Okay massassi, it's hep me with my project time yet again. For this one I have to poll generation Y ers, and since almost all of us are from Gen Y and I don't have the time to poll people in person because it's due at some point tomorrow, it falls to you guys! yaaaaaay

Summary at the bottom:

"Who is Generation Y? You should know since you are one of them!

“The generational cohort labeled Generation Y includes the 72 million Americans born between 1977 and 1994. This was a period of increasing births, which resulted from baby boomers having children, and it is often referred to as the echo boom or baby boomlet. Generation Y exerts influence on music, sports, computers, videogames, and especially cell phones. Generation Y views wireless communication as a lifeline to friends and family and has been the first to use text messaging, cell phone games, and built-in cameras. This is also the group that includes recent and future 21-year-olds - the beginning of adult responsibilities and many new consumer activities. The term millennials is also used” to identify this cohort.

Because each generation is distinctive in their attitudes and consumer behavior, marketers have been studying Generation Y for years and have created generational marketing programs especially for this group. Consider:

• “About 20% of Generation Y has already reached the age of 21, and the rest are not far behind. This is critical since this transition to adulthood signals a period when many people graduate from college, look for their first full-time job, start forming their own households, purchase their first new car and home, and select savings and retirement funds. They also begin developing brand loyalties that could last a lifetime.”
• Generation Y is known as a savvy, demanding, and sometimes marketing-skeptical group.
• The number of advertisements received in the past 21 years: 23 million!
• The amount a 21-year-old will spend in his or her lifetime: $2,241,141!
• The number of years until a 21-year-old will buy a vacation home: 22
• The percentage of 21-year-olds who have a credit card: 93%
• The hours each week a 21-year-old spends online: 10

So, clearly Generation Y is a strong target market!

The goal of this mini-project is to take a look at which segments of this market offer the best marketing opportunities, and how can they be reached."

1. In a page or two, summarize your findings from the research efforts above. What did you find out about Generation Y, i.e. what are Generation Y’s values? Likes? Dislikes? Political stance? Lifestyle? There is no specific “have to have’s” in this section; simply discuss what you’ve found out about your own Generation, with particular attention to anything “marketing” or “consumer behavior” facts you noted.

2. Based on your research above, consider which segments of Generation Y offer the greatest opportunities. For example, which age distribution has the greatest numbers, largest expected employment in which industries, what clothing lines have developed that have profited by this group, which film and TV shows are more widely viewed by Generation Y, college vs. non-college educated, etc. In a couple of paragraphs, tell me which segment(s) you think marketers would be wise to “cater” to, and why! Again, this determination can be made for only those Generation Y’ers in Virginia or the state of your choosing.

3. For the segment(s) you have chosen in Step #2, select one and discuss how marketers can reach them, i.e. what communication avenues would be best, such as television, radio, email, etc., and be as specific as possible. For instance, if you think television is the best, on which shows should marketers advertise? What are the key products and services that are most likely to be purchased by Generation Y in the next five years? How can marketers make sure their ads are perceived/received by Generation Y, i.e. humor, the offer of “freebies,” etc.

The rest of it is all stuff I answer based on what you say, but that's basically what I would ove to hear about from you guys.

so in summary: How would you separate your generation? what kind of products do/would you guys want? How can marketers reach you? What other feedback can you give about your generation?

I promise there will be a day when I don't post about a project. Just maybe not for another 2 years...

Half of it on cigarettes alone. Anyways, since although I was born in 1986, I was born in Soviet Union (muahaha!), I probably don't qualify as one of the "72 million Americans born between 1977 and 1994". Generation Gorbachev FTW.

PS. You should probably write something about video games, and how most of Generation X people think they're something similar to kids toys, while we perceive it as adult entertainment.

As someone who considers videogames and the Internet to be a key part of their life, my answers are biased to reflect the interactive nature of the two.

