Hi GV and Thread, "Tough customers: how to reach Gen Y"
Marketing Intelligence / Joanna L. Krotz
...average $100 a week in disposable income, spending a stunning $150 billion a year.
For sheer spending power and cultural hegemony, this consumer group is unrivaled in American history.
If you haven't thought much about how your wares might attract this cohort of big spenders — who are savvy and wary in about equal parts — start thinking. It's where your future lies.
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Gen Y-ers are the 70 million-plus offspring of Boomer parents, or about a quarter of all Americans.
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Generation Y is also, of course, the most digitally sophisticated yet. About nine out of 10 teens have a home computer while half have Internet access. More than 50% of teens 12 to 17 own a mobile phone, according to research by Boston consultant Frank N. Magid Associates and Upoc.com, a mobile community marketer.
Desire for community...they quickly decide whether to trust you or not," Sklaver says.
Lots of Gen Y choices come from viral marketing...
Gen Y is also remarkably diverse.
bcentral.com
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Generation Y
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Marketers haven't been dealt an opportunity like this since the baby boom hit. Yet for a lot of entrenched brands, Gen Y poses mammoth risks. Boomer brands flopped in their attempts to reach Generation X, but with a mere 17 million in its ranks, that miss was tolerable...This is the first generation to come along that's big enough to hurt a boomer brand simply by giving it the cold shoulder--and big enough to launch rival brands with enough heft to threaten the status quo...think like they do--and not like the boomers who preceded them.
The huge image-building campaigns that led to boomer crazes in everything from designer vodka to sport-utility vehicles are less effective with Gen Y. ''The old-style advertising that works very well with boomers, ads that push a slogan and an image and a feeling, the younger consumer is not going to go for,'' says James R. Palczynski, retail analyst for Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. and author of YouthQuake, a study of youth consumer trends.
Instead, Gen Yers respond to humor, irony, and the (apparently) unvarnished truth. ...
''Television drives homogeneity,'' says Mary Slayton, global director for consumer insights for Nike. ''The Internet drives diversity.''
John R. Samuel, director of interactive marketing for American. ''If a company can't communicate via E-mail,'' he says, ''the attitude is 'What's wrong with you?''
'Marketers who don't bother to learn the interests and obsessions of Gen Y are apt to run up against a brick wall of distrust and cynicism.
Michael C. DiGiovanni, GM's head of market research and forecasting, says...Gen Y kids...sense of how a product should look and feel has been shaped by the hours they spend at the keyboard. ''One of the trends that will manifest itself is computers,'' says DiGiovanni. ''The design of products will be influenced by the way a computer screen looks.''
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Meanwhile, computers and other high-tech products are starting to look less industrial and more sleek in an effort to attract younger buyers. By using bright colors and cool designs, Motorola Inc. (MOT) helped transform the pager from a lowly tool for on-call workers to a must-have gizmo for teens. Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL) appeals directly to the same group with products such as its rounded, space-age-looking iMac computer.
By Ellen Neuborne in New York, with Kathleen Kerwin in Detroit and bureau reports
businessweek.com
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Some Gen Y fun stuff:
upoc.com
(go to the very bottom of the page and click on CLICK HERE)
This is circulating Silicon Valley - it's a home grown videos from the UK - it eats bandwidth:
zen15631.zen.co.uk
(buffering isn't good, so you have to cycle thru once.)
Regards,
Amy J |
