Armed with a list and a fistful of cash, Joe Seeger, 15, cruises the aisles of a Jewel Food store near his Evanston home. When the weekly shopping is done, he calls Mom, and she picks him up.
Amy Kiel, 17, and her sister Susan, 15, have a new assignment from their mother this fall. Both Wheaton teenagers must research and write three complete menus, then cook the family dinner one night a week.
Norman Mowatt, 16, already has a specialty: curried shrimp. Over the years he has moved up from easy-to-make French toast to more exotic fare for his South Side family. But that`s not to say he won`t toss a can of sloppy Joe meat sauce in his market basket when he and his dad do the grocery shopping.
American teenagers like these have become a powerful force in the grocery store and partners in managing their homes. Teen shoppers are said to spend $43.6 billion a year in the general market, with $27.4 billion of this going to food purchases, according to Alert Publishing Inc., a Long Island City-based marketing research firm. This is double what teenagers spent in the last decade, even as their overall numbers have decreased.
Teenage responsibility also continues to grow. A study to be released in October by Teenage Research Unlimited, a Lake Forest-based marketing research firm, shows that 57 percent of teenage females and 33 percent of teenage males cook or prepare food for the family at least once each week. In addition, 44 percent of the females and 19 percent of the males spend time baking at least once a week.
But advertisers are not yet targeting directly to these teens. They may be overly cautious because they worry that parents would disapprove of such ads, suggests an article on children as consumers published in American Demographics. The magazine notes that it also took a long time for car companies to advertise directly to women.
Teen help is strongest among families with single parents or two working parents. In these situations, the teen ”may be the only family member with the time, at the right moment, to do it (the food preparation),” says Peter Zollo, executive vice president of Teenage Research Unlimited.
MANAGEMENT PARTNERS
”The kids are kind of partners in managing the home,” says Mara Rastovsky, a Campbell Soup Company research manager who conducted a two-year study on teenagers. ”They get bigger allowances because they are expected to do more.”
Teenager Mowatt points out that for some families it`s a matter of survival for the teens to cook. ”Some parents work late shifts and if they
(kids) want to eat, they have to cook. They can`t just go out to McDonald`s and spend money. It helps not to be in such a rush.”
George Macht, associate professor and coordinator of food service and culinary arts at the College of Du Page, Glen Ellyn, started to see the change in his students three years ago:
”The males are more comfortable in the kitchen,” Macht says. ”In the past, some of the girls had experience. Now virtually all the girls have experience. They are more knowledgeable about condiments and spices. They know their way around the microwave oven, they know how much food to make to feed someone. Before, they would make giant portions: 10 pounds of spaghetti to feed two people.”
Some of the credit goes to television, Macht says: ”We`re seeing role models on television cooking shows. In the era of Antoinette Pope, it was women in the kitchen. We heard that men were the best chefs, but they weren`t visible. Now it`s okay to cook because we see successful men in the kitchen.” Health and nutrition, also, are more complex and more personal issues. Many people, boys as well as girls, are seeking some control over what they eat, or at least some say in family food choices.
Mowatt feels that more fruits and vegetables should be emphasized in advertising directed at teens.
ADVICE FOR ADVERTISERS
”There are a lot of items of produce in the store, not just potato chips,” he says. ”There`s fruit and stuff and they ought to advertise that. It`s better for you, and kids would eat it.”
As for cooking, he says it`s a matter of eating well. ”I know that if it`s bad, it`s because I did something wrong. If I do it right, it tastes good.”
Television`s ”Frugal Gourmet,” Jeff Smith, verifies the teen interest:
”My mail indicates kids in high school and junior high school watch the show constantly. The reason is twofold: They are having to be more creative about feeding themselves because mom and dad work and they have more input. They are taking on some responsibility for their lives, and I think this is a very good sign.
”Also, they get a bang out of entertaining one another. They understand that in the end the family dinner table is more important for communicating than for eating. Thus they are fighting the car-seat culture.”
