The Purchasing Role of the Adolescent in the Family Unit:

Changing demographic, social, and psychological factors in the 19080s have affected traditional roles within family units. One such role, purchasing food and related items for the family unit, in many cases is reassigned to the adolescent members of the family. Increased numbers of working parents, especially women, and more single parent households have been major factors in this reassignment. The increased number of adolescents shopping for the famlily unit is of significant interest to marketers of consumer package goods. In the highly cometitive markets of the 1990s, these marketers may wish to alter their marketing strategies to communicate with and appeal to this growing force in the marketplace. To seize this opportunity requires an understanding of why the adolescent has assumed this role and how they are likely to act in the marketplace. The factors have led to the enhanced purchasing role of the adolescent and an exploratory study of their brand choice behavior in the marketplace are presented in this paper.