Marketing to the X and Y Generation

If you can’t understand why some of the new customers you are trying to reach don’t seem to be fascinated with your sales talk, your touchy, feely ad, or your one-look-fits-all brochure, your bag of tricks may just be too boring or totally out of their view. What works for the boomer generation, or most of management over fifty, just doesn’t for the largest consumer group in the history of the United States, the Y Generation, nor those late-twenties through early forty year olds known as the X Generation.

Even if school aged young people, college students, and the young execs who are often supervising their much more experienced seniors are not your market, they will be within the decade, when they are shopping for their first homes, and their first mutual funds. Their buying habits for toys, clothes, games, and technology will follow them into young adulthood, and they believe they can have anything they want.

Currently, teens (13-19) spend $94.7 billion annually and young adults (20-21) spend $61.2 billion. Don’t assume it is the parents making the buying decisions and flipping out the credit cards. Out of today’s Y population, 37 percent of teens and 7 percent of young adults are relying mostly on jobs for their income. This is the generation of the racially diverse, single-parent home with three in every four working mothers. They are ready to work for what they want, especially when the result offers immediate gratification and value.

Marketing strategies for both the Y and X Gens have to bring the messages to places they congregate, both offline and online. They might catch your television spot, but only if it is humorous, ironic, or popular with their friends and totally void of heavy commercialism. You will have a better chance at getting their attention at the Tides game, on the ATM machine, or at the 5K run.

Most of the biggest brands on the market that have been around for years are getting a mere yawn from these generations. Pepsi Company, The Gap, Nike, and even Levi Strauss & Co. are going to battle with newcomers selected by the Y Generation. Of course, this began way before today’s college students started keeping the tags off their new clothes with names their parents couldn’t even pronounce. Many boomers’ brands had already flopped with the Gen X who grew up without any heroes and interpreted their Watergate, Three Mile Island, massive layoff world alone on the tube while their parents pursued their careers. Not trusting the commercials much less the brands, they cynically responded to key messages with “who cares if Michael Jackson wore the jeans. J.C. Penney & Co. understood this consumer when it gave its Arizona Jeans brand the tagline, "Just show me the jeans."

Most of us in business can not survive without either of these generations, and the more that I have gotten to know them, I can’t imagine why we should not totally embrace the marketing strategies which they want us to use.

Let’s take the whole concept of marketing from the standpoint of gardening. I happen to be one of those boomers who says I am going to really work on my gardening this year, feel the earth, maybe even go for the Yard of the Month. I say this every year, and then I go buy the flowers in the pots and hope that my neighbors don’t boot me out. The way the yard looks is a statement of who we are and how we live.

Not so with the X Gens. The yard is not a collection of plants to look pretty. It is a place to hang out. Gardening is not something to do. Its purpose is to complement the rest of the outdoor living room. I recently assisted a new local retail business selling flat screen TVs, sound systems, and home theatres with their initial branding. These X-generation entrepreneurs totally understood that this time of year, their strategies had to focus on the backyard along with the outdoor kitchens. Do your marketing strategies assist your potential buyers to want to use your products or services?

Packaging: A garden kit which would attract most X and Y Gen buyers would include the pot, soil and seedlings or seeds pre-selected for sun or part shade. Packaging of services, products, programs and even ideas which simplify life and save time will attract these buyers’ attention. It isn’t about the product. Successful strategies today better be all about added value, lifestyle, relationships, and convenience.

Premixed: No longer do you have to mix fertilizer and worry about the sprayer. Today’s gardner can buy a ready-to-use fertilizer and a new hose-end sprayer that can remain on the hose when it is not being used. Think of multiple uses for your products or services. The Y gens have maximized the use of technology created for the most part by the X gen techies. They expect to multi-task simultaneously on the PC, the mobile phone, and the IPod while they work on a major project. No longer can you buy an ad nor do one direct marketing campaign. They will purchase your competitor’s products or services if the information and the purchase come to them through the right marketing channels. You also need to understand their lifestyles. Knowing that its customers have a passion for computer games, Tommy Hilfiger sponsored a Nintendo competition and installed Nintendo terminals in its stores. Create multiple marketing impressions with more social marketing, community involvement, and online presence.

Organic: Younger gardeners seem especially interested in growing organic vegetables and fruits and in using organic products. Most are environmentally savvy. Organic is the real thing. Remember that the reality shows were a final attempt to reach Gen X. Today’s online YouTube and all of the social marketing to bring people into contests for their home grown video, barely edited, including Super Bowl commercials, is about as real as you can get.

The X and Y Gen are insisting that we tell the truth, whether it is good or bad. Whether you are making rapid changes in the company which impact your employees or deciding how to respond to consumer issues with your products or services, respond soon and frequently. If you start a blog for your X and Y gens, they will love it. Just be sure to set up the processes to respond to their praises and their disappointments.

Bigger plants: Rather than buying flats of small annuals and growing them, these customers want instant results. The best way to get your revenues blooming is to be at the right place at the right time. If you think about their need for instant gratification and their technology rich lifestyles, you better be thinking about e-mail and effective use of your web site. If you don’t have a way to distribute e-mails for offers, these younger generations will think something is wrong with you. They also don’t want to have to search too hard to find you on the web or dig for your information.

The idea is to let the Gen Y and Gen X society stumble onto the brand in unexpected places. Making connections that they don’t see as contrived is critical. Find organizations in totally different industries who want to reach the same markets as you do. One of my clients, an owner of two Rapid Refill Ink franchises, was looking for a charity to support. When we came up with the Southeastern Virginia Food Bank, it was based on the connection that both organizations are about keeping items out of the neighborhood landfills, used ink printer cartridges and good food thrown out by restaurants.

Just is important as marketing to these generations to buy products and services is the recruitment marketing so necessary to replace retiring older workers and snag the best employees in healthy, competitive markets. It’s a misconception that Gen-Xers don’t want security. More varied job experience equals more security. The more marketable they are, the more secure they feel. Be sure your job descriptions allow for challenging work, special projects and personal development and that you express these messages in your advertising and interviews. You also will not impress them if you talk too much about work hours and too little about the value of the results, regardless of the hours.

You don’t have to prod a Gen Y to talk about their experience and skills. They expect to work faster and better than your other employees. Whereas other generations might shy away from asking how their performance will be evaluated, The Gen Y college grad wants to know he will be coached all the way and get instant feedback. If he can’t apply for a position online, receive e-mail feedback, and have an interview a couple of days later, he will think you are not doing your job. Learn to appreciate this generation’s enthusiasm, candor, and needs and you will receive excellent performance.

Know that generational demographics should be only one aspect of your market analysis as so much of our buying habits are the result of our lifelong personal experiences, behaviors, and values. Most of us cross generation descriptors depending on these factors. However, it is worth your time to review your marketing strategies in light of Gen X and Gen Y. Just as MTV rejuvenated its markets by switching from celebrity lifestyles to practical information on decorating a room and buying a prom dress, adapting your brand and the marketing strategies for these generations may bring the results you are looking for to increase business.