Marian Salzman – President / Euro RSCG Worldwide PR, North America
Marian Salzman has worked with Fortune 500 marketers and identified youth trends for more than 20 years and currently serves as president of Euro RSCG Worldwide PR, North America. She launched The Sisterhood, a boutique agency within Euro RSCG, in 2009. A kind of research lab, the new agency focuses on consumer insights pertaining to girls ages 13 to 19. Salzman spoke with eMarketer’s Tobi Elkin about kids’ shopping habits, behaviors and expectations.
eMarketer: How do teens define a satisfying online shopping experience?
Marian Salzman: Good stuff, great delivery, innovative online environment and share tools that allow them to loop in real friends but sort out frenemies and others to keep the exclusive stuff to themselves. Exclusivity and access to special promotions, offers and deals is a bit of a slippery slope.
“Teens don’t want every girl they know to know about a dollar-off offer because then it’s not really exclusive and everybody knows you’re a bargain hunter.”
One thing we discovered is teens don’t want every girl they know to know about a dollar-off offer because then it’s not really exclusive and everybody knows you’re a bargain hunter. While you may be very driven by value and great values, you don’t want everyone to know your mom is cheap. You only pass along real bargains to your inner circle—it’s a social-status thing.
Kids want low- or no-cost delivery. All customers must be treated equally. A teenage customer doesn’t want to be treated like a teenager. Sometimes screen names disclose their teenage-ness.
eMarketer: What are retailers doing to provide this experience?
Salzman: They’re offering games, freebies, great prices and values. Free shipping is a big one. Kids are painfully aware of the cost of shipping. Retailers need to offer a great collection that changes constantly so that there’s a reason to go back every week. They need to have lots of social tools on the site and mobile apps are important.
Providing live 24-hour customer service that’s not patronizing to young consumers is a good idea. We hear, particularly from boys, that customer service people can be patronizing. A teenage customer doesn’t want to be treated like a teenager. They need to be handled by the customer service representative with whom they’re dealing as if they are 34 or 54 years old, even if they’re 14.
eMarketer: What is your advice to retailers that want to know how they should use social media to reach teen consumers?
“Talk their talk and walk in their shoes, but don’t overmarket, overpromise or be too in their faces electronically or anywhere else.”
Salzman: Talk their talk and walk in their shoes, but don’t overmarket, overpromise or be too in their faces electronically or anywhere else. Realize that reduce and reuse is a green message but also part of teens’ commitment to values. It’s social. It’s not marketing; it’s a conversation, not a lecture.
Mobile apps are important, but the idea is more about, “I saw boots; I want to share them with my sister right now.” The kid wants to be able to take a photo right then and there, so you cannot ban people from taking photos in the store. We hear about kids out shopping; they see something they like, want to share it, snap a photo with their camera phone and send it to a friend. They want input as to whether they should purchase the item and approval.
eMarketer: Is this mostly occurring in-store or online?
Salzman: A bit of both.
eMarketer: So they get instant real-time feedback from friends.
Salzman: Absolutely, right, and they need that because they’re social world is a virtual world they carry with them.
eMarketer: How will today’s teens alter the nature of ecommerce once they mature and begin to have real spending power?
“They’ll assume clicks beat bricks every time in terms of price, relevance and efficiency.”
Salzman: They’ll assume clicks beat bricks every time in terms of price, relevance and efficiency. I wouldn’t want to be the owner of the real estate, I would prefer to be the owner of the brand and the un-real-estate. The brand is the trust mark. We’ll be accustomed to buying in microbits and -bites. On iTunes, you buy music in bits and bites, one track at a time. We will see the idea of mass customization within apparel and other categories. Stores may become showrooms and showcases.
For more information at eMarketer