Contributing to teens` comfort in the kitchen is a switch from cooking as a duty to a necessity, because mom works. Add to this the possibility that buying and preparing food can be fun, not a stigma. With teen friends, it even can have a social aspect.
”I told my parents that as soon as I can drive I want to do the food shopping,” says Traci Babbitt, 16, of Buffalo Grove, who is only a blue driving permit away from the job. ”I want to check out the guys at the store,” she says, giggling.
COOKING IS `COOL`
When Amy Kiel tells other kids at school she cooks, some of them say,
`Hey, that`s really cool.` ”
Once in the store, teens are making decisions. ”A lot of children are left lists,” Rastovsky says. ”But some of the lists state simply `Buy something for dinner.` ”
”Teenagers,” adds Faith Popcorn, president of BrainReserve, a leading trend research firm in New York City, ”are becoming the brand managers for the family.”
Amy Kiel says there`s a lot left up to her discretion in regard to what brands she buys. ”I look for things that are cheap but good, too,” she says. Parents may be relieved to know that teens typically don`t stray far from family habits when selecting grocery items. Selina S. Gruber, president of Children`s Market Research, New York City, says that ”Teenagers today are surprisingly conformist. . .(with) attitudes remarkably similar to the so-called `traditional American values` that our parents and grandparents knew.”
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Still, teens tend to shop with their egos. ”There is a lot of brand identity with children,” Rastovsky says. ”They want brands that are acceptable to other teens. They have fragile self-identities. They often don`t know which brand they prefer, but they don`t want to be different. They go more for quality. Generic is definitely out.”
Back in the kitchen, teens don`t cook the way grandma did. ”They are not better cooks,” Macht says of his crop of students.
Gruber has found that ”teenagers want their food to be easy to prepare, with little or no clean-up time.”
A CONTRADICTION
Indeed, the term ”teenage gourmet” is a contradiction in terms, says Marian Tripp, whose Chicago communications company helps track buying habits for national clients such as Quaker Oats. On their own, teenagers tend to eat pizza or a burger at fast-food spots, she says.
”Their favorite foods are not healthful,” Rastovsky says. ”They love cookies-the finger foods, social foods. Teen girls have healthier habits than boys.”
”Nonetheless, there are pockets of enormous sophistication,” says Burton Wolf, a New York City-based consultant and television personality. During a speech at his son`s high school, he asked what the kids had for lunch over the past three days. ”I was astonished how many said sushi.”
Terri Van, 20, of Hoffman Estates had a head start at home creating desserts inspired by her mother, director of catering at Stouffer Hamilton Hotel, Itasca. Now that she`s in college-and dissatisfied with cafeteria food- Terri whips up creations in her own slow cooker or her dorm`s microwave oven.
In the kitchen, today`s teenagers are eager to try new machines. ”They are not afraid to operate a piece of equipment, a meat slicer or meat grinder,” Macht says. ”They are looking for shortcuts. They`d rather use a machine than their hands. They will reach for the food processor, not a French chef`s knife.”
Yet the appliance and food industries are slow to court these young kitchen helpers. Teens are ”a real market, and nobody is talking to them,”
says Wolf.
”Marketing to a specific lifestyle segment won`t work,” social researcher Dr. Steve Barnett of Research and Forecasts said two years ago.
”There are no teen lifestyles as such, where young people consume according to set patterns. Teen consumption and culture is becoming postmodern, combining eclectic components from the past and present.”
Whether this is true or not-and many researchers disagree strongly-food producers and their advertising agencies have not expended the same creativity and dollars on wooing teens that the breakfast-cereal segment of the industry has on courting younger children.
Marian Tripp says, ”I think this is just beginning to affect the thinking of marketers, but so far there is not an obvious attempt to cater to teenage tastes. The tendency is to fold them into the mass market in surveys.”
CONTEST FOR TEENS
”One of my clients is sponsoring a recipe contest for teens,” Tripp explains. ”We are doing recipe booklets for the school classroom in the genre of quick, easy, convenient food. Of course, that`s what mom is looking for, too.”
