Editorial by Assia Chelaghma

Effects of Brands on Teens’ Culture

ompanies work hard to ensure financial profits

and expand their dominance in society. They

sweep the world through many marketing strategies

like brands, advertisements and propagandas. They target various

audiences and bombard them with brands, depending on the

product they want to market. Nowadays, most of brands are

directed towards teens and caused negative effects on their

cultures and personalities. How did the influence of brands on

teens’ culture start? And to what extent does it affect teens?

By the beginning of the nineties, the number of teens in US

had increased significantly. The rapid growth of teens grabbed

the attention of many companies who found in teens the

customers of future. Companies had a difficult challenge to

overcome concerning attracting teens to interact with them.

Teens were bored of the traditional approaches of brands; they

wanted something cool and exciting. Thus, selling coolness to

teens was the opportunity to bomb many brands like Nike,

Sprite, Microsoft, and Social Networks such as Facebook and

My space.

Viacom is a giant brand which owns CBS, MTV, Comedy

Central, BET, Nickelodeon, Paramount film studios, and dozens

of Internet websites and TV channels. Having control on this

wide network of media facilitates to Viacom marketing its

products and being close to teenagers. One of its effective ways

to besiege teens is MTV.

MTV studies teens’ behaviours, visits them in their houses;

asks them about their needs, interests and feelings. It fills their

minds by the delusion of understanding their needs and being

able to realise them. As a consequence, teens believe in MTV,

they show interest in the whole company and buy its products no

matter if they need them or no. Psychologists explain this with

term of reciprocity, which is when people receive gifts and

attention from someone; they feel the need to give something

back to be nice and grateful. The reality is that brands use

C

reciprocity as a commercial concept, the more you give, the

more you will get.

Teenagers care about their appearances and their importance

among their peers. Their needs for acceptance, peer pressure and

dreams of happiness and love make them passive and needy.

They are vulnerable to the seductive language used by brands;

they follow celebrities, music and fancy logos. They find in

brands the world that understands their needs and offer them the

excitement they want. They spend lot of money in shopping and

doing unconstructive things just to be cool. Brands target their

insecurities and make them interact with new outfits and cool

logos.

Unfortunately most of brands show that alcohol, cigarettes,

drugs and sex are the most important parts of life. When brands

besiege teens everywhere, they put teens under pressure and

make them smoke cigarettes, develop racial, cultural and gender

discriminations. Also, when rich people buy new clothes of

famous brands; they see themselves the only ones who can get

them. Gradually, that will create layers in the structure of

society. Brands will determine who is rich, and who is poor.

The vulnerability of teens makes their culture shaped by the

sweeping of coolness and their minds drugged by the messages

passed by brands. Girls dream to look like celebrities and boys

dream to be like rock stars. If they don’t realise their dreams,

they become frustrated and socially intimidated. Teens have lost

their free wills since their culture is manipulated. Companies

which control fashion determine their desires and direct their

wills.

Brands continue to take place in our daily life. Their

audiences keep increasing which make the effectiveness of their

messages gets more influential and their effects get more

potential. Peer pressures among people make the resistance of

brands even harder. However, if we study the effects of brands in

depth, we can limit the negative effects and boost the positive

ones. It is needed to protect teens and support them to shape their

own personalities by cooperating with companies to promote

prosperity and produce programs that help teens to be creative

and independent. It is also useful to spread awareness among

teens and encourage them to build confident and independent

personalities through schools, clubs and TV channels.