Public Libraries Marketing to Teens: a Study of Two New Zealand Libraries

Marketing in libraries has been widely discussed in literature, but is often limited to either prescriptive writing on the application of marketing theory to libraries, or descriptions of marketing at individual libraries with little theoretical basis. The purpose of this research was to compare the teen marketing practiced by public libraries with library marketing theory, and to discover whether the application of theory is a conscious decision by libraries. Staff were interviewed at two New Zealand public library networks to discover whether they considered marketing targeting theory and the marketing mix when marketing to teens. It was found that while both library networks did do some formal teen marketing, the majority of marketing was conducted more informally by individual community libraries. Libraries struggled in particular with defining their teen users, and the marketing mix was dealt with in an ad hoc manner. Overall, library marketing was more tactical than strategic.