Abstract:

Twenty years of daily work with 0-25 year-olds ( the new children's market is no longer defined according to the legal age of majority), within their different contexts (family, school, consumption, media,...) lead us to believe that: - Segmentation by age is a logical imperative for Manufacturers, Distributers and Advertisers because, not only is one interested in different products according to whether one is 5 or 20 years old, but also because communication vectors (advertising and promotion) are not the same at different stages of childhood. - other possible criteria of segmentation - either in order to compare girls and boys, or to differentiate families with more cultual-economic advantages from those with fewer - are tending to become less and less meaningful: young people increasingly share the same areas of interest, comparable equipment and similar plans for the future, whatever their sex or family background. - in order to be thoroughly effective, communication to the young must move from the "personal" level to the "fusional" one and must take into account different models of family relationships because these young people continue to live at home much later and are, at the same time, more financially dependent and more culturally autonomous than before. - even if differences exist between different countries which are socio- economically comparable, it is certainly among the young population that internationalisation of attitudes and behaviour is the most marked, influenced by factors which are no longer national: fashion, music, films, etc.