28 October 2019

Towards the end of generations and the concept of “millennials”?

 

You may have heard about journalist Vincent Cocquebert, editor of the Twenty webzine,” the community magazine for 16/25 years old”?

This one looked at the concept of” “generation”. These age ranges often used in marketing studies to describe and differentiate consumers profiles.

 

He explains how the concept of “young” was conceptualized as a type of sociological group, in the late 1960s.

With the introduction of youth culture, including rock culture. And how the invention of pocket money brought marketing into the sphere of youth, becoming a new commercial segment.

 

The concept of “Generation Y” would have appeared in the 90s, in the pages of the advertising magazine Advertising Age.

“This shows a new consumer, who would then be 13 years old and would be in total opposition to the X, cynics completely disillusioned, the soft underbelly of the West.

With these Y, Advertising Age draws the portrait of a new typical consumer who does not taste the bullshit. And who expects brands to take their responsibility in the great societal struggles.

We are already in front of this figure of the happy, ethical, conscientious consumer who will give, 30 years later , birth to the concept of millennial… With a growing blur on the real age range to which the millennial belongs… Was he born between 1980 and 2000 At the same time as the Internet, as some claim?

 

The journalist warns against the need and the marketing trap of categorizing individuals today.

In a world where we are going towards the “end of the ages”, where we no longer try to “essentialize individuals”. The myth of the generations will no longer work, we would all have become a little millennials.

According to him, the marketing will be deceived to want to explore the individual from the angle of the youth cult.

It would be better to “design marketing through emotional communities, beyond economic classes.” It would be more interesting to think of a post-generational marketing that would address all age groups. According to what connects them, uses, values, cultural products, societal themes, etc. “

 

In an interview for Strategies magazine, the journalist cited a study on “New Communities,” published by an American media studies institute. This one explained that it was no longer relevant to communicate by generational segments, because youth has never been so fragmented.

According to the journalist, if the counter-generational speech succeeds to emerge, it may come from marketing…

 

Do you have a market research project? Contact us.

We are able to offer you a methodology of qualitative and/or quantitative survey on measure. To answer your problematic in marketing, communication, quality, satisfaction & customer/employees relationship or innovation.

The LDB Mica Research team

 

 

 

 

Sources:

Les millennials sont une arnaque

Les-18-34-ans-ces-incompris