Would detailed data analysis about you disagree with your actual age? Why is it important to businesses? How do you market to consumers?
Target marketing based on age segment, you know the kind – Millennials, Gen X, Gen Y and so on is mass marketing, not necessarily targeted marketing.
Marketing to Baby Boomers, Generation X, Y, and Z is mass marketing – still!
While there are many facets to marketing, from market driven intelligence, new product introduction, and marketing communications also referred to as marcoms, this column will focus mostly on marcoms driven by market intelligence – data driven intelligence, and its nuances and myths, touching on where and how to drive value from data.
It all can get quite confusing, so let us look at the generally accepted definition of the segment of generations.
There are other brackets (year in which someone was born) defined for the same generational labels but let us ignore them for now.
The so-called Builders were born prior to 1965. Gen X, the Baby Boomers, were born between 1965 and 1981. Gen Y, the Millennials were born between 1981 to 1996.
Generation Z came after 1997 and the Alpha generation after 2010. So what generation are you?
It’s interesting to note where all this categorisation of generations started: A French girl and German man posed together for a picture the photographer wanted to use to capture what life was like for the young people after the Second World War from 1939-1945; reference Germany versus France.
The title given for the picture was Generation X, or more recently the Baby Boomers. Gen X characteristics were those born to hard life during the reconstruction of Europe after the war where finding a job was difficult.
Their philosophy in life was to work hard and to be as productive as possible not leaving much room for optimism or romanticism.
They were said to be addicted to work (workaholics), ambitious, with individualism one of their core values.
Baby Boomers were named so because they were born during that period in which the birth rate shot up in many countries but mostly in the US, Canada and New Zealand, after the return of soldiers from the Second World War.
The Boomers were also known as The Beatles Generation as they saw John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr come together to form The Beatles in 1962.
They listened on radio and saw on TV, Neil Armstrong placing his left foot on the Moon in 1969, saying “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”.
They also saw soccer players Pele and Maradona at their best. And the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
They went through huge advancements in technology and the rise and development of traditional media.
They enjoy stability in work and family and were active both physically and mentally.
They are less dependent on smartphones than the Gen Y millennials and Gen Z. Millennials proudly refer to themselves as “Digital Natives”.
Technology is part of their everyday lives: most of their activities are mediated by a screen.
The concept of on and off is completely integrated into their lives. However, they were not born into it; they migrated to the digital world from the analogue one in which they were living.
Because of the Global Financial Crisis, the world needed millennials to be better trained to get a job, as competition increased dramatically.
Unlike their Baby Boomer parents, these digital natives are usually not satisfied with the world and are ambitious.
The millennials are often labelled as being lazy, egotistical, self-loving, and spoilt.
Mostly by the Baby Boomers. In fact, in 2014, Time Magazine labelled them as the” Me! Me! Me! generation.
Generation Z, these are the Centennials.
The oldest were born in 1995 and the youngest in 2010 and they arrived with “a tablet and a smartphone under their arms with thumbs bent” ready for action.
These are the internet people. It is part of their DNA in their homes, their education, and their way of socialising.
And if Generation Y folk had issues finding a job, the post-millennial “Gen Zedders” situation is even worse.
Their mastery of day-day technologies supposedly makes them neglect their personal relationships to a large extent.
But these guys, or is it dudes, certainly not folk, are the ones who give more of a voice to social causes on the Internet.
They like to get everything they want immediately, and their lifestyle is also influenced by digital platforms and youtubers. Gen Z multi-task, but their attention span is limited.
They are independent and very demanding consumers and will eventually have jobs that simply do not exist today. Despite today’s social diversity, Gen Y, millennials and Gen Z, centennials dominate.
According to a study by Merrill Lynch, there are 2 billion millennials and 2.4 billion centennials, representing 27 per cent and 32 per cent of the world population.
Those are two massive markets! Hence my insistence that marketing by generations and age groups does not mean you have a segment or are doing any kind of targeted or personalised marketing. That would be single-dimensional, univariate analysis.
Multivariate, detailed, data-driven intelligence is key to personalised, target marketing. Let the data and their related behaviours tell you that. Tell you what your target should be.
For sure you’ve seen Baby Boomers who are much fitter and follow a more rigorous fitness regime, lead a younger lifestyle, are single and love the nightlife and millennial music.
Add to that behaviours and personality changes by location, time of day, who they’re with etc. and you may appreciate how complicated this all is, and that to market to a generational or age-based segment is not the best way.
Let the data tell you, demonstrate key characteristics and propensity to respond and you have much better market intelligence to spend that precious marketing dollar for the best return on investment.
So, what’s next? The current generation, those born after 2010, have been categorized as the Alpha generation.
What will their social and purchasing behaviours be like?
In a couple of years, we will be able to look back and see if there was a distinct generation gap. But for the marketer that will be too late.
Analyse your data, build propensity prediction models based on actual data and observed behaviours. Win now rather than stand perplexed in the future.
The writer acknowledges Time Magazine, Wikipedia, and Nielsen Research as sources for definitions and historical reference to the generations.
* Naleen Nageshwar is a practitioner of executive decision support, data analytics and digital business transformation specialising in business imperatives that can be supported through analytic insights and big data. He runs his own consultancy Data4Digital. He can be reached at naleen@data4digital.com or via his website www.data4digital.com
