Where Digital and Traditional Collide: Entertainment not Information

It is now generally excepted that generational marketing is a more effective segmentation than the more traditional age segmentation. Generation is not purely about age, and there are many discrepancies over which age fits what generation. It is about experiences. What has happened in your lifetime to that has created the unique way you view the world? And which of these do you have in common with a lot of people? It is a practice based on the values and attitudes of the market.

Up until the late 80s many marketers believed that advertising to adults, usually the 30+ segment, was the most effective way. But then they realised that exploiting teenage angst worked much better. All they had to work out was, What is Cool? Today a highly marketed to generation is Generation Y. Those born in the beginning of the 80s. Those who were too young to remember Communism in Europe. Those too young to understand the early 90s recession. They saw Diana die. They haven't quite grown up with the Internet, but have seen it's revolution. They were there to see the first iPod released and they stood in silence as they watched the fall of the Twin Towers live in their living rooms. They have read countless reports of tragedy and first hand accounts of those involved. Instant access. Instant information. But this is not enough.

Information is free and readily available at the touch of a button. Entertainment has value. Round the clock news means that nothing is new. By the time a story reaches the evening news it is old news because it has been told every hour on round the clock news channels. By the time news reaches these dedicated news channels it is still already old because first hand reports, blow by blow details have been circulating in the web, on Twitter, on mobiles before it even reaches the news room. This is the world of Generation Y.

Ed Walker writes, in The Value of Generational Marketing, that generational marketing requires a "comprehensive understanding of values and attitudes, which tend to be the drive behaviours". Kevin Higgins write, in Generational Marketing, that "generation-shaping social and economic events influence how each group reacts, and astute marketers must be cognizant of how their target generations view the world and shape their marketing message accordingly".

J. Walker Smith write, in a different article named Generational Marketing, that by "knowing how the motivations of customers are tied to the underlying values of the generation to which they belong, a business can tailor products, services, and communications to their needs, interests, and desires."

The message? That it is no longer enough to know what your customer does, where they eat, how they travel, how old they are, what beer they drink, what music they listen to. These facts are arbitrary. Now you need to know what they believe in, how they feel about different issues, what are their attitudes on political, social and environmental issues, have they been affected by poverty, terrorism, wealth. Theses are the facts that marketers need to know about their consumers.

Another rising group that marketers are keen to maximize are the silver surfers. Oxford University Press has the following to say about them:

People are now living far longer than they did in the past and older people form an increasingly large percentage of the population. As a section of society, they are relatively rich as they no longer have young children to provide for and, in many cases, have already managed to pay back the loan on their house. Not surprisingly, many companies are competing to attract this group, which is sometimes referred to as the grey/gray or silver market:

The potential of the silver market in Japan is not only based on the number of elderly people, but also on their spending power.

For the first time in history, our grey market is increasing and our youth market is declining.

Grey/gray is also sometimes used as an adjective relating to this part of the population: US advertisers are competing for thegray dollar (= the money that older people can spend on goods). An increase in life span causes an increase in grey power (= the economic and political power of older people) Grey consumers are becoming key markets for an increasing number of companies.

Roughly speaking marketers have four generation segments, which, ironically, they base on age (or at least when the consumer was born). They are as follows: