Close-Up: Live issue - How do you advertise to teenagers?

The teen market can be a lucrative one if you can engage them in the right way.

'Yeah but no but yeah but ...' may be Vicky Pollard's nonsensical response to any question thrown her way on TV's Little Britain but, as advertisers line up to target teens, it seems that communicating to them is as complicated and confusing as understanding the Kappa-clad uber chav.

One thing that is clear is that teenagers are a huge audience for advertisers. If it's not tackling knife crime, binge drinking, drug abuse or sexually transmitted diseases, then the food giants, sport brands and game retailers are knocking hard on youth's door.

Over the last month, this activity has become even more intense with a number of pitches kicking off aimed directly at teens, as well as anti-knife crime work for Tower Hamlets Borough Council, the Home Office and Channel 4.

It is widely accepted among media industry heads that the key to communicating with this age group is to have grounded insights into how they tick. But this is where the problem begins, Damon Collins, the executive creative director at Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R, believes.

'The complication with teenagers is that those seven years cover such a broad spectrum of emotional development that it is impossible to pigeon-hole them. And because they are constantly changing and developing as people, so are their tastes and opinions,' he says.

'The issue for advertisers is to pinpoint exactly what they are into at any given time. If we get it wrong the results could be disastrous; we are talking to probably the most unforgiving audience.'