In a world that is constantly shoving the idea of a woman only being beautiful if she looks like Kate Upton or Kate Hudson or … well, whoever the latest aesthetic ideal is, it can be hard for a preteen girl to figure out how to own the fact that she’s beautiful, too, no matter how different her body is from the supermodel du jour.

Along with most of American society, Unilever’s Dove soap has girls becoming more anxious, instead of more confident. And rather than prey on that lack of confidence by offering beauty "solutions" and use that info to their marketing advantage, Dove is actually trying to get at the root of the problem and boost girls' confidence and self-esteem.

For three years, Dove has been hosting events for preteen girls across the globe to help them feel better about themselves, according to Cincinatti.com. The aim is to reach 15 million young women globally by 2015, thanks to Dove's Self-Esteem Fund, with an empowering message that takes the brand's highly praised Real Beauty campaign to a critical age.Continue reading...

The tween girl market wields unprecedented economic sway, social influence and digital aptitude. Why do you think Cynthia Rowley's latest brand collaboration is with JCPenney for a tween clothing line? FashionPlaytes, a digital design site aimed at tween girls, is hoping to inspire the next Rowley by giving her a virtual studio, showroom and sales channel to call her own.

The statistics alone speak to the clout of tween girls. According to NPD Group, 73% of girls ages six to eight go online an average of three hours per week, while 92% of girls between nine and 12 are online an average of five hours weekly. And it's not behind their parents backs (well, for the most part), either: “iGen’s parents belong to Generation X, who act as the invisible hand empowering and guiding the $150 billion a year that Tweens influence. The Gen X parent is raising a new type of young consumer that has more independence and financial prowess than any generation of kiddos to toddle along before them.”

Given the role that moms, in particular, take in influencing their daughter's choices — Rowley's dreampop JCP collection was inspired by her own daughters — it took an enterpreneurial mom to see the opportunity that the web provides to create a fashion-centric site for her own fashion-crazed offspring.

Sarah McIlroy, mother of two daughters and a son, started FashionPlaytes after her then five-year-old daughter asked to design her own clothes. McIlroy liked the idea but lacked the technical design skills, so she founded a site for tween girls to dream up their own clothing ideas and have them produced and shipped right to their door, from their own digital design studio.Continue reading...

Canada's upscale yogathletic brand lululemon has a younger sibling: ivivva athletica, a dance-inspired activewear label for girls and teens that has been dipping a pointed toe in the tween/teen market with a modest debut in Canada and a co-branded line with Disney.

The younger brand has been available in lululemon’s hometown of Vancouver and in Calgary, and this summer has been quietly slipping south of the border to the US via showrooms (not full-blown stores) to test the waters in Bellevue and Seattle, WA, plus Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.

“A note to all of our amazing + loyal ivivva girls: an ivivva SHOWROOM is a little different from an ivivva STORE," a blog post explains. "A showroom is a small space that we open in new cities to show a few pieces of our product line. It is the perfect place to go to get decked out in all of your core essentials and try on all of our sizes so you know what size to order in all of the crazy colours online! And, if you want more, you can always purchase online using the iPads in our showrooms.”

Parent company lululemon athletica, of course, is the yoga-inspired athletic apparel lifestyle brand that, while a little overreaching to some observers, has certainly raised the barre in technical fabrics and functional designs, not to mention in convincing women to pay a premium for yoga pants. But will lululemon moms stretch their wallets as wide for their dance-, track- and gymnastics-obsessed daughters?Continue reading...

Adidas already pulls in billions upon billions in revenue each year. So what do they want? A little more, of course.

The 88-year-old German shoe and apparel giant is planning to target “teenage girls more influenced by music and fashion than sports” and expand its three-year-old NEO fashion outlets and “exploiting social-media platforms including Facebook and Twitter,” Bloomberg reports.

The hope is that the world’s 14 to 19-year-olds (or their parents, in many cases) will cough up enough cash in that competitive marketplace to net Adidas another $1.3 billion by 2015. Some of NEO's marketing tactics include tapping into teens' love of music, with a love song digital promotion for Valentine's Day, and convincing David Beckham (who has a longtime endorsement deal with Adidas) to put his name on a special collection for NEO.

“Teenage girls are a target group we didn't really reach so far, whereas boys are closer connected to Adidas via sports,” said Erich Stamminger, the board member responsible for global brands. “For girls, you need a bit more of fashion influence and that's exactly what we are offering with NEO.”Continue reading...

Move over, Sweet Valley High — make room for Sweety High, an unrelated creativity-powered social game for tween girls that just moved out of beta.

Original programming for the branded entertainment-meets-social-networking portal includes SweetBeatTV, which features Sweety High users as correspondents covering pop culture events, and Food Star, a cooking show featuring community participants and teen celebrities.

The site aims to offer a tween-friendly and safe incentive-based environment promoting leadership and fair play while engaging with the real world, real-time. Game play is built around quests and achievements that reward self-expression and creativity and virtual currency is applied to prizes and unique opportunities for young girls with big aspirations.

Co-founded by writer/producer Frank Simonetti and Veronica Zelle, a music video producer who has worked with Madonna, Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, Sweety High is a closed community, compliant with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and protected against cyber bullying and oversharing of personal data.Continue reading...

Abercrombie and Fitch got into hot water with its push-up bikini top aimed at girls. Walmart's tween makeup line raised a few parental eyebrows. Now it's Skechers turn in the hot seat.

The brand's Shape Ups for Girls commercial (above) has been out since September, but it's still raising hackles among parents and others who don't feel "slimming" shoes should be targeted at girls.Continue reading...

Three years ago, Disney Channel was called "the greatest teen-star incubator since the NBA stopped drafting high schoolers."

But with Miley Cyrus moving on to Lindsay Lohan-land, the High School Musical stars now college-age, the Jonas Brothers morphing into the Jonas Men, and (most recently) Demi Lovato quitting, Disney Channel needs new stars.

Luckily, a Disney original movie about a fake band appears to have spawned the real deal.Continue reading...

"We've re-categorized the Ashley swimsuit as padded. We agree with those who say it is best 'suited' for girls age 12 and older."

— Abercrombie Kids, the juniors apparel arm of Abercrombie & Fitch, capitulated on its Facebook page following a public outcry over a "push-up triangle" bikini top, which is no longer available on its website.