I think, no matter where you look from, marketing should start catering to the interactive element. People are increasingly skeptical about marketing tactics, and what better way to break the ice than to lure us in with participation? If we feel we're somehow in control of what we're buying, we're more likely to be aimiable towards those those choices over that we feel we're being subjected to via TV or other more traditional means of advertisement. How else are you going to grab our generation's attention among the increasingly massive amount of advertisement out there? In short, advertisement is about communicating your product and persuading the recipient into buying your product. The first step is to remembering that communication is a two way process, and our generation is living in a culture more exposed to the possibilities of communication/interactivity than any previous generation. The real danger in my opinion comes from the potential for our generation (and humanity in general) to somehow NOT take this advantage, but instead become victimized into a LACK of communication, which the evil marketing powers will abuse... < /semi-sarcasm tag >

On a side note, I dislike how we're the "cell phone generation." I think it's so much crap, and it's very apparent that marketing thinks it's the be-all identity tag for us -- that our cellphone IS all but our LITERAL lifeline. It only saddens me more when they're proven right... v_v

While I'm Nordic and thus don't count, but I haven't encountered that kind of attitude among those of my friends who have any interest in computer / video games. It's not adult entertainment, it's just entertainment. I have never thought video games nowadays are just for kids, teens or for adults.

Games are for everybody interested, and considering the spectrum of games available, anybody from a small child to a grandfather could be interested. While I don't personally know gaming senior citizens, one of my friends regularly plays some WW2 military strategic game against a retired US colonel, if memory serves...

It was a bad choice of phrasing on my part. Not adult entertainment per se, but entertainment suitable for adults. It seems that most people over 40 would have me think that playing video games is akin to playing with action figure toys and the like.

1. what are Generation Y’s values? Likes? Dislikes? Political stance? Lifestyle?

*personally, I value honesty and loyalty among other things. I am a Christian. In general I like speed when it comes to service of any kind, and quality. politically I am conservative. I believe the government should be minimal and let the people live their lives generally undisturbed. lifestyle? I am married (no kids), am currently renting but shortly buying a first home.

2. largest expected employment in which industries, what clothing lines have developed that have profited by this group, which film and TV shows are more widely viewed by Generation Y, college vs. non-college educated, etc.

*my line of work is medical (in a hospital setting), college educated. clothing? I wear scrubs to work. When I'm not working, its jeans and sweater or tank top normally. I watch sci-fi and fantasy shows and movies, with occasional home improvement shows and cooking shows thrown in the mix. (heh, I'm settling down...)

3. discuss how marketers can reach them, i.e. what communication avenues would be best, such as television, radio, email, etc., and be as specific as possible. For instance, if you think television is the best, on which shows should marketers advertise? What are the key products and services that are most likely to be purchased by Generation Y in the next five years? How can marketers make sure their ads are perceived/received by Generation Y, i.e. humor, the offer of “freebies,” etc.

*I ignore any advertisement attemts via email. I consider email for personal use only, and regard any intrusions as spam. The internet in general, for advertisements, well, I don't generally pay attention to ads on websites either. TV is the best way to get me to sit through an ad (especially when Lost is on - don't want to miss a second of the show so I watch all the ads too). In the next 5 years I am most likely to purchase: DVDs, food, new car for hubby, house-related stuff (furniture/repair work).

*I am probably in the minority for gen y in that while I used to have a cell phone, I don't any more (I have a land line), simply because when I moved recently I got service only in one corner of my apartment (who wants to stand in the corner to talk?), and they refused to change my address on the bill. So for poor customer service (and poor service in general) we dropped them (that goes back to the quality thing).

*I hope this helps a little bit.

What? Since when are we generation Y? What happened to generation X?

Seriously. To hell with marketers. Why the hell would I want to HELP them? Christ, after hearing I've already been subjected to over 23 million ads, I want to string every last marketer up by his balls.

1961-1976 apparanly.

it was my understanding that generation Z started in 1990 though.

Generation X is those born in the 60's and early 70's, who grew up in the 80's.

Thanks guys

(gah beat me to it)

And actually Free, that helps me too so grazie

So what happens when generation Z is done with? Do we proceed to generation AA?

Gen X wooo...
























...barely

I have to agree with Freelancer. Here's how marketers can help me : SHUT THE **** UP.

hahaha it's funny because that statement helps marketers too. They realize that this generation especially HATES being sold to. Enter: postmodern advertising.

Oh goody, postmodern advertising, where else could we have an advertisement aimed at the masses that tries to show how awesome of an individual they can be...if only they had that brand of shirt.

Hah, for a second I thought the word shirt had the r removed.

I should have taken the r out, that word aptly describes most things in those ads.

I'm generalising of course, but that's because you're Nordic. Or more generally, you're European and they tend to be more sensible about these things. In Aussieland, I rarely tell anyone how much I like video games, Star Wars, Buffy, computers other geeky things as I tend to cop grief over it. Mainly because the majority of people here tend to assume these things are childish and "pathetic for a man of my age".

