Marketing to Generation Y: The "Echo Boomers"

Of course it is impossible to generalize an entire generation, but basic demographic information is extremely necessary if you want to market toward a target audience. Marketing is a difficult art. The ability to pinpoint your target audience and use their generalizations to help your marketing strategy is very important for any would-be marketer.

About Generation Y

Generation Y consists of people born between the years 1977 and 1994. They are the generation of e-commerce and Britney Spears. A complex, extremely diverse group, those born in Generation Y exist to consume. They are materialistic, but not so much that they don't pay special attention and respond to particular advertising strategies.

Generation Y is probably one of the most difficult groups to both categorize and market toward. They are second only to their parents, the baby boomers, in terms of diversification in their buying tendencies.

Children of Generation Y are called "echo boomers" by marketers for two reasons: 1) they are the children of the baby boomers, and 2) they often mimic their parent generation's buying tendencies.

Common Buying Tendencies

Echo boomers are a cynical group. They are politically savvy and opinionated, but their opinions are extremely diversified. As a whole, they accept race differences and diversity more easily than any other demographic generation before them.

Because they grew up in the age of information, they are unlikely to purchase anything if they are confused or still have unanswered questions. Computers and the internet evolved during their youth, and they are avid digital fans.

What to Push

Remember that the buying tendencies of the typical echo boomer are very computer-oriented. Anything digital makes your product or company more appealing. If you don't already have a website, develop one very soon.

E-commerce is invaluable to Generation Y. Echo boomers are generally very trusting of online credit card transactions (often falling victim to credit card fraud or identity theft) and would prefer an email address to a phone number.

What to Avoid

Generation Y-ers do not like to be left in the dark. Avoid leaving out information in the hopes of sparking creativity or creating an illusion of mystery.

Attempting to add drama to your presentation by prolonging the facts is always a bad idea. The echo boomers grew up in with the world at their fingertips and are known for their short attention spans. They will only become frustrated and bored with your advertisement, and may forget it altogether (which - I'm sure I don't have to tell you - is, in strict marketing terms, a very bad thing.)

An overwhelming of echo boomers have mothers who work outside of the home, so marketing strategies geared toward "nostalgic homemaker mothers" simply won't work, and are often considered offensive. Instead, gear strategies toward anything that seems new, advanced, and computerized.