It’s that time of year when the days grow shorter, and youngsters’ faces grow longer.

That’s right: Back-to-school season has arrived – and with it the annual siege upon the teen market by Canadian retailers.

While this annual blitz of advertising and promotions is a long-standing tradition, this year there’s a new twist: The specialty stores that have always been the mainstay of teen shoppers now find themselves competing with department stores for the attention of this lucrative consumer group.

Sears Canada, for example, has launched a promotion and advertising campaign targeting teens. And its competitor Eaton’s has invested significantly in the opening of Diversity, a new teen-targeted department within its stores.

Retail analysts say that while the teen market controls billions of dollars in annual spending, it’s a tough market for department stores to crack.

Joan Pajunen, retail consultant and president of Toronto-based TrendSpeak of Toronto, says the brand of the store where they shop is just as important to teens as the brand label on their jeans. And department store brands, as a rule, do not possess a great deal of cachet in their world.

‘They don’t tell their friends they bought it at The Bay,’ she says. ‘They say: ‘I bought it at The Gap, or Club Monaco, or Jacob or Thrifty’s.”

For specialty retailers that target the youth market, back-to-school season is an obvious time to grab piece of mind. In recent years, their efforts have grown increasingly elaborate and ambitious.

For example, Thrifty’s Jeanswear, a unit of Toronto-based Dylex, has launched a back-to-school promotion for its Bluenotes brand of jeanswear that is much larger than anything the 110-store chain has attempted in the past.

The contest, entitled ‘Show Us Your Bluenotes,’ will award the winner a nine-day Contiki European Magic vacation package for four.

Mark Hindman, director of marketing for Thrifty’s, which primarily targets the 16-25 age range, says customers are being asked to send in photos of themselves and their friends, along with short descriptions of what they like to do while wearing Bluenotes jeanswear.

‘We hear in research that they feel comfortable in their Bluenotes jeans, they get the fit they want, and they do a lot of different activities in them,’ Hindman says. ‘We’re trying to make a connection, because they say they like to wear their jeans to hang out with friends.’

In addition to Contiki Holidays and Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Thrifty’s is working with other like-minded brands – including Bauer, Swatch, Music World and Sony – to bring some added value to the contest and create prize packages for runners-up.

The national contest is being promoted with in-store, interior transit, and radio advertising from Toronto-based TAXI Advertising & Design. It is running in tandem with a new ad campaign on interior transit and bus shelters, which introduces the chain’s new themeline: ‘Thrifty’s Fits Who You Are.’

Youth-oriented specialty retailers like Thrifty’s, of course, already have a solid relationship with the target market that they can build upon through a promotion such as this. Department stores, by contrast, must expend a great deal of energy simply to capture the attention of teens.

Mike MacDonald, group retail marketing manager for Sears Canada, says his company’s strategy is to talk both to youngsters and to their parents, since a lot of purchasing for teens is still ultimately done by Mom and Dad.

Rather than target its ‘You’re a Superstar’ contest specifically to teens, he says, the retailer developed a program whose appeal would extend to the 13-18 age group.

‘Our target customer is still Mom. But we have to acknowledge that teens are an age group that demands some respect from the advertiser, and we want to put what we can out there to appeal to them.’

The ‘You’re a Superstar’ winner will receive five tickets to see the band Love Inc. perform live on their Canadian tour. The grand-prize package also includes transportation by private jet, a limousine ride to the concert, dinner, overnight hotel accommodations and five backstage passes.

The second-prize winner will receive a pair of Levi’s jeans, plus a pair for every kid at school, up to a maximum of 2,200 pairs. Third prize is Jockey underwear for the winner and his or her schoolmates.

Sears is promoting the contest in-store, in its flyers and on tv. The retailer has tied in with The Comedy Network, and will be announcing the contest winners on the channel’s popular Open Mike with Mike Bullard show on Oct. 1.

Eaton’s, meanwhile, has taken its pursuit of the youth market even further, with the establishment of its new Diversity department.

The retailer has invested $10 million to introduce this teen-oriented store-within-a-store concept across its 64 outlets. In addition to carrying fashions that appeal to teens, Diversity is designed to be an environment where they’ll feel comfortable, with a juice bar, a lounge area and loud music.

So do department stores stand a reasonable chance of luring young shoppers away from specialty retailers?

Peter Housley, vice-president of marketing for Zellers, isn’t so sure.

Some u.s. department stores have succeeded, he notes – Bloomingdale’s, for example, has a very successful junior department. But it may be too much of a reach for an Eaton’s – traditionally seen as the preserve of the blue-rinse set – to pull off this sort of fashion-forward strategy.

‘Teenagers want brands,’ he says. ‘Nike, Tommy Hilfiger and whatever hot name is out there – $150 running shoes that they’re going to outgrow in six months. The struggle parents have is that they want to see their kids a certain way, and kids want to see themselves another way – and it’s usually not the way the parents want.’

Zellers, which recently launched its Cherokee line of casual fashion for the entire family, concentrates on trying to appeal to moms, Housley says.

‘The role Zellers plays is to get something Mom is comfortable having the kids wear – and something the kids will actually wear – at a price Mom is willing to pay.’