How to Market to Gen X and Yers
“Who is your target market?”
When I ask my clients this question, most of them reply, “I market mainly to Baby Boomers and Seniors. But I want to reach a younger market — Gen Xers and younger.”
In order to reach that younger audience, you must understand how they think; you must understand how their perceptions of how the world works may differ from yours.
One of the best teaching tools I’ve come across for helping me get under the skin of the Gen X and Y mindset is the Beloit College Mindset List. Published every August, the Mindset List acquaints you with 75 things this year’s college freshmen take for granted.
Without further ado, here is the Mindset List for the Class of 2013, most of whom were born in 1991 (I’ve bolded and inserted brief commentary on the ones that surprised me; let me know which items most surprise you):
1. For these students, Martha Graham, Pan American Airways, Michael Landon, Dr. Seuss, Miles Davis, The Dallas Times Herald, Gene Roddenberry, and Freddie Mercury have always been dead.
2. Dan Rostenkowski, Jack Kevorkian, and Mike Tyson have always been felons.
3. The Green Giant has always been Shrek, not the big guy picking vegetables. (Ug; I’ve got that Jolly Green Giant theme song going through my head nonstop, along with an image of icky canned peas.)
4. They have never used a card catalog to find a book. (This is so true; I took my teenage sons to the library the other day and suggested we look up a book in the card catalog. Blank looks. “Oh yeah,” I amended, “The online catalog.”)
5. Margaret Thatcher has always been a former prime minister.
6. Salsa has always outsold ketchup.
7. Earvin “Magic” Johnson has always been HIV-positive.
8. Tattoos have always been very chic and highly visible. (This mindset has really changed during the last decade. Tattoos used to be taboo; now it seems as if everyone has at least one. I don’t, by the way.)
9. They have been preparing for the arrival of HDTV all their lives.
10. Rap music has always been main stream.
11. Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream has always been a flavor choice.
12. Someone has always been building something taller than the Willis (née Sears) Tower in Chicago.
13. The KGB has never officially existed.
14. Text has always been hyper.
15. They never saw the “Scud Stud” (but there have always been electromagnetic stud finders.)
16. Babies have always had a Social Security Number.
17. They have never had to “shake down” an oral thermometer. (Can this be true? We still have the shakedown kind, even though we use the digital one 99% of the time.)
18. Bungee jumping has always been socially acceptable.
19. They have never understood the meaning of R.S.V.P.
20. American students have always lived anxiously with high-stakes educational testing. (Possibly one of the saddest “developments” ever to befall the U.S. education system.)
21. Except for the present incumbent, the President has never inhaled.
22. State abbreviations in addresses have never had periods.
23. The European Union has always existed.
24. McDonald’s has always been serving Happy Meals in China.
25. Condoms have always been advertised on television.
26. Cable television systems have always offered telephone service and vice versa.
27. Christopher Columbus has always been getting a bad rap.
28. The American health care system has always been in critical condition.
29. Bobby Cox has always managed the Atlanta Braves.
30. Desperate smokers have always been able to turn to Nicoderm skin patches.
31. There has always been a Cartoon Network. (We always tell our kids about the “olden days,” when we got only three channels and watched cartoons only on Saturday mornings, or caught The Flinstones after school.)
32. The nation’s key economic indicator has always been the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
33. Their folks could always reach for a Zoloft.
34. They have always been able to read books on an electronic screen.
35. Women have always outnumbered men in college.
36. We have always watched wars, coups, and police arrests unfold on television in real time.
37. Amateur radio operators have never needed to know Morse code.
38. Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Latvia, Georgia, Lithuania, and Estonia have always been independent nations.
39. It’s always been official: President Zachary Taylor did not die of arsenic poisoning.
40. Madonna’s perspective on Sex has always been well documented.
41. Phil Jackson has always been coaching championship basketball.
42. Ozzy Osbourne has always been coming back.
43. Kevin Costner has always been Dancing with Wolves, especially on cable.
44. There have always been flat screen televisions.
45. They have always eaten Berry Berry Kix.
46. Disney’s Fantasia has always been available on video, and It’s a Wonderful Life has always been on Moscow television.
47. Smokers have never been promoted as an economic force that deserves respect.
48. Elite American colleges have never been able to fix the price of tuition.
49. Nobody has been able to make a deposit in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).
50. Everyone has always known what the evening news was before the Evening News came on.
51. Britney Spears has always been heard on classic rock stations. (Eeeew!)
52. They have never been Saved by the Bell
53. Someone has always been asking: “Was Iraq worth a war?”
54. Most communities have always had a mega-church.
55. Natalie Cole has always been singing with her father.
56. The status of gays in the military has always been a topic of political debate.
57. Elizabeth Taylor has always reeked of White Diamonds.
58. There has always been a Planet Hollywood.
59. For one reason or another, California’s future has always been in doubt.
60. Agent Starling has always feared the Silence of the Lambs.
61. “Womyn” and “waitperson” have always been in the dictionary.
62. Members of Congress have always had to keep their checkbooks balanced since the closing of the House Bank.
63. There has always been a computer in the Oval Office.
64. CDs have never been sold in cardboard packaging. (Has it really been 18 years since they stopped selling CDs in those huge, long cardboard packages? Wow!)
