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Will Generation Z be the new Silent Generation?
1/20/2011 9:19:27 AM
How much of a long-term impact is the current recession having on children? In particular, what will the buying habits of Generation Z (currently age 17 and younger) be in the coming years if the economy continues to struggle? There are some who have compared the current generation of youngsters to the Greatest Generation (based on the Tom Brokaw best-selling book), sometimes also known as the Silent Generation. The Silent Generation grew up during the Great Depression of the 1930s and came of age fighting the Nazis and Imperial Japan in WWII. They had a more global consciousness than their parents did, due to the war and the post WWII Cold War conflicts with the Soviet Union. They saw a resurgence in the U.S. economy by good-old-American know how. They figured out how to make a dollar stretch, distrusted banks and an easy buck. Easy? Nothing came easy; you had to work for it.

Now comes along a new crop of youngsters who, for the first time in a long time, have had to do without the luxuries that Gen X and Gen Y considered entitlements. Despite having iphones and Facebook accounts, they are seeing their parents struggle to find jobs after being laid off, their homes taken away in foreclosure, and the backlash against the government for leading the country into the financial malaise that has had an impact on the home budget. For the first time in several generations, everyone has to make a choice on what is a want and what is a need. The financial shortcomings of their parents are going to be thrust upon them to fix. Just like the Silent Generation, they are being called upon to bail out their parents’ generation even before they are old enough to hold a job. Baseball legend Yogi Berra said it. "It’s like déjà vu all over again!”

At the point a generation comes of age, it sets the values to which the group holds as very important for the rest of their lives. These values are ingrained in us and are typically set between the ages of 20-25. It is around these values that marketing takes place. For instance, if you want to market to Generation Y, make sure you are doing it via a social network. This demographic highly values being connected through technology. Gen Y is currently 18-34 years old. Face-to-face selling is seen as much too pushy. They came of age in the past decade when it was assumed that anything you wanted to do was found with an internet connection and it was free. Gen Y was the first to discover how to stay connected with literally hundreds of friends without ever speaking an audible word to them. Even the most important relationships we form are reduced to an internet search for Gen Y. How many Gen Ys have "e-stalked” a person and connected with them online before their first date? Smart companies have marketed to this value (hello e-harmony.) Gen Y also expects everything handed to them with little or no cost. That makes marketing to them a bit more tricky, but it can be done. For instance, Apple has had great success with Gen Y when it created the iPod and the 99¢ music download. They devised a way in which you could listen to the music that you chose to hear and it was cheap. Gen Y has been defined by their iPods.

Generation X came of age in the 1990’s when opulence had a good foothold. Today they are 35-46 years old. In contrast to today, the economy was booming in the 90s. Wall Street was making new millionaires every day. If you want to market to Gen X, you have to make them think they are getting the very best, because that is the value that is ingrained in them. Their houses (if they are not in foreclosure today) are drastically larger than their parents’ homes. So are their debts. If you want to gain the attention of Gen X, you market to their taste for affluence.

So what will become of Gen Z? Will they value hard work and accept their place in the production line much like those of the Silent Generation? Will they take on the hard labor jobs that Gen X and Gen Y scorned as being beneath them? Time will tell. But one thing seems to be clear, the longer the recession lasts, the more impact it will have on the values of this young demographic and will influence the way they spend money the rest of their lives. And that is something to take note of if you are forecasting marketing on down the road. If Gen Zs do become more tight-fisted than both Gen X and Gen Y, it could be that your company will have to come up with three very distinct marketing strategies in the next 10 years to be able to reach these three different demographic segments. Gen X will want to be pampered, Gen Y will want to be wired, and Gen Z will want a bargain.

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Marketing to Generation Y: What You Can't Afford Not to Know. By Bea Fields. December 25 2008  http://www.4hoteliers.com/4hots_fshw.php?mwi=3629

 

Baby Boomer Caretaker  http://www.babyboomercaretaker.com/baby-boomer/generation-z/index.html

 

CBS News Business Online. Generation X (and Y) Are History; What's Next? June 10 , 2010  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/06/10/business/main6568258.shtml

Photo by Rhienna Cutler

 

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