Teenagers lured by ads in magazines

Teenagers lured by ads in magazines

JAKARTA (JP): Love your children.

For some of Jakarta's parents, the slogan means hand your kid money or a credit card.

Nunui, in her second year at SMP Sumbangsih junior high school, says that her parents give her Rp 15,000 (US$6.81) a week. Agung, a high school student, gets Rp 30,000 per week. Mei, another high school student, whose father has a chain of restaurants, was given a supplementary credit card when she was 15.

A survey in Editor, before it was banned last June, revealed that 3.3 percent of parents gave their kids Rp 100,000 to Rp 300,000 per week. The remaining 96.7 percent gave less than Rp 100,000 per week.

These teenagers are an obvious market.

Adolf Siregar, a research manager of Survey Research Indonesia, confirmed that advertisements targeted at teenagers have increased in the last two years.

His company's data indicates that the weekly teen magazine Hai has increased its advertisements revenues steadily since 1992. The magazine earned Rp 1.2 billion in 1992, Rp 1.5 billion in 1993 and Rp 2.3 billion last year.

Gadis, a magazine targeted at teenage girls that is published every ten days, enjoyed a similar increase. Its advertising income in 1992 was Rp 3.2 billion, in 1993 it jumped to Rp 4.4 billion and last year it reached Rp 4.7 billion.

The data divulges that clothes and personal daily articles were the most advertised items in the two magazines last year. These two attributed for 33.9 percent of Hai's income from advertisement and 44.5 percent of Gadis's.

The second biggest advertising income earner last year in Hai was services (20.7 percent), while food (6.6 percent) came third. In Gadis's toiletries (28.1 percent) came second and services (10.6 percent) came third. (als)