GenDigital

YT Cares Beta Launch

We are extremely excited to announce the beta launch of YT Cares. YT Cares is a disruptive innovation in the care packages space. With the help and support of various partners, our panelists created their own care package designs and then voted on their favorites. For far too long students and their parents have been getting ripped off and paying upwards of $60 or $70 for a package that really only costs about $15 to produce. It's time for a change.

YT Cares is not only cost efficient but charitable as well. The net proceeds of each package will be donated to a charity of the buyer's choosing. Unlike other recent product innovations we've launched, we're not looking for profits, rather just happy students and happy parents. None of this would be possible without all of the companies who provided the snacks, drinks and other goodies that went into the packages.

The beta version is live today at http://youth-trends.com/cares with six package combinations available. The launch theme is relieve the stress for finals so in addition to all of the snacks and drinks, each package includes stress balls, pocket games and other procrastinators.

A Subdued Mother's Day

Mother's Day is just a few short days away and our leading indicators, based on our April '09 immersion, suggest that Mom's around the country will be receiving a lot more hugs and kisses than big presents from their teen and college aged children. That said, the majority of teens and college students who took part in the monthly immersion still plan on purchasing (or have already purchased) a gift for Mom, the amount being earmarked (or already spent) is down sharply compared to a year ago.

Here's a quick look:

- Plan to purchase a gift for Mom: 71%, down from 86% last year

- Plan to spend $50 or less: 85%, up from 63%

- Plan to more than $50: 15%, down from 37%

- Top gift choices: flowers, beauty products, books, salon/spa gift cards, clothing and accessories, DVDs

Retail Trendspotting: Look To The West For Clues Of What's To Come

It's our heartfelt belief that a majority of youth fashion and retail-related trends originate on the west coast--specifically the Los Angeles market. Expanding on that point, there's no better place to take the pulse of America's young shoppers than Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade, which is home to dozens of retailers. In the most unscientific of methods, simply stroll up and down the picturesque promenade any early evening and weave yourself between the throngs of tourists to follow the retail-driven paths of the local shoppers. We did this four times this week with the hope of understanding which retailers were drawing in the tastemaker crowd. Ideally, we were not looking for browsers, we were looking for actual shoppers with wallets out and multiple bags in hand. Any theory that Forever 21 had hit a peak last year was quickly nullified--the Forever 21 outpost in the promenade was packed every night with buyers, not just browsers. I must be getting a little old because it took me a good five to ten minutes to block out the absolutely glaring music coming out of the speakers in Abercrombie & Fitch before I could get a sense of the crowd. Overall, though I would have to say the A&F crowd was skewed slightly on the side of tourists (who were buying for the most part) rather than local young people. Without a doubt the most crowded store each night was the Apple store. Teens and twenty somethings were snapping up iPod Touches faster than you could say blueberry pancakes while several people were discussing the new soon to be released version of the iPhone with store staffers. It was a completely different story 50 feet down the street at the Helio outpost. Over the course of four separate evenings, I saw no more than five people in the store--and most of the time there were more employees manning the floor than shoppers in the store. Yikes. Back to clothing...American Eagle has a sizable piece of real estate, but again, we saw more tourists in there night in and night out than locals. Many of the tourists booked straight towards AE's relatively new undergarment aerie line which is competing head to head with Victoria's Secret's Pink line. Besides Forever 21, the highest concentration of local shoppers were found at Urban Outfitters, which by no small coincidence has quickly become one of the more popular specialty outposts for college students nationally over the past year and a half. Other little tidbits of info--the Levi's store was practically empty each night--the audience is still about their premium denim, while the Diesel store was humming at the cash register. There was a longer line at the tiny McDonald's stand than many of the local fast food joints every night. Why is that tourists, many of whom probably traveled thousands of miles, prefer the golden arches to prized local fare like overstuffed burritos and quarter pound burgers from Fatburger is beyond me, but whatever. Anyway, it was great to see so many people walking around with multiple bags of merchandise as the economic doom and gloom headlines continue to spew out on a daily basis. Happy Friday!

