Hey, Baby
Marketing Your Message to the Generations is Tricky
Sharon Koehler
Artistic Stone Design
For over a decade now, advertisers have been throwing themselves at the Baby Boomer generation (people born between 1946 and 1964). With 65 million Boomers out there shopping and spending a good amount of disposable income, advertisers, marketers and businesses have to consider them a buying/spending force.
But wait, what is this coming around the corner? By golly, it’s the Millennials (people born between 1982 and 2004). The Millennials outnumber the Baby Boomers, at least as a generation. True – right now the Baby Boomers outspend the Millennials, but the Millennials are getting ready to hit their prime spending age shortly, and you better be ready.
Baby Boomers grew up without now-common technology, i.e.: smartphones, laptops, desktop computers and tablets. They drove manual shift cars and for the most part, fathers worked and moms stayed home. The telephone was on the kitchen wall, with a possible extension in the den. There was no call waiting, so Boomer teenagers got yelled at a lot for spending too much time on the phone. TV was new, no color and three to five channels that you had to get up and change by hand (oh, the horror of it all). Purchasing was done in a store, in person, with a nice friendly sales clerk. The friendly sales clerk probably knew your name, as well as the names of everyone in your family. The gas station attendant pumped your gas, checked your oil and cleaned your windshield as you sat in the car. Then he took your cash money and made change (and you can still find this gas service in rural Vermont, and in New Jersey, oddly enough). Boomers grew up in a simpler time.
Millennials were the first generation to grow up with computer technology. They have had access to the Internet since birth. They post, pin, text, chat, tweet and check in with lightning-fast speed, that indicates they are comfortable with all the electronic “stuff” that Boomers had to struggle to get a handle on. They are the largest, most diverse generation of all time.
But it is widely accepted that British Millennials will be the first generation to earn less than their parents. Whether that carries through to the rest of the world’s Millennials, we will just have to wait and see. American Millennials were coming of age during the recession, and we will have to see how that impacts their spending habits.
One of the things we can attribute to Millennial spending habits is the dilution of “Black Friday.” While Black Friday still maintains its hold on holiday shopping, we have seen it go from Black Friday to Cyber Monday to a week or more of Black Friday deals, especially online. Several surveys have directly linked these changes to the Millennial generation.
Unfortunately, you cannot advertise to both generations in the same way. (Well, actually you can, but it won’t go well.) The trick is to capture the Millennials as they hit their prime without alienating the Baby Boomers. It can be tricky.
As generations go, they are so different, in so many ways (I know there is a generation in-between; we will get to Gen X in a bit).
A recent survey shows that only 19 percent of Baby Boomers researched their last purchase on their smart phone, compared to 41 percent of Millennials that did. That’s a big difference, but what does it mean?
Boomers tend to like actual stores that that they can walk into, where they can see and touch what they want to purchase. They like to talk to knowledgeable people who can help them make a good choice. They like in-store specials and discounts. Now before you yell out “Amazon,” Boomers make up the least amount of shoppers on Amazon Prime. Only 11 percent of Baby Boomers use Amazon Prime (there are exceptions–I Do!). Now, a Boomer will cheat from time to time and go into a brick and mortar store to research an item, and then order it online if it’s less expensive. We may be gray, but we ain’t dumb!
Millennials like online deals and specials. A Millennial will turn to their phone and look for these deals and specials. The “smartphone” is the Millennial’s best friend and they take their phones everywhere. 87 percent of Millennials take their phones EVERYWHERE they go. 80 percent immediately reach for their phones when they wake up in the morning and 78 percent spend more than two hours a day using their phones for other things besides talking and texting. 70 percent believe that in five years, everything will be done on mobile devices. Basically, what this means is that if you don’t have a mobile platform, you don’t exist in the Millennial world.
These are two very different groups, but they have two big things in common. The first thing they have in common is that the women of the groups do most of the shopping and spending. The second thing is that both groups like coupons (Boomers prefer paper and Millennials prefer digital). But, hey–a coupon is a coupon is a coupon!
The Gen Xers, the generation in between the Boomers and Millennials, Boomer’s children and Millennial’s parents, are a divided group. The older ones tend to shop like their Boomer parents and the younger ones tend to follow the Millennials. There is no clear-cut answer for them.
So, start gearing up. The times, they are a changin’. The Millennials, they are a comin’.
Sharon Koehler is a 10-year veteran of the stone industry and currently head of marketing for Artistic Stone Design in Richmond, Virginia. She has been a regular contributor to various trade magazines for several years. Please send your thoughts on this article to Sharon@asdrva.rocks.