Thank Heaven for Little Girls: Using Blogs to Target the Tween Market

A couple of weeks ago - when I first heard that Mattel was getting Barbie and Ken back together in the hopes that their reunion would boost flagging sales - I wrote on my blog that Mattel was making a serious miscalculation. Moving backward isn’t going to make one bit of difference. My suggestion: make Barbie single and fabulous, and give her a blog.

Now longtime girl-oriented brand Holly Hobbie has done just that. Parent company American Greetings has made Holly more contemporary - trading her old patchwork skirt and bonnet for jeans, tees, and wavy blonde hair designed to appeal to today’s ever more fashion conscious tween girls. They’ve also given her a theme song performed by country star LeAnn Rimes.

In addition to hot theme music, a more contemporary image, and more racially diverse friends - Holly has an online journal. This in and of itself would not be revolutionary. After all, Barbie has a diary on her site. But Holly Hobbie is the only product for girls in the 7-15 age group that - to my knowledge - gives her customers their own journals right on her site and lets them link their journals to those of their friends.

Is this starting to sound familiar?

When we think about business blogging - we usually think of adults as our primary audience. But kids are customers, too. And they crave a connection with the products they choose to buy every bit as much as adults do.

What’s more, kids have unique incentives to spend their money. The events of children’s lives are - more often than not - beyond their control. For the most part, their choices are simply not their own. Spending money offers children a sense of power in the face of so much powerlessness. That’s why they sometimes seem to enjoy spending their pennies even more than they enjoy the toys they ultimately buy.

Kids also express the overwhelming opinion that their voices aren’t heard nearly so much as the voices of the grown-ups around them. So give a kid a blog and presto! - instant voice. And if you can associate that blog with a product that kids identify with - and parents approve of - you’re in business.