Kids (Eyes) Count!

The good news is that glasses are cool. Kids have traded in Steve Urkle’s oversize goggles for Justin Bieber’s uber-cool geek chic. The bad news is that nearly every frame manufacturer has collections for kids of all ages and you get to plumb the depths of the very young psyche to discover how to attract them (and their parents) to your dispensary and which collections to highlight.

Where to start?

Location, location, location. Don’t relegate the kids section to a dusty, out-of-the-way corner. Don’t fill it with pint-sized furniture and splashes of primary colors from floor to ceiling. Rather, incorporate kid’s eyewear into your current dispensary layout. Why separate kids from their parents? Statistically, a child will ask for an item nine times before a parent will give in and purchase. Tweens admit to asking their parents more than 50 times for products they’ve seen advertised.

Marilyn Read, an associate professor of design and human environment at Oregon State University found that in (preschool) spaces with one red wall, versus uniformly white walls, children were more cooperative. However when spaces offered a multitude of colors, children became over stimulated and often anxious. She concluded that a single color in a classroom…seems to offer a sense of security. In a current study involving young children with sensory-processing issues, the evidence seems to suggest that such kids are better able to focus in the presence of a single color fabric hanging no matter what the color. “If people want children to act in a calmer way, they should go with blue or another cooler color,” she advises.

Soft furnishings, like floor pillows or bean bag-style seating can help continue the calm vibe that color creates. A small table, not a short table, and adjustable height seating will work for both fitting and dispensing. Just be sure that there’s an extra chair for Mom or Dad. In addition to the POP displays provided by frame manufacturers, look for photographs of current young celebrities wearing cool (and Rx-able) glasses. Because today’s kids are exposed to every imaginable media source, consider mounting digital picture frames programmed with cool looks in glasses, sports eyewear and sunglasses. Those images won’t fade and are easily changed as trends change.

What’s hot or cool or whatever. Kids change their “favorites” almost as often as they change their “best friends forever” pinky-swears. If you don’t have kids to help you keep up with trends, find some. Corral nieces and nephews, grandchildren or neighbors kids of all ages. Ask them to help. Make them your “official consultants.” According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, by the time the typical child enters 4th grade, they will have memorized 300-400 brands and will be exposed to the equivalent of 8 ½ hours a day of media content.

What will appeal to the elementary school set will not work for a middle-school-er. It goes without saying that tweens and teenagers wouldn’t be caught alive in the kids section of anything. They consider themselves young adults and expect to be treated as such.

Brands like Disney and Nickelodeon will always be popular with younger patients. SpongeBob SquarePants has nearly 30 million Facebook fans, though about a third of them are adults. That’s Lady GaGa territory! Disney is a marketing empire that carefully controls its image, so much so that they now promote vacation packages to adults without children at home as well as families.

SmartyPants® is a consulting company specializing in families and children. Their annual study of brands that American kids and parents love most and why, called Young Love™, ranks 250 brands by their Kidfinity™ and Momfinity™ scores. These are proprietary measures of kid/tween and Mom brand awareness, popularity and love based on more than 100,000 responses across 20+ categories. At the top of the list—Wii. At number 9—Disney and at number 17—Nickelodeon. These are brands with staying power, the brands that your practice can count on to hit their target market year in and year out.

According to a study conducted through the University of Michigan, kids as young as 3 recognized brands including:

• McDonalds(“They have a playground”)

• Burger King

• Hot Wheels

• Lego(“If I have it, everyone wants to come to my house and play”)

• My Little Pony

• Bratz

• Coke(“The bubbles are really fun and you can blow bubbles and it’s like a volcano”)

• Pepsi

The tween and teen markets rely on “image” almost as much as they do a specific brand name. These are the years when young people are defining themselves in many ways. It’s often a strange mix of jaw-dropping individuality and an intense need to be accepted by their peers. You cannot be as “cool” as they perceive themselves to be, so don’t try. Talk to them the same way you talk to older patients, asking the same kinds of questions about how and when they wear their glasses and what they like or don’t like about their current specs.

Now, about the lenses. Most kids don’t care; all parents do. Both Trivex and polycarbonate materials are the accepted norm for active children, tweens and teens. Since they spend an inordinate amount of time in front of video monitors, a durable anti-reflective treatment should also be recommended. In fact, packaging those options is a smart move. Call it the “gamers package” or the “geek chic package” and create a “try-on” area complete with a video monitor for demonstration. If you have the space, create a sports eyewear “try-on” area to demonstrate sport-specific eyewear and lens options, such as polarized, sport-specific tints and variable tints. However you look at it, kids are consumers. They are “brand aware” and they represent a huge block of spending power. Love ‘em or not, you really can’t afford to let them slip away from your practice.