Marketing by Generation

We are each a product of our generation, each generation has their own specific characteristics no matter how individual as people we may like to think we are.

If we’ve learnt anything about marketing by now, it’s how marketer LOVE how easy it is to target you by your categorisations! Your generation is just another pigeon hole that you fall into just like your belief systems, your gender, your geographical location etc etc!

Let’s learn more...

Marketers are “Talking bout my geeeeneration!” and WHO they are ;)

2003-2010 (preset) – Generation Z / Digital Generation

Babies (0-2)

Toddlers / Pre-Schoolers (2-3)

Children (4-7)

1981-2002 - Generation Y / Millenials

Tweens (8-12)

Teens (13-17)

Young Adults (18-29)

1965-1980 - Generation X / Busters

Adults (30-45)

1945-1964 - Baby Boomers

Adults (46-65)

1927-1944 - Mature Citizens / Traditionalists

Senior Adults (66-83)

To a marketer, based on which generation you fall into will determine certain factors such as your VALUES related to experience, your SELF CONCEPT and PERCEPTION, what to you is NOSTALGIC and the level of importance of GROUP MEMBERSHIP. Sounding familiar?

So let’s break down what some of some of these generations have been through, what affect it has on their characteristics and therefore, see how easy it is for marketers to cater their products and promotions to suit specific generations:

1928 – Women in UK get same Voting Rights as men (START OF TRADITIONALISTS GENERATION)

1930 – Mass unemployment in the UK

1932 – Hunger marches in UK

1936 – BBC begins transmission

1940 – Battle of Britain, The Blitz Bomb Raid starts

1945 - End of war in Europe; Atomic bombs dropped on Japan; first computer built; microwave oven invented; United Nations founded; huge Labour victory in UK general election. (START OF BABY BOOMERS)

1948 – NHS Launched

1951 - Festival of Britain; first colour TV; Conservatives defeat Labour in UK general election; Churchill becomes prime minister

1952 – Death of George V and accession of Queen Elizabeth II

1957 - European Economic Community established; Homosexuality decriminalised in UK

1964 – Labour back in Power

1966 – England win World Cup (START OF GENERATION X)

1967 – First colour transmission in UK

1968 – Theatre censorship abolished after 23 years

1969 - UK troops sent into N Ireland; US puts first men on the moon; death penalty abolished in UK

1970 - Age of majority lowered to 18 in UK; invention of computer floppy disks;

1971 – The beginning of Open Universities

1972 – Minors Strike

1973 – Industrial Strike

1975 – Margaret Thatcher elected leader of Tories

1978 – Worlds foirst Test Tube Baby

1979 – Margaret Thatcher as first female PM; First heart transplant

1980 – Social Democrats launched

1982 – Falklands (START OF GENERATION Y)

1988 – Gulf War

1990 – John Major replaces Margaret Thatcher

1994 - Channel Tunnel opens

1996 – Prince Charles and Princess Diana divorce

1997 – Princess Diana Dies, Tony Blair wins elections for PM

2001 – Twin Towers 9/11

2002 – Euro Launched Officially (START OF DIGITAL GENERATION)

So if you consider how old you are, and look at the events you've lived through and compare that to what, say, your grandparents have lived through, its quite different yes?

Your grandparents have lived through wars and rationing and that would be a good reason why they are more likely to sew up a hole in a pair of tights rather than bin them and buy a new pair as we would. Mend, reuse, save money as apposed to buy new buy better.