To reach young readers, use parents (Duh!)

A new study about teenagers’ attitude regarding the news reminds me of when, several years ago, I got deep into the massive amount of research done on how to keep children from starting smoking and how to convince kids who had started to smoke to quit. Everyone wanted to discover the major influences on pre-teen and teenage children’s behavior.

Northwestern University’s “If It Catches My Eye” report released this month offered the same thing I learned, time and again, from my readings what influenced teen smoking: Reaching parents is about the best way to influence their kids. Believe it or not, kids do listen to (and watch) their parents.

WuduPlz is a web service for the parents of pre-teen and teenage children. While using the online service regularly, WuduPlz is designed to deliver advertising messages from local newspapers. We are also, however, strongly recommending that our newspaper partners place linked appropriate news headlines on WuduPlz’s concluding pages to attract parents into their online newspaper.

Having more eyeballs of active parents has value to many marketers, but don’t discount the long-term value of also attracting more family leaders into the habit of reading the news which, the research shows, is a habit they will pass on to their children.

Download the report here: If It Catches My Eye (pdf)

What did you mean by THAT?!? (WuduPlz calm down)

According to research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, we only have a 50-50 chance of ascertaining the tone of any e-mail message. The study, reporting on in The New York Times, also showed people think they’ve correctly interpreted the tone of e-mail messages they receive 90 percent of the time.

This is email messages, not text messages, which have to be shorter and are often done on the fly. And this report covers all people, not parents communicating with their pre-teen and teenage children. My conclusion: Yikes!

People (not just kids) reading messages unconsciously interpret them based on their current mood, stereotypes and expectations, the study said. Despite this, the research subjects thought they accurately interpreted the messages nine out of 10 times,  psychologist Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago told the Times.

The reason for this is egocentrism, or the difficulty some people have detaching themselves from their own perspective, says Epley. In other words, people aren’t that good at imagining how a message might be understood from another person’s perspective.

WuduPlz should help with this problem, at least in terms of communicating household tasks. First, the message is identified as a WuduPlz.com message. (Some people have told us that saying “WuduPlz” takes the edge off. Some, however, have said it sounds sarcastic, which backs up Dr. Epley’s research.)  Coming from the WuduPlz website, it should be more difficult to assume one can read “mood” into the message. Second, we have crafted our messages to be polite and clear. Our checklist should be a help.

“People often think the tone or emotion in their messages is obvious because they ‘hear’ the tone they intend in their head as they write,” Epley explained to the Times.

WuduPlz should help parents be more clear. Maybe, at times, a bit kinder and more helpful even. After all, your kids really, really, really, really did mean to take out the trash like you asked, but–like children everywhere– they “forget.” Because they’re kids. (We don’t have any research to explain this, but then you don’t need any.)

Where families are moving online in 2008: Peter Grunwald reports

Peter Grunwald has gotten the respect (and ear) of organizations such as the National Association of School Boards. His Grunwald Associates LLC is said to be a pioneer with “new media market intelligence and industry surveys including Children, Families and the Internet.” Grunwald’s “Social Networking Study” has established useful benchmarks regarding the media habits and attitudes of American households, according to the Ypulse newsletter.

Grunwald has now gotten interested in the “multi-generation networked family,” which, of course, has those of us involved in WuduPlz interested. A polite email from him last week said he’ll have more data later this year.

It will be interesting to see if he has something to say about WuduPlz when it’s released, considering how Grunwald sees the major trends shaping up.

Here, in a nutshell, is how he sees 2008 shaping up, according to an article he wrote for YPulse.:

• Collaboration: Web users will seek “sites where their contribution, in collaboration with others, realizes a common higher purpose.”

• Ubiquitous networking: Constant networking is blurring the line between our online and offline lives. “While most consumers will appreciate the novelty, convenience and immediacy of information anytime/anywhere, advertisers will face challenges mastering associated short-form communications and optimizing drill-down.”

• Technology is a family affair: Grunwald Associates Social Networking Study found more than a third of parents already text message with their children and two-thirds of kids say they’ve gone online with mom or dad at least once in the past month, including more than 60% of teens. “Look for new applications and communication tools designed with families in mind as a unit for both entertainment and communication,” Grunwald says.

• Schools are driving home internet use:  Now many districts, even poor districts, are directing their students to use the Net outside the classroom

• Marketers need to move toward “integration and interaction” instead of “intrusion.”

It’s his last point where we believe WuduPlz best makes the case for sponsors. WuduPlz demands that the user creates content. WuduPlz is a highly-personalized environment. Users will, therefore, have a heightened sensitivity to advertising and news they see on the service.

“Smart marketers have begun to provide tools, information and environments that enhance online experiences and user control, building brand loyalty through voluntary participation,” says Grunwald.

Shopping for a worthwhile idea on parenting? Here’s one

Last week YPulse’s Anastasia Goodstein made a remark in her blog that voiced what I think about often. The savvy observer of modern parenting noted that “we all want five easy tips or simple rules you can use.” Parenting isn’t that easy. (What is?) Setting guidelines “depends on you, your values, your kid, what they’re doing online, its value, its effect on your kid, etc.”

The Onion developed this fake magazine cover for laughs, but I fear too many of us are looking for simple answers we can buy.

The benefits of getting the kids organized

It’s now three days old, but the article in the New Year’s Day issue of The New York Times about tutors helping boys do better in school remains at the top of the list as the most popular.

The thrust of the article is very simple: Boys seem generally to have more difficulty getting organized and multitasking than girls.

“The guys just don’t seem to develop the skills that involve organization as early,” Judith Kleinfeld, a psychology professor at the University of Alaska and founder of the Boys Project, a coalition of researchers, educators and parents to address boys’ problems, said in the article.

The answer is, according to the article, is giving boys more attention and following up in a positive way about being organized.

It’s our hope WuduPlz.com might be seen as a simple but clever tool that parents can use to help their boys and girls be more organized and responsible. Even the name of the service “Would you please” is a good start.

WuduPlz helps the adults in the household be a bit more organized, using the power of the list. By sending a short, timely list regularly to young family members, kids see how adults handle the world in a responsible way.

WuduPlz, used thoughtfully, can be a great teaching tool. And, it can get the trash taken out or the dishwasher loaded, too.