Conference coverage by Shia Kapos:

Lesson one on marketing to young people: Don't use parents to advertise your product.

Lesson two: When listening to marketing experts talk about marketing to young people, be sure to wear a sweater.

The air conditioner is on full blast in this quiet meeting room in the Courtyard by Marriott in downtown Chicago. The discussion, though, couldn't be hotter — even heated. Just ask the poor guy from State Farm Insurance who wants to figure out how to attract young people that seem to be flocking to the competition and its damned green gecko.

Companies are always going to have success in reaching the youth market if they focus on the target audience and stick to the message, says Bill Carter, marketing guru from Burlington, Vt.- based Fuse Marketing (the company specializes in hip marketing campaigns for snowboarding and other Xtreme sports). "It's gotta be authentic. Kids recognize when it's not."

Carter dropped some amazing stats before a group of about 20 business and marketing folks Tuesday. The group is part of a bigger "Connecting With Youth: Fresh Approaches to Youth Marketing" conference that continues Wednesday and Thursday, when another 80 attendees are expected to drop by.

Lots of industries are represented–insurance, computers, universities, media, marketing–and they're all hoping to understand how to better attract kids to their products. Yes, colleges and universities already attract young people. But once they're on campus, how do you keep them there for lunch, for example, when you've got a McDonald's across the street? Finding the answer is like searching for the Holy Grail, according to one marketer. "It's why we're all here."

Newsletter readers: Come to Ypulse.com to read the rest of this post in the extended entry.

There's no tried and true method, but Carter offers some good ideas for companies to better market to young people and those ideas are based on the information he's gleaned from researching how young people buy and spend.

Consider these facts and note that young people, for this discussion, are people ages 15 to 24 years old:

* American youth spends $38 per week, and this isn't gifted money from grandma. It's cash they got from odd jobs, says Carter. American teens aren't even the biggest weekly spenders. Norway holds that spot with kids spending on average $50 per week. In Vietnam, they spend $4.

* Young people worldwide share the same interests: consumerism, affinity for technology, entertainment, exploration and travel, sports, empathy and hope. But the No. 1 unifier among teens and young people, says Carter, is that they agree on individual responsibility and they are attracted to products and marketing that reflect that.

* 85 percent agree with this statement: "It is up to me to get what I want out of life," according to the "$100 Billion Allowance" study of 27,000 teens.

* Things teens have in common:
85 percent watch MTV/music videos
81 percent use computers
73 percent watch the Olympics
81 percent enjoy movies

* More fun teen facts:
85 percent use cell phones
81 percent use computers
79 percent watch TV
73 percent listen to the radio
69 percent read magazines

*The most unifying (and self-important, I'd have to say) entity among teens is MTV. "They're like a virus," chimed one attendee. And Carter says it's the most fascinating phenomenon to watch in the rest of the world.

So with all that knowledge so easily available, why can't the business world figure out what teens want and how to give it to them? Maybe it's generational. Or just not enough time to enjoy everything young people like. If you don't know that Vans are shoes and not surfing products, you don't know young people. And if you think "Punk'd" is a hair style, well, you should be signed up for this conference.

The key is understanding that you've got to step out of your comfort zone. Marketing to teens doesn't mean you market to what YOU like (and I'm talking to marketers here). It means giving teens what they like.

Carter likes to use the example of building a house. As a business owner, you see the big house in the suburbs with a white picket fence as the ideal place to live. But young people want to live in a loft that's walking distance to bars and shops.

He follows some simple rules for developing a marketing plan:

1. Stick to your message.
2. Be authentic.
3. Not all products or marketing plans have to be "cool." Consider Johnson & Johnson's baby shampoo. It works and there's nothing particularly cool about it.
4. Consider the parent factor. It's a negative. Period. "It's just not good," says Carter of ads that show parents in any way, shape or form.
5. Pick your message and pick your audience and speak to them exclusively.
6. Build a marketing strategy geared toward teens, not you.
7. Avoid the "When I was 17, that's what I liked" strategy.
8. Identify your audience. Are they thrill-seekers who want to see action in advertising? Or pessimists who respond to irony and criticism of anything or anyone?
9. Identify the youth culture you're targeting–sports, music, fashion, video gaming.
10. Avoid trends. They die long before you can get your marketing campaign up and running.

And if there's a No. 11, please turn the air conditioning to a low breeze.

I'll be back tomorrow with my parka.

From Anastasia: Shia Kapos is a Ypulse reader and Chicago-based freelance journalist who has written for publications such as the Chicago Tribune and People magazine.

Complete Connecting With Youth coverage:

Connecting With Youth Post Two
Connecting With Youth Post Three

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