Twenty teen girls from New York City high schools are now on staff at 3iYing, a new design and marketing firm that advises companies on what works and what doesn’t when marketing to girls. The girls, who call their ideas “Girl Made, Girl Approved,” have come up with concepts for selling and designing everything from condoms and lingerie to cell phones and food. “To design for a 13-year-old girl, it doesn’t matter how much we observe them — we live in the mind-set of a 25- to 45-year-old,” one client told Business Week.
“These young girls are tackling serious subjects like feminine products, which have been traditionally designed and marketed by men at big corporations — [men] who don’t have a clue to the emotional needs of the customer,” observed another. “That’s pretty powerful.”