Suspicious, self-involved, mercenary and coddled. Sound like an ideal customer market? It’s Generation Y, and as it increasingly expands its earning power, marketers had better learn how to speak to it, said Jane Buckingham, president of The Intelligence Group.
This generation grew up seeing its older siblings crashed out on their parents’ couches, putting off life decisions and dabbling in a number of fields, trying to find a comfortable fit. Unlike their Generation X counterparts (people between 27 and 39 years old), Generation Y (people 14 to 26 years old) feel a great deal of pressure to join a cause, start a career and establish an identity much earlier in life.
While marketers may not acknowledge them as facing the stresses of mature life – mortgages, for instance – this generation is filled with angst. The marketer who targets them with anti-stress products and services stands to make a lot of money, Buckingham said.
The messages used to target them, however, are going to have to be carefully crafted. This is a generation that has received a great deal of attention – from early ages, their days are scheduled and their lives are filled with educational and social-enhancing activities. This is a generation that is used to being catered to, to being listened to, and to hearing that it can make a difference, according to Buckingham. It is impatient – after three weeks in a job, Generation Y workers often wonder why they are not being considered for promotions.
They’re narcissistic, too: They believe they will be important, and they keep scrapbooks and online diaries because the world will want to know about them when they were toiling in obscurity. (The rise of reality shows has fed into the idea that many people will have a shot at fame.) Marketing messages addressed to them have to recognize their sense of self-importance.
(This is also reflected in how this generation consumes news – or, as it happens, doesn’t. They are not big newspaper readers, nor do they watch TV reports. If the news is important or relevant enough, it will get to them, either through portals they control, or through other electronic means, or through word-of-mouth.)
And they are mercenary: They believe they are entitled to payouts, and marketing messages should address benefits to them, whether financial, health-related or helping to secure a place in heaven.
But the messages have to be sincere. Special effects do not wow these consumers. They respond better to smart humor or something that teaches them. This is a generation weaned on “behind the scenes” specials that expose the underbelly of their heroes. Plastic perfection makes them suspicious.
Why, then, has famous-for-being-famous Paris Hilton become such an icon among Gen Y-ers? Because there is no guile about Hilton, Buckingham says – what you see, like it or not, is what you get.
Buckingham made her observations during a keynote address at the Direct Marketing Days New York conference.
