GenDigital

Elizabeth Arden Wants Teens To Say "So"

Fragrance and beauty icon Elizabeth Arden has its sights set on the teen female audience as it markets its new "So...?" fragrance at musical concerts and malls nationwide. When all is said and done, the event marketing push is expected to distribute 20,000 scent cards to females between the ages of 12 and 18. For a teen girl to secure one of the scent cards, she must provide her name and email address with an expectation that future marketing correspondence will soon follow. To also help promote the new teen targeted fragrance Elizabeth Arden has created a new web site.

Microsoft Inks Rep Deal With Facebook

Facebook, the number one social networking site among college students has a new partner in software and services behemoth Microsoft. The granddaddy of operating systems who has ambitious plans for its MSN unit announced its biggest deal to date yesterday, saying it would be the exclusive seller of banner ads and sponsored links for the super hot college networking site. Terms of the deal were not disclosed but I don't think we are talking about Google/MySpace like numbers here. (The Google/MySpace deal was a minimum of $900 million over 3 years). However, even if the Microsoft/Facebook deal is for 10% of Google/MySpace which would be $90 million, I still think that's of value for Facebook, who, according to many people familiar with the company only generates about $1 million per month in advertising sales. Remember, this was the same company that was rumored to be asking up to $2 billion as an acquisition price or about 4 times what Fox paid for MySpace. So, who is this a better deal for? I actually think it is quite even. For Microsoft, there sales people can go out and aggressively sell the demographic du jour and a prized brand name with fantastic brand recognition among online media buyers. For Facebook, the deal can finally get some worthwhile ad revenues on their books.

Sony Pictures Acquires Video Site

Sony Pictures Entertainment, one of major Hollywood movie studios, is expected to announce later today that it has acquired video sharing site Grouper.com. By acquiring the site, Sony is validating a notion that user generated content is the in thing of the moment and the company sees the trend continuing for quite some time. I actually met with the guys that started Grouper when they were working at Spinner, which was subsequently acquired by AOL. You could definitely see that they wouldn't last at AOL, so based on their prior success with Spinner, I am not surprised to see them score again with Grouper. Like other video sharing sites, Grouper is experiencing hockey stick type growth with 8 million unique visits per month, up from just one million as recently as March.

Back To School Fashion Watch: Must Have Item

We asked some of our fashion forward thinking panelists (you can recognize them easily on campus by their $300 handbags and $150 customized sneakers) what are some of the "must have" apparel and accessory items for back to school. So far, their responses gives the "wear your brand with pride" expression a whole new meaning. One of the hot items for back to school is the near $100 Big Pony Polo from Ralph Lauren. The polo shirt, available for both men and women in a variety of styles, first showed up on the radar last year, but this year it seems to have really caught on. Perhaps, given the fact that a number of celebs have been photographed with one on lately doesn't hurt either.

Paris Lands on YouTube To Promote Her New Album

Those of you who doubted the staying power of Paris Hilton (myself included) in the past only to be chagrined as she persevered, here's another chance to say no way. This time however, I am going to lean on the side of her succeeding as she makes a transition from heiress/reality tv star/club promoter to musical artist. In a coup for the video site YouTube.com, Paris' new CD, which is available as of today will be one of the first products marketed on the site's front page. As reference points, according to our most recent Top Ten Report, YouTube is the 8th most popular site among teens and college students and Paris (for one reason or another) is the 6th most popular female celebrity. Based on her new album, I expect her popularity (prepare to gasp) to actually increase significantly over the next three months. Take a listen for yourself...her stuff is (I can't believe I am going to say this) pretty good and should certainly resonate among her target market of tweens, teens and young adults.

KFed Greeted Enthusiastically By Teen Audience

Britney must have been sweating bullets as she introduced her "man" Kevin Federline on last night's Teen Choice Awards on Fox. It was KFed's first live network television performance, and based on today's reviews and last night's reaction from the crowd, KFed did not disappoint. Have I been wrong all this time and Mr. Britney Spears is really the man? If he shows up on the October Top Ten 10 for Musical Artists, I guess I will be nothing less than humbled. Not by coincidence, this performance could end up being huge for Federline as his debut album called "Playing With Fire," hits stores next week.

For Real, Among Teens It Is All About Mobile

This past Friday night, my wife and I attended a performance by one of our favorite bands, Guster. However, the band's core fan base is not thirtysomethings like us, but rather teens and college students, which was more than clearly apparent to us Friday night. So, for me, Friday evening turned into more than just another beautiful summer evening listening to one of my favorite bands. I ended observing a two and half hour live focus group of a couple thousand teens and here are the key takeaways. If you think all that talk about teens and mobile phones is overdone, think again. Really think again. It's no joke when I say that not only did nearly every kid in the crowd (and the parking lot beforehand) have their own cell phone, but they were in a perpetual state of use. The group of 16 and 17 year old teen girls in front of us were sending text messages to their other group of friends who were sitting on the other side of the outdoor amphitheater faster than I was downing my $8 popcorn and $7 Coors Light. What's more, at every glance, a camera phone or video camcorder phone in the hand of a teen was taking shots of the band and their friends around them. Even my wife, who I would call an accidental teen trendspotter, said she was amazed by just the sheer amount of mobile activity going on. If you're mobile carrier, you're loving this, if you're a mobile application service provider, you're loving this and if you're a brand marketer or media company considering a mobile-related play, you are also loving this. I almost feel compelled to follow the band around the rest of the summer to validate the mobile aptitude of other teen audiences.

