Retailing: The Teen-Age Tide

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Carrier of News. The boys' funds go for sports, dates (10% of all they spend), movies and clothing. The girls splurge on clothes and jewelry, records ($321 million last year) and cosmetics. Larger purchases are often financed by installment credit; one 17-year-old girl in five and two boys in five have their own charge accounts. But a large part of the teen-ager economic power is the influence he has on what his family buys, from the new car to the food and appliances that come into the home. Experts calculate that this influence controls the purchase of up to $30 billion-more a year. "The teen-ager," says U.C.L.A. Market Researcher Charles R. Campbell, "originates most mass buying trends that reach the adult market. Youth is the carrier of news into the family circle."

Aware of this power, shrewd corporations work hard to develop teen-age loyalties, catering to teen-age fads and fashions, talking their language and stressing youth in their advertising. Teen-agers may never take over the country, but the thought must occasionally occur To them. They now make up 12.% of the U.S. population, but because of high postwar birth rates, within five years they will constitute 20%. By that time, teen-agers will have a direct annual spending power of about $21 billion a year.