Here it is! The next big thing! Try this, and you II have ore friends than you can count. Good times. All you have to do is use this shampoo … wear this shoe … buy this kind of gum.

If all advertisements were this obvious, you'd just ignore them. "If I'm an advertiser, I don't want you to think I'm an advertiser, so I'll make ads look like news or make them so appealing and fun you forget it's advertising," says David Walsh, president of the National Institute on Media and the Family. "Advertisers aim for your emotions. The last thing they want you to do is think."

Maybe you mute the TV when ads come on. But did you realize companies place their products in your favorite TV shows? Did you know that corporations comb through blogs, looking for what's hot? Have you heard that ads can go directly to your cell phone or MP3 player?

Welcome to "teen world." Companies are working harder than ever to attract your dollars. And if you want to stay above it all, you need to know this: You have choices.

At 33 million strong, today's student generation is the biggest ever. Last year, teens spent more than $100 billion and influenced their parents to spend another $50 billion. That's why every day you have to deal with an ever-growing number of media messages.

Advertisers prey on the desire to be cool. "Teens … have a need to belong to a peer group and be popular, so many ads will give the impression that if you [do this or that], you'll have friends," says Lynda Bergsma, president of the Alliance for a Media Literate America.

Experts say the typical American teen sees 3,000 ads a day. Many of those messages work to weaken self-esteem. Others urge buying or doing something that's not entirely healthful, like trying a fad diet or--at the other extreme--eating sugary snacks.

"I always feel pressure to do things that are not good for my health, but I don't give in to it most of the time," says 16-year-old Belinda from San Francisco. "I don't think kids my age are very informed with health issues because they are most concerned with being cool."

Depending on the kind of product they're hawking, advertisers don't appeal to just your good side (or your hungry side). Many ads try to make you feel as though you're lacking something. Ads that show ultra-skinny or super-muscular bodies give normal-sized teens a message that they aren't good enough. Advertisers do that to keep teens buying products. They give the impression that the products will make them more attractive, cooler, and happier.

Last year, both Dove and Nike launched campaigns celebrating normal-sized women. The ads challenge the idea that model-thin beauty is ideal. But even positive messages have a bottom line--to sell you a product and build brand loyalty.

Maybe, like Jason of Brooklyn, N.Y., you already have a sense of how powerful advertising is. "Most of my friends are aware of media manipulation but still fall into the trap because they want to be cool and do what others are doing," says the 16-year-old.

But ads don't always announce themselves. "When a character is in a kitchen and there are Doritos on the counter, or someone's in a mall and [passes] a Coca-Cola sign, [those brands] don't just happen to be there," says Bergsma. "Everything is carefully placed--it's a constructed reality."

Advertisers have many tools. To find out what teens think about products, corporations conduct focus groups--small groups of people studied as a sample of public opinion. Now they've taken things one step further. Teens often look to their peers to see what's in. So companies are recruiting teens to sample new products and then spread the word about them. For example, a kid may get movie tickets to a preview or a discount at a store in exchange for talking up the movie or telling friends to go to the shop.

"Marketers are finding new … ways to reach out. One is stealth marketing--using one peer to approach another or having a party around a product," says Marilyn Cohen, director of the Teen Futures Media Network.

"Corporations are [also] studying teen blogs," says Cohen. "They'll take the bloggers and their parents out to dinner and tell them some things they can mention in their blogs--casually--about particular products."

Many companies scan blogs to find out what people are talking about. Then they sell this research to marketers. Some marketers are even looking to advertise in the blogs themselves.

Advertisers are finding their way into other types of new media as well. For instance, they're trying to get their ads into "podcasts"--audio broadcasts over the Internet that can be downloaded to MP3 players.

Cell phones are the next frontier. It may not be long before you're walking through a mall and see an ad for a new ice cream place in the food court right on your phone screen.

So how do you cut through the buzz? Keep your brain turned on. Analyze the media messages you receive. The Center for Media Literacy encourages asking five basic questions about each message.

1. Who created it?
2. What techniques does it use to attract my attention?
3. How might other people perceive this message differently than I do?
4. Which values, lifestyles, and points of view are represented, and which have been left out?
5. Why was this message sent?

You can be smart about the many messages being thrown at you. You just need to decide to stay aware of who's trying to get into your wallet.

To read more, go to the Web site www.justthink.org

In this commercial, Pepsi targets urban youths by featuring a hip-hop music star, Kanye West, holding a can of its product. The brand's logo is echoed on the phone booth and in the colors of West's clothing. The commercial features foreign cities, which appeal to young people eager to see the world. It also features special effects to grab teens' attention. One of West's songs plays during the commercial, inspiring teens to link the song to Pepsi, so that when they hear it played anywhere, they'll think of the commercial and the product. The spot first aired during the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards--further evidence it is targeted to a teen audience.

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By Julie Mehta