In a blink of his bright blue eyes, Zac Efron, 18, has become a hot celebrity. He's the star of a movie and has sung on an album that topped the charts for weeks. He's got a sequel to the movie in the works and a pilot for a network show in the can.
Many people older than 16, however, might ask: Zac who?
Efron is the floppy-haired teen who plays Troy in "High School Musical," a Disney Channel made-for-TV movie that this year erupted into a frenzy of CD sales, downloadable videos and cellphone ring tones. The DVD of the movie goes on sale today; it was among the biggest advance-sale items on Amazon.com, and 1.8 million DVDs of "HSM" reportedly will be shipped to retailers, along with tie-in merchandise. And Efron's voice is all over that No. 1-selling CD, even though the "HSM" soundtrack wasn't even played on radio stations most Americans tune into while driving.
That's because the people driving this phenomenon can't drive.
As "High School Musical" proved, tweens create their own economic wave. Last month, for instance, for the first time ever, the top three albums on the Billboard charts were records aimed at kids: "Kidz Bop 9," "High School Musical" and the Jack Johnson soundtrack of the "Curious George" movie.
Marketers have known about the buying power of the pre- and early-adolescent — or "tween" — market ever since the late '60s and Bobby Sherman. What's different now is how much more efficient and precise selling to tweens has become. Now, thanks to niche cable channels and even niche-ier Internet sites, advertisers can tailor messages specific to tweens, leaving the rest of the world only dimly aware of tween culture.
Marc Abshire, who lives in the District, has watched his four daughters move through successive tween sensations. So how often does Sophia, his fourth-grade daughter, play "High School Musical's" soundtrack? "Every minute of the day!" her dad says.
"No!" Sophia says, then concedes: "Like, everyday."
Focus on cable
Broadcasters stopped long ago trying to appeal to kids during prime time, now focusing on adults between ages 18 and 49. So, for tweens, the big action is on cable. The most-watched networks among the nation's 26 million children between ages 9 and 14 (definitions of tween vary, some including children as young as 7) are Viacom's Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel, owned by the Walt Disney Co. But there's more: Another Disney-owned channel, ABC Family, targets tweens, as does the Cartoon Network, owned by Time Warner Inc.
Sure, tweens watch "American Idol" like the rest of the nation — it's the No. 1 show in their demographic — but of the 25 most-popular programs among 9- to 14-year-olds in mid-April, only seven were on the traditional broadcast networks, according to Nielsen Media Research. Sixteen of the programs were carried by either Nickelodeon or the Disney Channel, the twin towers of tween targeting.
Many of the biggest names to tweens wouldn't register outside their world. Besides Efron and his co-star, Vanessa Ann Hudgens, also 18, the newest tween sensations are Miley Cyrus, the 14-year-old star of the Disney Channel series "Hannah Montana," and Jamie Lynn Spears (Britney's younger sister), who is the lead in Nickelodeon's "Zoey 101."
The average American tween lives in a world of electronic opulence, inside his or her own media bubble. According to a recent survey by Nickelodeon, 77 percent of 9- to 14-year-olds have TVs in their bedrooms, with about half this group enjoying cable or satellite access. Some 59 percent have video-game systems, 49 percent have a DVD player and 22 percent have computers connected to the Internet.
Sheer numbers alone don't explain why the media conglomerates, and their advertisers, are busily courting tweens. Although they form a sizable bloc in themselves, tweens are valued customers primarily because of their influence on their families' overall spending, says Dave Siegel, a Cincinnati advertising executive and the co-author of the book "The Great Tween Buying Machine." (Tweens and teens ages 8 to 14 control $39 billion in purchasing power of their own and influence tens of billions more in family buying decisions, according to a study by Packaged Facts, a division of MarketResearch.com in New York. Consumers in the 15-to-24 age group are a $485 billion market.)
Maybe "High School Musical" was bigger than Disney expected, but the company certainly promoted it with gusto in this era of cross-media "synergies." Weeks before the movie's Jan. 20 debut, the Disney Channel ran music videos culled from scenes in the film, whose opposites-attract plot centers on a basketball star (played by Efron) and a studious girl (Hudgens) who share a passion for music.
The movie's stars appeared in a New Year's Eve special on the channel and in behind-the-scenes production clips. Disney also ran songs from the soundtrack on Radio Disney, its chain of 54 radio stations, and ran ads urging tweens to go to its Web site to find lyrics and downloadable songs.
Record audience for Disney Channel
Result: The movie attracted 7.7 million viewers in its first airing, the biggest audience for an original TV movie in the Disney Channel's history. The channel estimates that some 35 million "unique" viewers have watched it since then.
