The kids are all right

Youth is no longer wasted on the young. The younger crowd-people in their teens and 20s-apparently have gained new influence as a commercial demographic. Perhaps too many hours of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" has convinced them that they, too, can make a difference. More likely, corporate America is putting more energy than ever into separating fresh-faced kids from their money.

The telecom industry is right there in the thick of things, offering cheap long-distance and collect calling, cheap Internet access and special feature packages, wireless and paging services.

The rich soil of the youth market is also a battlefield for image campaigns, and carriers are funneling more of their marketing dollars into the targeted advertising, promotional tie-ins and special discounts that are meant to lend some new hipness to their brands.

Most recently, Excel Communications has directed a new collect calling service and marketing campaign at the youth market (Telephony, April 5, page 12). AT&T also has been active in recent months, especially on college campuses.

What these carriers see is untapped opportunity. Maybe the individual consumers that make up this market don't spend as much as consumers in older demographic markets, but they are spending much more than they used to.

Carriers see the collective market as a market that moves collectively-peers influencing peers on buying decisions. They also see it as a market that is accustomed to a multimedia marketing blitz that might fray the nerves of an older generation, but will only engender ongoing loyalty in the information-numbed minds of this one.

Pursuing the youth market is not an entirely new phenomenon. MCI has offered a special package of services directed at college campuses for several years.

Youth is not a new invention. Yet, younger demographics have never held more lucrative promise for telecom service providers. A graying CEO in an ivory tower somewhere might tell you it has a lot to do with the propensity of his teenagers to occupy a phone line for hours at a time.

More likely, it is a function of some trends that already have spread their influence to every other telecom market and industry corner. Increasing competition in every facet of telecom is pressuring an increasing number of service providers to milk previously under-appreciated service segments. Also, as the university environment once gave birth to the Internet, the Internet industry is now returning the favor, making university towns such as Blacksburg, Va., and Evanston, Ill., into full-fledged cyber communities rich in bandwidth, services and carrier choice. The mostly youthful denizens of such places look to be lucrative customer accounts.

In addition, the urban landscapes of many cities are turning into high-tech cores. Here, the economically empowered youth work, live and carouse. Service marketers like nothing more than a dense and definable geography at which to aim their marketing messages.

The youth movement has begun to pay off for service providers that have recognized these trends. The younger demographic is a strong engine of the recent growth in collect calling volumes, wireless phone purchases and usage, and time spent roaming the Internet.

If there is a telecom service provider segment that hasn't yet benefited from this growth, it may be the CLEC segment. The irony is that many CLECs would consider themselves monuments to hipness and youthful energy.

However, while other types of service providers pour more money and effort into the explosive youth demographic, deep-in-debt local exchange upstarts have found it necessary to keep a narrow focus on big-spender business accounts. This may continue for some time as these new companies work to pay off initial network investments, but CLECs shouldn't stay out of the house party too long.

The long-distance carriers, wireless providers and ISPs that are entrenched in the youth market will not wait long to add local service to their plates, their young celebrity spokespeople spouting the benefits of competitive choice.

Once that happens, any newcomers to the youth market will have to shell out even more marketing money to get a sound bite of recognition. After all, recent college grads with their paychecks will be more interested in buying local service from Jennifer Love Hewitt or James Van Der Beek than a no-name carrier that's, like, not even.