Entertainment, celebrity push teens' need to know

Marketers across the Internet are searching for new ways to engage and convert teens and young twenty-somethings, but their efforts could be made simpler by listening. Listening to what teens and 20s have to say - through social postings or by the questions and queries asked via search and answer engines. And these kids are saying a lot.

by Kristina Knight

Recently mobile answers service ChaCha released a listing of the top questions teens and twenty-somethings asked via their portal. The results? As in the pre-Internet days, teens and twenty-somethings are interested in entertainment and celebrity. According to ChaCha's list, which includes more than 58 million questions asked per quarter, teens and 20s asked millions of questions about upcoming movies, popular celebrities and music.

Among the top questions asked in the past 90 days:

• What is the truth about paranormal activity?
• When do "New Moon" and "The Hangover" come out?
• What are Christina Hendrick's measurements?
• When does "Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2" come out?
• Is Lady Gaga a hermaphrodite?

As you can see lots of questions about movies and games, a few questions likely prompted by movies (i.e. the paranormal activity question) and a few queries about celebrities. And this is rather typical of the results from many other surveys or compliations.

What does this mean for marketers? Well, it is an indicator that movie studios, gaming developers/publishers and entertainment blogs or content hubs have a huge population base screaming for attention and information. It is also an indicator that contextually advertising movies, games and tech products near content about movies, games or celebrity content will be more likely to engage the audience than ads for movies or games alongside editorial content from the daily newspaper.

Tags: ChaCha, contextual marketing, demographics, mobile marketing, teen advertising, teens