Call it a marketing hook, tween baiting, or young teen branding brilliance, Zwinktopia, the online virtual world that just launched Monday has leveraged their growth substantially by familiarizing kids with their avatar site Zwinky, first. Kids have been creating customizable Zwinky identities to plop on their blogs, profiles, IM and chat sites representing themselves for … [Read more...]
Keeping my finger on ‘whassup’ in youth culture can lead to ‘life’s most embarrassing moments’ in a keystroke. Case in point? I stay apprised with what’s circulating the net using a handy tool called Top Viral Videos to see what’s clicking through with 6 million viewers and such. Einstein, the amazing talking bird and sweet otters … [Read more...]
Shaping Youth wrote about the provocative viral promo targeting teen gamers to ‘place the tattoo anywhere on the woman's body’...We hit the op-ed pages when a teen radio station turned ‘hot 99.5’ into a plastic surgery pitch for breast implants. (you can imagine what they did with the numbers for the 'breast year ever' promo, as this teen journalist shares its demeaning … [Read more...]
Splat. Slime. Ooze. Muck. 40 million kids can't be wrong, eh? Billed as the “biggest, loudest, messiest spectacle in the show's history,” I tuned in to the KCA awards with my 11-year old. My goal was to keep track of mega-media influences, digital tactics, tween TV and glean some perspective from her editorial comments firsthand. Enlightening. Justin … [Read more...]
Kaiser Family Foundation released the largest study ever conducted of TV food advertising to children today. I’ll keep my editorializing to a minimum, since I mirror the CSPI food industry guidelines on advertising responsibility. The study, Food for Thought: Television Food Advertising to Children in the United States, was presented at a forum with U.S. Senator Sam … [Read more...]
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