Teen Vogue Holiday Haute Spot

Teen Vogue is doing a pop up shop at a New Jersey mall, an effort where advertisers in the magazine get product placement in the shop for free, so long as they have purchased ad space in the mag.

Girls can explore the wares that the mall offers, then be escorted to the shops where those wares can be purchased. And who are they escorted by? The sales folks at those shops.

Wow.

“They’re at that age where they’re very impressionable and aspirational,” Laura McEwen, the publisher of Teen Vogue, said of the magazine’s readers. “They want contact.”

First of all, Ewww. I think I just got doused with sleazy marketing talk. Second of all, isn't every human BEING impressionable and aspirational? If they weren't, then why would there be products, services and publications for every age group?

But mainly, Ewww. To talk about young teen girls as "impressionable and aspirational" is just gross, you know? Gross as in it's gross coming from someone (McEwen) who profits from that impressionable-ism and aspirational-ishness.

The physical marketing arm of the magazine, I'm sorry, Haute Spot, will be open Nov. 28 through Dec. 26 at the Mall at Short Hills in New Jersey.