Marketers cannot only target kids through television

Forget about catching a kid's attention with Saturday morning cartoons or after-school sit-coms. Today's marketers needs to do more because today's kids are superior multi-taskers and can often be found watching television, surfing the Internet and chatting on their mobiles at the same time.

by Kristina Knight

According to a recent study from Grunwald Associates, 64% of kids log on to the Internet while they are watching a favorite television show; nearly 50% of the teens surveyed said they multi-task (watch and surf) at least three times each week.

What is perhaps most interesting about this survey is that nearly three-quarters of those surveyed were called "active" multi-taskers. This means they are engaged with the television at the same time they are engaged online or via their cell phone. This is an increase of 33% over 2002 numbers and indicates that cross-channel ads are probably the most likely venue to attract the teen consumer.

For kids between the ages of 9 and 17, about half log on to a website after seeing that website in a television commercial. About 45% say they send emails or text messages to friends who are watching the same shows and 33% said they voted in a poll, played an online game or otherwise engaged in an activity after being directed to that activity from a television show or commercial.