A new survey by research firm Piper Jaffaray called “Taking Stock with Teens” has highlighted some of the most noticeable trends in teenagers’ purchasing habits and tastes. The survey polled more than 8,000 teenagers about how they spend their money and what influences their purchase decisions. The average age of teens surveyed is 16 and the survey is done every spring and fall. The Fall 2018 survey revealed a dominating presence by iPhone, Netflix, and Instagram.
The survey concluded that 82% of teens owned an iPhone and 86% planned to buy an iPhone for their next smartphone. The iPhone has dominated the marketshare for a while now but it’s still growing in the Teen market. Only 10% of teens said they planned to buy an Android phone. Nearly half of those surveyed said that the brand of a product had a major influence on their decision to purchase.
Instagram is now the social media leader among teenagers passing up Snapchat and Netflix provides the most streaming video to our adolescent kids at 38% of the share vs 33% for YouTube. Other interesting info from the survey is that food is the highest budget priority for teens, they prefer to shop online, and the majority of video game purchases are now made through online download.
What Parents Should Know
This info is meant to help marketers plan their products and advertising campaigns but it can go a long way to help moms and dads and other guardians of kids better understand how our teenagers tick. The emphasis on the iPhone speaks to the exclusive nature of the brand, the appeal of feeling like you belong to a niche group causes kids to move towards a brand that is considered to be more premier than the rest. Instagram has passed snapchat by adding much of the features that kids loved about Snapchat without changing the core timeline of the app. Snapchat has admitted to making a mistake by altering what made their app popular with the younger crowd. After going public, Snap made decisions to buffer their ability to become a marketing destination for companies. This undermined their core fanbase of kids and teens who are more likely to skip an ad or unfollow an account that seems to be too “pitchy.”
Netflix is now a more popular video streaming service among teens than YouTube, though not by much. The focus on original content and many of our kids’ favorite stars creating shows and movies for Netflix is driving them to use the streaming service. There has also been a surge in younger people enjoying television shows from the past twenty years or so because of Netflix’s ability to keep those shows streaming on their service. While YouTube is pushing their own TV solution, Netflix is just continuing to build upon the genres they created and it seems to be drawing in folks from most demographics.
I want to conclude by mentioning again that kids are buying their video games through online downloads. This means that the restrictions on games have to be set digitally or your kids can buy whatever games they’d like. If you have set up their Xbox Live or Playstation accounts to make purchases then they can buy whatever games they’d like without any restriction. You have to set that up yourself. There is no longer a cashier at the store who will ask to see your kids id when they try to buy a game that is rated M for mature. It is up to you to get those settings set up.
This data is super helpful for us, as parents, to understand our kids’ preferences and influences. Information like this can help us make quality decisions and chose the right battles when trying to protect our kids from adult content, online predators, cyberbullying, and other dangers of using the internet with no filters or boundaries. Subscribe to our newsletter, our YouTube account, our Twitter and Facebook, and to our podcast to stay in the know as to what’s happening in the digital and connected culture your kids are growing up in.