TEENS AND TWEENS Creating rooms of their own

Teen and tween rooms will have $17 billion worth of renovations this year.
By DIANE GOLDSMITH
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
Is room decor the next hot thing for teens and tweens?
For sure, they won't stop flocking to the malls or instant messaging any time soon. But new furnishings and TV shows on room makeovers that reflect their style and interests are targeting them big time.
These entries are filling an emerging niche in the market "and ... could gain a lot of momentum," said Greg Livingston of the Cincinnati youth-marketing firm WonderGroup. "We've seen that in the food category, where ketchup that was green in a bottle shaped for kids grew the category."
Big bucks are at stake. About $17 billion will be spent this year on teen and tween rooms, or $386 per youngster, Livingston said. That's about double the amount spent less than a decade ago. It includes what kids (ages 8 to 18), their parents and grandparents spend, and includes electronics but not the cost of outfitting a dorm or another room away from home.
Latest products
Some of the latest youth-decor products and programming include:
UPBteen, a room-furnishings catalog from Pottery Barn. "You, your friends, your space" is its mantra as it portrays teens grooving to tunes in rooms decorated with everything from cushiony rocker-chairs and shadowbox headboards to camouflage bedding and zodiac-themed pillows. Pottery Barn expects to draw kids ages 10 to 18. The catalog makes choosing decor fun with features such as its personality quiz ("Are you the Sweetest Thing? Or Step-Off Sassy?"), which helps readers find their "personal style."
U"Trading Spaces: Boys vs. Girls," modeled after the Learning Channel megahit but with kids switching rooms. Target audience is 8- to 12-year-olds, but the show, which debuted in May, is expected to play well above and below that range, said Marjorie Kaplan of Discovery Kids, which developed the show. The original "was drawing strong kid numbers without trying, so we thought, 'What else should we be doing with this?'" she said.
URoom makeovers for teens will be the subject of "Knock First," airing this fall on ABC Family cable network.
UHasbro's ThinTronix line of poster phones and radios. This hybrid is a poster with thin electronics on its back. Its face is touch-sensitive, so the youngster can work either the poster/speaker phone or the poster/FM radio without other buttons or switches. "Big portions of where kids spend their time is their rooms," Hasbro's Sharon John said of the tweens to whom the products are geared. "So the concept arose: What if we could create something to enhance that environment with something they love -- music, communications, fashion?"
"Twenty years ago," said Livingston, "you'd put a few posters up in your room, and keep the same furniture from age 8 until college." Now, kids may get new furniture at 14 or 15, or a new desk and storage for a computer, or new furnishings because they like decorating.
The trend, he said, is enhanced by a parenting style attuned "to making kids happy."
At Delia's, where "roomwares" for teens debuted in 1998, sales of such products have grown by double digits per year, said general merchandise manager Gideon Walter, who expects to expand the category in its retail stores and catalogs.
At Wal-Mart
Just over a year ago, Wal-Mart realized tweens had their own tastes in furnishings. Since focusing on them, the chain has found the same success with furnishings that it enjoys with apparel, said spokeswoman Melissa Berryhill.
In the last few years, Brewster Wallcovering has geared some of its funkier children's designs to tweens and found that they've become some of the company's better-selling patterns, said creative services manager Paula Berberian.
Why tweens? Because they're a market of about 19.5 million, and have about $10 billion a year in disposable income, said Livingston, who with his WonderGroup partners has written "The Great Tween Buying Machine: Marketing to Today's Tweens." They're also very influential in other family spending.
"The whole tween movement is particularly geared to girls," Berberian said. "They're savvy customers and are very into how they look and how their rooms look." With wallpaper, she said, "A whole segment has grown up not using it, so it's important to entice them with interesting designs and colors."
That's also part of the thinking behind Brother's Appliqu & eacute; Station, which came out last May and uses pre-threaded, disposable cartridges to make it easy for novices to create embroidery they can attach to a garment, pillow or duvet. While the machine is not specifically geared to teens or tweens, "they're the beneficiaries," said Brother's Len Corn. "Appliqu & eacute;s are hot with this age group."
Winning them over
Helping kids create rooms that reflect their tastes is certainly key to winning over these young consumers.
Just spend some time with three Cherry Hill, N.J., eighth graders -- friends who love "Trading Spaces" -- and you'll see how many ideas they have about personalizing their rooms.
Rachel Fieldman's bedroom is filled with posters of soccer and music stars, such as Mia Hamm and Avril Lavigne, dance imagery, and a blow-up chair with a pillow shaped like "SpongeBob SquarePants"' Patrick Star.
Walls in the bedrooms of Tiffany Giacoboni and Heather Booz have been either "sponged" or "ragged," painting techniques seen on "Trading Spaces."
And all three girls scout the Delia's catalog. Rachel, 14, found her sheets and pillowcases there, the ones that read repeatedly, even hypnotically, "Eyes getting heavy ... very sleepy."
Tiffany, 13, likes field hockey, dance, hanging out with friends, and punk rock. "Life is for living" is the quote that tops a picture display from Bed Bath & amp; Beyond she's hung over her bed. It captures her adventurous outlook, she said.
Heather, 14, is interested in dance and cheerleading, and attended modeling school for a while. She took over her older sister's room, which was pale purple with black furniture. Now, the room is a muted brown and has a graceful metal-framed bed and images of angels watching over her. She's got lots of photos of friends and her boyfriend, "because it reminds me of hanging out."