 2003) and was featured in the 2013 book, Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry, (David C. Robertson and Bill Breen). Megan has authored and co-authored papers published in leading journals, and delivered speeches to numerous associations. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Sociology with a concentration in child psychology; and a Master of Arts degree in Applied Communications Research from the University of Hartford.

About Rebecca Presler

Rebecca Presler joined MLN Research in 2012 to plan, implement, and analyze qualitative research projects, especially those with children and teens. Rebecca cites the creative and surprising nature of research as the fuel to her qualitative fire. She is continual impressed by the depth and insights of the consumers with whom she speaks and the impact those understandings have for her clients and the business decision-making process.

Rebecca holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and recently completed a post baccalaureate certificate program in Marketing Strategy from the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University. She has trained at RIVA Training Institute and is a member of the Qualitative Research Consultants Association (QRCA).