Hot on the trail of these passionate purchasers are marketing trackers. With the average seventeen year old spending over 100 dollars each week, marketers have found a new focus. For many marketing people, their job is almost as fun as being a teen. Grant MacDonald and his firm, North Castle Partners, make their living by delving into the teen mind, processing the information, and delivering new, teen-centric marketing strategies to their clients. We really like teenagers, obviously, from a business point of view, because it's a growing segment of the marketplace, and there's a lot of attention being paid to that market for major brands out there.
North Castle conducts regular focus groups with eight to ten teens.
The information is used by the agency to refine and target their marketing ideas to be more attractive to the average teen. Still, an important part of growing up is learning how to manage money, spend wisely, and separate needs from wants. According to Mary Mohler, there's nothing wrong with giving your children an allowance and teaching them to manage their own money. But Mohler stressed the importance of setting goals with children, helping them budget their money, and teaching them to give to charity. Children learn more from our examples than from our words.