Loyal Disney Channel viewers probably were familiar with the film's stars even before "HSM's" premiere. Both Disney and Nickelodeon endlessly recycle their stables of tween talent, getting maximum cross-promotional value by having its actors appear on each other's shows.
So it's no coincidence that when 12-year-old Sydney Allard of Northwest watched the debut of "HSM," it was with a group of friends between 10 (the age of her younger sister, Anna) and 12, who had gotten together expressly to watch the premiere. And all of them, Allard says, unanimously agreed that the dances and the songs were excellent. Hence the massive CD sales.
"What I loved about TV when I was a kid was that no matter where you came from or who you were — black, white, rich or poor — you knew the same shows. It was a common thing in our culture," observes Dan Schneider, who produces TV shows aimed at tweens. "That's not the case now. We don't have the 'Mary Tyler Moore Shows' or the Archie Bunkers anymore. But I think you'd have to look pretty hard to find a 12-year-old today who doesn't know 'Zoey 101.' I think that's pretty cool."
"Zoey" is one of six tween-targeted series created by Schneider, 40, over the past decade. A former actor, Schneider played Dennis in the NBC series "Head of the Class" almost 20 years ago. Since then, he's become the Barry Bonds of tween TV, batting out such hits as "All That," "The Amanda Show" and "Drake & Josh."
Nickelodeon follows a similar formula of synergy with Schneider's live-action shows. Before starring in "Drake & Josh," actors Drake Bell and Josh Peck, both 19, were cast members on "The Amanda Show," starring Amanda Bynes. In turn, Bell has made guest appearances on "Zoey 101." And Bynes, who started as a regular on the sketch show "All That," recently headed the cast of a Schneider-created sitcom for the WB network, "What I Like About You."
Schneider says his watchword in creating his shows is " 'Kids win, kids rule.' What I try to do is create a world where the kids are in charge. Real kids are always being told what to do. Parents and teachers run things and kids are subject to their rules and whims." Not on tween TV: "The adults are silly and buffoonish," Schneider says, "because it's fun [for children] to see someone making fun of authority. It's the same for adults when someone makes fun of the president."
There's also kid-wish fulfillment and aspirational fantasy. "Zoey 101's" title character boards at the impossibly lush Pacific Coast Academy (actually, Pepperdine University in Malibu), while Drake and Josh share a bachelor pad-like room above their family's garage. Says Schneider: "People tell me the shows aren't realistic, but who wants that? I want ice cream and roller coasters. I want fun."
‘Gender exploration ... within limits’
And what about tweens' dawning awareness of, and interest in, the opposite sex? It's sometimes suggested on tween TV programs, but the action never amounts to much. Despite their evident attraction, the boy and girl leads in "High School Musical" never do more than exchange longing looks. "There is some gender exploration," says Nickelodeon's president, Cyma Zarghami, "but within limits. There's not going to be any full-on make-outs with tongues."
The "safeness" of such programs is undoubtedly a prime reason many parents have no qualms about letting their children watch.
Abshire, the D.C. father, has to admit that listening to Efron's squeaky-clean crooning is something of a relief.
"I think it's nice that Disney's presenting something other than Britney Spears for these girls to jam to on their little CD players," he says.
Ask a tween and they'll give you the synergy mix-and-match game in rapid staccato. Ashley Tisdale, who plays the blond mean girl Sharpay in "HSM," appears in the half-hour sitcom "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" nightly on Disney, as does Monique Coleman, who plays Taylor in the TV movie. Corbin Bleu, one of "HSM's" basketball players, is also a star of "Hannah Montana" — Disney's newest tween show, which stars Billy Ray Cyrus and his daughter Mylie.
In addition, tweens are drawn to the music. "I think the message is good — not to let others tell you what to do and to do what you want," Amleset Girmay, 9, says of the film, while trying on a pink raincoat in Montgomery Mall. "But mostly I like the music."
But unlike in the boom generation stalwart "Grease" — which, on the surface, might seem to be the blueprint for "HSM's" tale of cool and geeky kids finding common ground through a school musical and big all-cast production numbers — no one on "HSM" drinks. Or does drugs. Or gets pregnant (like Stockard Channing's Rizzo). Or even has sex. Actually, no one in "HSM" even gets kissed .
Alas, tweens don't stay tweens for very long, and their interest in tween shows is invariably fleeting. And that's all right with Dan Schneider. "I'm sure 10 years from now, I'll check into a hotel and there'll be a 21-year-old behind the counter who will have grown up watching 'Drake & Josh,' " he says. "The odds are very good he watched the show and will remember it. I think that's pretty cool, too."