I meet a fair few Europeans in my job and by and large, their attitude towards these things is much more reasonable. They're the ones that usually bring the conversation round to topics that would normally be considered "geeky" or "childish" and they quite rightly don't see any problems with older people being interested in these things.

\end tangent-rant-minor cultural cringe

As for sugarless's questions:

I already know what I want and where to get it. I manually check these areas to see if anything is new rather than relying on advertisements as I assume they are all lying through their teeth. The best way to reach me is through word of mouth as I don't listen to the radio. I change channels when ads are showing on the rare occasions I watch tv, more from boredom than on principle, I'm not interested in anything you're trying to sell me.

hahaha actually postmodern advertising is based off the idea that consumers are now aware that they're being sold to. Moreover, they know that people hate being sold to. So they either make fun of advertising or instead of selling a product, they sell an idea and try to attach their product to the idea. They've also big on challenging authority or norms, and finding new venues, hance teh advent of guerilla advertising where people don't alawys even know they're being adversited to. So everyone on this forum that says how much they hate advertising is a postmodern advertiser's wet dream.

But marketing is not solely advertising. That's only a small part of it, so I'm not just supposed to talk about how to advertise.

This isn't a representative sampling of the population though. You have here a much higher proportion of technically minded people who aren't going to care about the latest iPopularity-generator[sup]TM[/sup] and are more likely to identify an ad and ignore it.

I want quantitative information, not advertising.

What sugarless doesn't realize is the sneakier and more underhanded these marketers get, the more we come to resent them. She just admitted the goal is to trick us. That's just downright wrong.

I can't say I care much about you not wanting to support the marketing industry. You're not helping marketers, you're helping me with a school project.

i think markets might be more successful and definitely more welcomed if they stopped trying to exploit perceived weaknesses. instead of trying to trick us into buying your product or signing up for your "plan" why not create and market something worthwhile? i think above all people of this generation want to feel respected, they want to be leveled with. if your offering a great affordable cell phone plan, but you have horrendous late fee's JUST SAY SO! i would honestly be more inclined to purchase something from a company or whatever that is honest and levels with you about their product, even if there ARE a few downsides.

...that may not be the case with most of my generation, their is still a large contingent that hangs desperately on what the media feeds them as being "cool"

on another note i think "freebies" are a complete flop. everyone knows freebies are not "free".

I was born in Poland in the 80's, so I guess I'm generation...Walesa? *shudder* I've lived in the states most of my life though, so here goes.

I agree with Alran. Respect and putting it all out there are the keys to marketing today, at least in the service sector: credit cards, cell phone companies etc.

In the products sector, I say that humor and gimmicks still work, to an extent. When you have great ads like this one:



or this one:



What these clever sorts of ads do is get people talking about product, creating hype so to say. However, with this generation, I don't think they sell the product. I admit that if I see a really clever ad, I might want to buy whatever it was selling (mainly for smaller purchases such as Bud Light) as a way of saying, "Good Job A-B, that was witty and you deserve a purchase of beer." However, I think that overall the commercials motivate us to research some more about the product. We have more information available to us now that will let us make more informed decisions. What these ads do is introduce a product, and then we go and learn about it. In the case of the XBox 360, we'll read reviews, look at the game library, play it at a friend's house to decide if we want one for ourselves. For the case of Bud Light, it might entice us to try one next time we go out to the bar, or to the grocery store. However, it's not going to entice brand loyalty.

I believe brand loyalty is a dying concept (Nintendo and Sony fanboys aside). With many competitors, and so many new ways to find out information about them, companies must continue to improve their products or come up with something new.

For instance, I enjoy Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat Beer, very much. But I'm in no way, shape, or form loyal to Boulevard. I read beer reviews to get an idea of what else is out there, and I'll try something new if it sounds good and has been getting a positive reception. Same with movies, video games, music albums, etc.

While this may not be true of all, or maybe even most consumers, I believe more and more people are using sources like the internet to become educated consumers, and the product sector needs to continually improve their products to remain competitive.

[Edit]I will say that one thing that truly pisses me off about a lot of commercials these days is that I don't know what is being sold until the very end. Unless the commercial has a good initial hook (The XBox360 one is a good example), it needs to tell me what it's selling within the first third of it's duration, or it will be meaningless and lost upon me.

This generally sums up my feelings on marketing. Language warning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo

hahahhahahahahaha