Soft Spending Expected Among Kids This Mother's Day

Mother's Day is right around the corner and although the overwhelming majority of tweens, teens and college students still plan on purchasing a gift for Mom, the amount of money their earmarking has declined substantially compared to a year ago. Could this be one of the first indications of the trickle down effect of a rough economy. I'd say it's a safe bet to say "yes." Based on our recently completed April '08 immersion, 81% of panelists surveyed said they plan on purchasing a Mother's Day gift which is down from 86% in 2007. The decline is marginal, but the real story is more about the amount of money they plan to spend. Only 24% of panelists said they plan on spending $50 or more on their gifts for Mom, which down considerably from 37% a year ago. Perhaps it's not about the money these kids have in their pockets per se rather they're heeding advice passed on to them from none other than their Moms. The resounding theme we saw over and over again from panelists was simply their parents, especially their mothers, were telling them to "take it easy" and not to "go crazy" buying anything extravagant this year. Perhaps that's because the majority of purchases these kids make are made using a credit card or debit card which ironically the parents are responsible for. All that said, the items kids are snapping up for Mom include the staples like flowers and plants as well as those cool little digital photo key chains--so Mom can carry around pictures of her children every time she gets in the car, spa or salon gift certificates and small keepsakes like jewelry boxes and picture frames.

Wal-Mart Draws First Blood For Holiday Shoppers

Ok so the title is little gross, but if you ever had the chance to hang out and spend some time with those folks in the retail space, they would consistently refer to an omni-present "war" like environment. Time and again, the large discount retailers and even some of the leading specialty retailers launch their seasonal campaigns (i.e. back to school, spring break, graduation), well...way out of season. In an effort to get a head start on the holiday season, Wal-Mart, the most visited discount retailer by teens and college students has just announced that this Friday, yes, about three weeks before Thanksgiving, will be its first holiday shopping day full of deals and discounts, including a $350 laptop computer. Don't expect the competition to sit idle, they will all be out with their own promotions within the next 48 hours. It's go time for holiday shoppers.

Holiday Shopping Preview Part 2

Ok, as a follow up to Monday's post, I wanted to share some additional highlights from the just released Holiday '07 Report. First let's start by noting that price although important, isn't necessarily the main factor in purchase decisions. 39% of teens and college students say "the physical location of the store as well as customer service are just as important, if not important than the price of the item they are interested in purchasing this holiday season." Speaking of location, we might have reached the pinnacle of visits to discount retailers like Target and Kohl's last season. An increasing number of young people, some 32%, up from 26% last year, say they "plan to purchase the majority of their holiday-related gifts at department stores like Nordstrom and Macy's or specialty retailers like American Eagle or Urban Outfitters." The retailers mentioned most often by respondents included Urban Outfitters, Sephora, American Eagle Outfitters, Victoria's Secret, Anthropologie, Zara, H&M, Nordstrom, Forever 21 and Zumiez. The "in" styles for Holiday '07 include corduroy and herringbone jackets and vests from Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie, cashmere v-neck sweaters and cashmere cardigans from Nordstrom and Abercrombie(you can thank Justin Timberlake for that look), "something" tweed from Banana or J. Crew, a hat or cap that all the young Hollywood starlets are currently donning, and some comfy sweats from Victoria's Secret Pink or Juicy Couture. We will wrap this up looking at gaming, electronics and entertainment on Friday.

Holiday Shopping Preview Part One

Our Holiday Shopping and Gift Wish List Report will start popping up in client's in boxes later this week after a few final tweaks are made. We've expanded the report this year to include deeper coverage of some topics in order to provide additional context. While the NRF expects holiday sales to rise about 4% this season among the general U.S. population, we are anticipating an increase of 10% among teens and college students with an average individual spend of $634. That amount represents the amount spent on family members and other relatives, significant others, friends and individual "for me" purchases. Breaking out the $634 among those groups looks like this: $266 will go towards family members and relatives, $210 for significant others and other friends, and $158 will be spent on "for me" gifts. Think it is too early for the start of the holiday shopping season? Think again. Slightly more than one in three (36%) respondents said they already have made at least one holiday-related purchase. Better yet, a lot of respondents hope to have everything wrapped up before we turn our calendars to December. 41% said "they hope to have the majority of their holiday-related purchases made by the end of November." So, what will be the hot items this holiday season? Similar to previous waves of the report, clothing and accessories tops the list for planned purchases and the top gift the audience the hopes to receive. We continue to see a marked increase in the accessories category especially. We define the accessories category in very broad terms. It can be anything from a key chain or wallet to cap or hat. Luxury-brand accessories like Coach handbags and wallets, Louis Vuitton keychains and Chanel and Prada sunglasses wound up on many gift wish lists. The audience's insatiable appetite for luxury brand items and accessories seem to have kicked into overdrive just when we thought it might cool down. The denim category also comes in very strong with premium labels like Paper Denim, Seven For All Mankind, True Religion and Rock and Republic showing up all over the place. And finally, it should be a strong season for outerwear and outerwear accessories like hats, scarves. Outerwear brands and stores mentioned most often include Urban Outfitters, Forever 21, J. Crew, Nordstrom and American Eagle Outfitters. More to come on other gift categories later this week.   

