Report: Tweens

Tweens Research videos

Tweens had a total income of over £35 billion in 2003, and this is predicted to increase by 1.7% a year in to £40.9bn by 2008. As the control that Tweens have over their spending grows, our videos allow you to understand new trends that will affect the marketplace and govern Tween spending in 2006.

Fashion

What are the cool looks/ what’s popular at the moment?
Responses revealed that casual clothing, including trainers, tracksuits and football strips are the ‘cool’ looks at the moment.
Answers did vary with age and sex and there was a strong sway towards reflecting fashion trends for girls, who mentioned wearing skirts & boots.
However, jeans were popular, irrespective of age, with most of the respondents.

What are the popular brands and why?
Shoes brands such as Nike and Adidas seem to have made the strongest impression on our poll and these were the most frequently recalled brands.
Again there was a strong bias towards sportswear and brands such as Pineapple were popular among girls under ten.
Some designer labels were mentioned but it was a tendency to only associate brands with training shoes or sports clothing.

Who do you and your friends model yourselves on?
Answers show that friends and family members are as influential as magazines and celebrities when it comes to choosing styles and clothing.
Everyone one from celebrities David Beckham and Trinny and Susannah to mums, sisters and brothers were cited as style gurus.

What do you think will be in next year?
The children’s answers reflected styles they have already been exposed to such as fluffy boots and skirts boots over trousers. They also thought trends such as boots and tights would continue into 2006.

What do you think will be out next year?
Specific brands such as Adidas and Timberland were predicted to become less fashionable in 2006. Other answers show that kids prophesised the end of current long running trends such as jogging bottoms.

Language & Culture

What are the ‘cool’ words and phrases at the moment – how are they used – give me an example.
Cool words were typically derogatory and include ‘Loser, whatever and minger’.
Younger children try to insult others as much as possible and like to make up phrases and hand signals to accompany them including: “whatever McDonalds Worker on minimum wage”.
Other popular phrases were drawn from musical and TV references.

What are you and your friends talking about most of the time – why do you think that is?
Fashion and boys were popular with the young ladies, but the children also discuss soaps such as Eastenders and activities they participate in outside of school.
Football was a hot topic for the boys, who also discuss films.

What do you think you will discuss next year?
Sporting events featured highly and everything from the World Cup to the cricket were mentioned. Girls predicted that reality TV would be a big talking point in 2006.

What do you and your friends enjoy doing in your spare time?
Listening to music was popular with older children (12 years plus) and the majority of activities were in-door rather than outdoor recreation. Playing on game consoles and computers were popular with all age groups, whereas older children favoured watching TV.
Playing football was one of only a few physical activities that were mentioned.

Media

What’s really cool at the moment? What do you watch on TV?
Traci Beaker was popular with girls aged 7-8 years of old while The Simpsons was watched by all age groups.
From the age of ten years plus children seem to move away from kids TV and watch adult dramas and soaps such as Eastenders and My Family. American sitcoms such as Friends and teen dramas such as The O.C and One Tree Hill were picked by the over tens.

What are your favourite books and magazines?
Jackie Wilson was a hit with 10-11 year old girls whereas fairy stories were popular with five year olds.
Harry Potter, Horrible histories and titles from Roald Dahl were all mentioned from ages eight and above.
The football magazine Match and Girls magazine Shout were the most popular magazines.

What is the most popular radio station?
Eleven to thirteen like listening to Kiss FM while eight to nine year olds prefer Heart FM and Magic. Other answers included Capital, Radio One and Choice FM.

What do you think will be the most popular/cool thing next year in terms of TV, radio, magazines and why?
Reality shows such as X Factor and Big Brother and BBC favourites such as Little Britain and Eastenders were the top answers for the over 12s.
Younger respondents (age 5-7) Traci Beaker, cBeebies and Shrek.

Toy & Games

What is the ‘in’ toy for your age group at the moment? Why?
The most popular answer was game consoles such as Playstation and Nintendo with children from as young as five to age 11 picking this.
Eight year olds like tamagotchi and Robo Pets and five to six year olds mentioned dolls and action figures such as Bratz, dinosaurs and Robo Sapians.
Older children like musical toys such as MP3 players and CDs.

How long do you think it will be popular for – what will come next?
Children realised that newer versions would replace their current toys, especially when it came to computer games and software.

Do you always get the latest toy or game?
How important is it to you – what happens if you don’t get them?
Some saved up their pocket money to acquire new things but most weren’t too bothered about having the latest craze. Children from eight years and older realised the cost involved in said they normally wait for the price to go down or are happy with slightly older versions of the same toys.

Website

What websites do you look at? Is it mostly film/music/BBC/Games sites?
Six to nine year old girls like the Neo Pets site and cartoon sites such as Nickelodeon and Cbeebies and Disney were popular with the under tens.
Gaming sites and more informative websites such as the BBC and clothes sites were used by twelve years plus. MSN also featured for children over eleven years old.

Who chooses the websites you look at?
Friends have the biggest influence on what kids look at and only a few mentioned the parental control over what they viewed.

How important is it for the websites to be interactive?
This seems to be essential for the under tens who like to play games and girls in particular like to dress characters up in different clothes.
Interactive content is important because the respondents get bored if there is too much reading and games keep them on a website for longer.

Where in the house is your computer?
The majority of the answers show that computers are kept downstairs, either in the lounge or dining room.

Do you read updates that are sent to you from websites?
Younger children did not really understand what this question meant and older children were wary of them, believing the email to contain viruses, which they preferred to delete, rather than reading.

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