65. Avon has always been “calling” in a catalog.
66. NATO has always been looking for a role.
67. Two Koreas have always been members of the UN.
68. Official racial classifications in South Africa have always been outlawed.
69. The NBC Today Show has always been seen on weekends.
70. Vice presidents of the United States have always had real power.
71. Conflict in Northern Ireland has always been slowly winding down.
72. Migration of once independent media like radio, TV, videos and compact discs to the computer has never amazed them.
73. Nobody has ever responded to “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”
74. Congress could never give itself a mid-term raise.
75. There has always been blue Jell-O.
Readers… do you have any fun ones to add to the list?
Interesting blog, but it’s missing an important part of the equation: Generation Jones (born 1954-1965, between the Boomers and Generation X). The vast majority of GenYers are the offspring of GenJones parents, and it is difficult to overestimate the importance of parental influences on the development of generational personalities.
Google Generation Jones, and you’ll see it’s gotten a ton of media attention, and many top commentators from many top publications and networks (Washington Post, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) now specifically use this term. In fact, the Associated Press’ annual Trend Report forecast the Rise of Generation Jones as the #1 trend of 2009. Here’s a page with a good overview of recent media interest in GenJones: http://generationjones.com/2009latest.html
Interesting blog, but it’s missing an important part of the equation: Generation Jones (born 1954-1965, between the Boomers and Generation X). The vast majority of GenYers are the offspring of GenJones parents, and it is difficult to overestimate the importance of parental influences on the development of generational personalities.
Google Generation Jones, and you’ll see it’s gotten a ton of media attention, and many top commentators from many top publications and networks (Washington Post, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) now specifically use this term. In fact, the Associated Press’ annual Trend Report forecast the Rise of Generation Jones as the #1 trend of 2009. Here’s a page with a good overview of recent media interest in GenJones: http://generationjones.com/2009latest.html
Interesting blog, but it’s missing an important part of the equation: Generation Jones (born 1954-1965, between the Boomers and Generation X). The vast majority of GenYers are the offspring of GenJones parents, and it is difficult to overestimate the importance of parental influences on the development of generational personalities.
Google Generation Jones, and you’ll see it’s gotten a ton of media attention, and many top commentators from many top publications and networks (Washington Post, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) now specifically use this term. In fact, the Associated Press’ annual Trend Report forecast the Rise of Generation Jones as the #1 trend of 2009. Here’s a page with a good overview of recent media interest in GenJones: http://generationjones.com/2009latest.html
Interesting blog, but it’s missing an important part of the equation: Generation Jones (born 1954-1965, between the Boomers and Generation X). The vast majority of GenYers are the offspring of GenJones parents, and it is difficult to overestimate the importance of parental influences on the development of generational personalities.
Google Generation Jones, and you’ll see it’s gotten a ton of media attention, and many top commentators from many top publications and networks (Washington Post, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) now specifically use this term. In fact, the Associated Press’ annual Trend Report forecast the Rise of Generation Jones as the #1 trend of 2009. Here’s a page with a good overview of recent media interest in GenJones: http://generationjones.com/2009latest.html
And I’d always assumed I’m a Baby Boomer. Until today, I’d never heard of Generation Jones, nor had I realized that I AM one.
Yes, we Late Boomers do have a different outlook on life than the typical Baby Boomer, so maybe it’s a good thing that we get our very own label. However, Generation Jones sounds ridiculous to me. What does it mean?
If some marketing guru is going to assign a label to an entire generation, it needs to mean something.
And I’d always assumed I’m a Baby Boomer. Until today, I’d never heard of Generation Jones, nor had I realized that I AM one.
Yes, we Late Boomers do have a different outlook on life than the typical Baby Boomer, so maybe it’s a good thing that we get our very own label. However, Generation Jones sounds ridiculous to me. What does it mean?
If some marketing guru is going to assign a label to an entire generation, it needs to mean something.
And I’d always assumed I’m a Baby Boomer. Until today, I’d never heard of Generation Jones, nor had I realized that I AM one.
Yes, we Late Boomers do have a different outlook on life than the typical Baby Boomer, so maybe it’s a good thing that we get our very own label. However, Generation Jones sounds ridiculous to me. What does it mean?
If some marketing guru is going to assign a label to an entire generation, it needs to mean something.
And I’d always assumed I’m a Baby Boomer. Until today, I’d never heard of Generation Jones, nor had I realized that I AM one.
Yes, we Late Boomers do have a different outlook on life than the typical Baby Boomer, so maybe it’s a good thing that we get our very own label. However, Generation Jones sounds ridiculous to me. What does it mean?
If some marketing guru is going to assign a label to an entire generation, it needs to mean something.
I just wanted to say that I found your site via Goolge and I am glad I did. Keep up the good work and I will make sure to bookmark you for when I have more free time away from the books. Thanks again!
I just wanted to say that I found your site via Goolge and I am glad I did. Keep up the good work and I will make sure to bookmark you for when I have more free time away from the books. Thanks again!
I just wanted to say that I found your site via Goolge and I am glad I did. Keep up the good work and I will make sure to bookmark you for when I have more free time away from the books. Thanks again!
I just wanted to say that I found your site via Goolge and I am glad I did. Keep up the good work and I will make sure to bookmark you for when I have more free time away from the books. Thanks again!
[…] How to market to Gen Xers and Gen Yers (or, as I call them, Gen Txtrs). Want the latest posts from the Blogging Barista delivered to your e-mail inbox?Enter your e-mail address here: […]
[…] How to market to Gen Xers and Gen Yers (or, as I call them, Gen Txtrs). Want the latest posts from the Blogging Barista delivered to your e-mail inbox?Enter your e-mail address here: […]