Last week I met Philippe Cesson who has a marketing company that specifically focuses on Gen X and Gen Y. Although the conversation was on hiring and retaining people in their 20’s and 30’s, there were a lot of insights into marketing that I found interesting.
First of all, from a work orientation perspective it was enlightening to realize the different attitudes about work that people have. For The Silent Generation, it’s “Work First.” For Boomers it’s “Live to Work,” for Generation X it’s “Work to Live,” and for Generation Y it’s “Live, and then Work.” Obviously this impacts marketing. How people view their work life and their family life definitely impacts how, when, where and why they make buying decisions.
One attitude relative to marketing is privacy. Boomers value privacy and have spent their lives protecting it, working on do not call, do not email, opt in only communications. At the other end of the spectrum are the 60 million young people just now coming into the workforce as Generation Y. In their case “twitter” is alive and well. They have no qualms about telling people at any moment, where they are, what they are doing, what they are buying and why. They don’t mind that their life is an open book and they are ok with finding ways to protect themselves in an “open society”.
Today, everything is or can be recorded. Any infraction or mistake is potentially documented for eternity. Gone are the days where you can make mistakes as a teenager and 30 or 40 years later no one knows about it (unless you want to run for public office).
Marketing implications are clear. Social media and marketing strategies are more trusted than traditional advertising that has to adhere to acceptable “advertising guidelines” put out by the BBB and other consumer advocate organizations. So….how do we find ways to market to each other using the input from friends and others that have had similar questions and needs? It’s easy. Today there are countless ways through the internet, blogs, and social networking sites to get first hand information on anything that we want to learn about. All we have to do is pay attention and make an effort to engage.
Image source: xflickrx on Flickr
Tags: Generation X, Marketing, Social Media
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