Some marketers have tried to reach teens. The National Dairy Board`s up-tempo television ads showed kids growing on camera. Borden`s targeted its Spiral snack food to this age group, as did Kellogg with Pro Grain. Nabisco, Quaker Oats, Kellogg, Procter & Gamble, Kraft and Campbell Soup have advertised on MTV. Mazola Cooking Oil, Swiss Miss Cocoa Mix and Gorton`s Frozen Seafood are on ”American Bandstand.”
Wolf says that he has been working to create a line of frozen foods targeted to teens that would carry the logo of a well-known restaurant chain and be lavishly promoted on MTV. ”I can`t understand why companies aren`t
`renting` characters and personalities teens groove on and slapping them on heat-and-serve frozen products,” he says.
But these efforts represent a very tiny tip of what most of the industry seems determined to deny might be a great big iceberg.
Gruber thinks the root of the problem is attitudinal. She believes marketers know children are buying products but misconstrue the significance of it. She told Food & Beverage Marketing, a trade publication:
”When they (food manufacturers) see a child is making those kind of decisions, people think they are dealing with `latchkey` or neglected children. That`s absolutely not the case. Just because a child comes home and puts some food in the microwave doesn`t mean he or she is neglected. In fact, kids love to cook for themselves. It gives them a sense of accomplishment and makes them feel independent.”
”We have a lot of the microwave stuff in the freezer, but sometimes it`s nice to take the time to do a nice meal,” says Kiel. ”I like to make stuff that looks nice and is colorful. When I get done, I want it to be ready all together. If my father calls and says he is going to be late, I get disappointed. I get kind of personally involved.”
Bishop Allen, vice president and general manager of the upscale Simon David stores in Dallas and Austin, Tex., corroborates McMillan`s observation. Acknowledging that teens ”are not a market we specifically focus on,”
he goes on to say ”Teens` buying habits are based on their parents,` and they shop where their parents shop. They have buying power, but that`s not the crux of the matter when you have only X number of advertising dollars to spend.
SENSITIVE TO TEENS
”We have to be sensitive to teens, however. They represent the next generation of customer, and you want to get them first. I think the supermarket is going to have to create interest by being more showy, more exciting. We are talking about doing in-store ads along the line of the music videos for soft drinks.”
Larry McKinney is the chief executive officer of Larry`s Markets in Seattle, considered among the most progressive and innovative companies in the industry:
”We don`t know much about teen shoppers and, frankly, we`ve given them very little thought,” he says.
At a store next to a large movie theater, ”the guys come in packs and tend to buy potato chips and pop to go. If they eat in the cafeteria, they will buy salads with heavy dressings, big sandwiches, pizza or fried chicken. Girls use the salad bar and attempt to eat healthy.”
Kitchen experts forecast that the emphasis in the next decade will be on torage and organization, not space for food preparation. They envision even more two-person kitchens with double sinks, stove tops and possibly several microwave ovens. The result may be a unisex environment in which boys feel more comfortalbe.
As for the food that passes through these kitchens, Campbell`s Rastovsky says: ”I see more food-to-go in the groceries (with more appeal to teens). I don`t want to call it designer foods, but a phenomenon like that could happen.”
Macht adds: ”We will see more products for the microwave. The less kids deal with the stove, the better they like it. And more individual serving packaging.”
Brain Reserve`s Faith Popcorn goes further with predictions: ”There will be sections of supermarkets devoted to kids,” she says. ”Convenience stores just for kids, with kids behind the counter, MTV blaring, a place to park the bicycle, coupons from kids` magazines. There will be credit cards (debit cards) just for kids.”
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Bishop Allen, of Simon David, is optimistic about the judgment of teen shoppers in the next decade.
”I think the kids coming along now will be discriminating shoppers who demand quality and service,” he says. ”They will combine the cost-conscious concerns of my parents` generation with my generation`s willingness to try new things and respond to factors beyond low price.”