The complex social lives of teens are reflected in their digital mental models
_The Problem
Kellogg’s wanted to reach teens although parents are actually the product buyers. How do we allocate and plan our social media resources?
_The Approach
All of us on the project were adults, so I used danah boyd’s research on teen social lives and digital usage. I also used panel data on adult media usage and attitudes. Using this, I created a social map to compare and contrast both groups.
_The Solution
Much of teen online activity is to create spaces separate from adults so revealing the overlaps were crucial. Kellogg’s created both parent-safe and risqué content. We placed each in the right channel based on teen-adult overlap.
_The Result
Kellogg’s used Snapchat for the first time in Europe. We were able to set view, like, and share benchmarks per platform based on the amount of overlap with parent use.
boyd, danah. (2014). It's Complicated: Yale University Press. Read it here.