ABC Family and OfficeMax Team Up For Back To School

It's not exactly the same type of half-scripted/half-reality show you might tune into on MTV, but this might actually end up being for effective. OfficeMax has partnered with Disney-owned ABC Family, the number eight cable television network among college women, number five among teen females and number three among tween females to create a new quasi reality show entitled "Schooled" premiering tonight. The way the branded deal works out begins with students in suburban New York are called back in from their summer break to take a test in order to "graduate" on to high school. Of course, the test isn't real and instead the 8th graders soon to be 9th graders get a performance by teen pop star Jesse McCartney. Certainly a pretty original idea and should play well among the target audience. Another key part for exclusive partner OfficeMax, no extra commercials during the show.

IAC Hops on Web 2.0 Bandwagon Acquiring CollegeHumor

Yesterday morning, InterActiveCorp (IAC) announced it had acquired a majority stake in Connected Ventures, the parent company of the popular CollegeHumor.com web site. As I mentioned last week when the NY Post mentioned CollegeHumor was in play, I thought the best fit, from a content perspective, would have been a deal with Viacom, who owns Comedy Central, but so much for that. I guess that is why I am not an investment banker. The acquisition amount was not disclosed yesterday, but rumor has it in the $10 to $15 million range, which at first glance seems on the low side, based on the fact that CollegeHumor.com registered over 6.0 million unique visits last month, according to Nielsen. The overwhelming majority of those 6.0 million visitors are 18 to 24 year old men, the media darling demographic of the moment. The founders of Connected Ventures, who also operate the e-commerce site BustedTees.com and Fugly.com will continue to oversee operations, so perhaps, this not so much a content acquisition as it is a intellectual play for talent. In fact, the talent of the CollegeHumor crew is so well regarded, the founders are currently working on a movie project for Paramount Pictures. So, the next question is, what will Viacom and Fox Interactive buy next now that prized venture CollegeHumor is off the block?

Commentary: What's Next For The Teen Magazine Category

The past four months have been anything but normal for the teen magazine category. Two titles have been shelved starting with ELLEgirl and most recently with Teen People. For the most part, print media, as an effective advertising medium to reach teens and young adults, remains generally out of favor, with buyers opting for the Internet and other alternatives such as event marketing and promotions. I've received a fair share of calls and emails from clients and other industry contacts asking my take on all of the recent events and their implications. To tell you the truth, my opinions on the demise of Teen People haven't really changed since my original post on 7/26. The reality is that Teen People lost its one-time unique standing in the celeb space as teens and young adults, mostly young women, turned to magazines with higher frequencies like US Weekly and People for more timely news as well as the plethora of Internet sites devoted to entertainment and gossip news. This, coupled with the fact that many of today's hottest celebs are quite young (Lindsay Lohan is still not of legal drinking age) made it tough for Teen People to have a unique voice. But, even with all of that said, the real question remains, is this just a downward couple of ticks in a cyclical industry or is this a trend here to stay? A contrarian might tell you this is a golden opportunity to launch a new teen magazine. After all, advertisers aren't going to give all of their print money to just Teen Vogue, Seventeen and CosmoGIRL, right? The conservative will tell you to continue spending with the remaining teen books but increase your spending in other channels where the audience is spending more time like the Internet and possibly even mobile phones. My take on it: I believe the teen magazine category is an incredibly tough sell to management, especially if you're part of a bigger magazine conglomerate like Time, Inc or Hearst. Essentially, each magazine has to constantly replenish its subscriber base as tweens become teens who then become young adults. That gets very expensive, very quickly. Alongside the subscriber challenges remain, what I believe to be the even bigger issue: the content. Gen Y, more than any other demographic segment, leverages the user generated and empowering mechanisms of the Internet and mobile entertainment to best suit their individual needs. The only example I could think of would be for Time Inc or some other publisher to launch a teen magazine that is written and edited exclusively by teens themselves. Teen People used to boast of a large trendspotter panel of readers, perhaps they would have been the first to sign up for the new venture? There is a precedent for this, check out Teen Newsweek from Weekly Reader written by teens. Clearly, I don't have all of the answers, only opinions, but I do think there is still place for a great teen mag, key word being great. Niche players like School Sports appears to be doing great and looking to grow big time. It's not like there aren't any opportunities or time left in the day for teens to pick up a magazine. They still go to the doctor's office or dentist's office. They still bring something to read with them when they go to the beach or pool. And believe it or not, some actually read each night before they go to bed, before they check their email one more time, of course.