Mixed Signals on Back to School Shopping Remain

There seems to be a lot of contradictory information out there regarding the current back to school shopping season. Back in early July, we expected teens and college students to increase their back to school related spending by upwards of 7 to 8 percent to $512. Although our Back To School Retail and Shopping Report won't be completed for another week, it's clear that spending on technology and communications as well as clothing and apparel still looks to be up from last year. This news comes as some major retailers ranging from Wal-Mart to Target have posted some initial results that are considered lackluster. So, what is the disconnect? Our hunch is that some back to school purchases that occurred in June or July of '06 are being put on hold or potentially being put off indefinitely until later this year. At this point, we probably have to go into a wait and see mode until sometime in mid to late September. Is it that much of stretch to think the for one reason or another that parents could wait until the very last minute to make some of the bigger ticket item purchases like computers and other digital consumer electronics devices? We don't think so. In terms of retail, we continue to see a push towards specialty clothing retailers who hawk lower price fare like H&M and Forever 21. That in itself could explain some of the lower figures the huge discount retailers like Wal-Mart and Target are reporting. During a very recent shop along with teens in Southern California, we heard over and over again how they preferred lower priced specialty retailers like the aforementioned stores over staples like Target. Typically, what happens on the west coast heads east, so don't be surprised if this current retail trend only gets larger.

Back to School Spedning Pegged At Nearly $20 Billion

The trade group, the National Retail Federation, came out with its annual preview of the upcoming back to school shopping season, which more or less, has already started. They expect spending to increase by nearly 7% from last year to $18.4 billion on student-related spending. No surprise, the number one category for back to school purchases is clothing and accessories. Electronics-related purchases are expected to see the biggest year over year increases. Although our own Back to School Retail and Shopping Report doesn't come for another couple of weeks, we have a few solid inclinations on what the "must have" items will be for the upcoming shopping season, the second largest only to the holiday shopping season. The "must have" items include a functional backpack, that is a backpack or carrying case that provides all of the necessary pockets and what not to handle a laptop, iPod, sunglasses and a change of clothes for the gym. One purchase category that is showing a lot of promise is the whole residence/dorm furnishings product line. We are following a lot of buzz from our panelists that only having a cool set of bed linens and towels is hardly enough. Accessories like pillows, blankets, lamps and even art work are increasingly important as well. It seems to us, that these young people are attempting to almost recreate incorporate some of the unique elements of their home bedroom into their new residences away from home this fall. On the clothing and apparel front, expect specialty clothing retailers like Forever 21, Urban Outfitters and Victoria's Secret Pink line all to ring up big sales while The Gap, Old Navy and Aeropostale will most likely see less young purchasers in their stores throughout the rest of the summer. The big electronics and technology-related purchases will include laptop computers, which will probably skew heavily towards Apple's Macbook, portable flash drives and portable hard drives. We will have much more report when our own Back to School Retail and Shopping Report is released in three weeks.

Ridiculous Toys From Ridiculous Parents

Not exactly on topic, but hey, it's Thanksgiving week. If you are looking for a quick five minute diversion, a little comic relief if you will, check out some of these incredibly high priced toys for privileged tots being marketed to multi-millionaire parents this holiday season. My favorite is the Junior Off Roader Vehicle. It's recommended for 7 to 12 year olds and carries a price tag of only $32,000...you could buy a entry level BMW for a few thousand more, but hey, the kid that is getting these kind of gifts is more likely to start out with a Porsche or Ferrari as their first car.