Marketing to the 90s Generation

Global Data on Society, Consumption, and Identity

A. Parment

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137440785
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Marketing
• Index: Business

Marketing to the 90s Generation is based on original research conducted by sociologists and psychologists on generational cohorts, how they come about, what defines them and what it means to society, its institutions and companies.

1

The 90s Generation

In this chapter, the 90s Generation will be introduced and defined on the basis of an exposition of characteristics emerging from the period in which this generation grew up and came of age. Key characteristics of the 90s Generation will be conceptualized and the implications of the emergence of this generation for businesses will be described. Characteristics of the 90s Generation will be compared and contrasted with those of the other generations.

In our research, a variety of dimensions—demographic, economic, cultural, political, societal, etc.—are investigated to get a solid and broad picture of what defines a generational cohort. Based on the thus gathered understanding, insights for specific situations could be applied.

Young individuals, whether as consumers or as coworkers, have been subjected to a great deal of research from a variety of perspectives. Generation X, Generation Y, Generation Z, and Millennials have often been based on vague definitions, with each publication defining its own version. In general terms, the concept of social, historical, or political generations links sociohistorical change with the fact that individuals in all societies are born, they live for a certain time, and then die. In this vein, the concept of generations is to integrate historical and individual time, as well as how social change comes about and influences individuals. To do this and deal with this stuff in a usable way, it is important to base the analysis on solid definitions.

There is obviously cross-fertilization across spheres when it comes to generational cohort effects. For instance, employers are increasingly asked by employees to offer a nice work environment, attractive terms, and personal development, thus reflecting the 90s Generation’s need for self-realization at work. This transition in ideal employer preferences is closely related to the emergence, growth, and prosperity of consumption society (Parment, 2011), something that has been going for several decades. This, in turn, has been made possible through economic development, advances in technology, transportation and logistics, ideals spread through the popular culture, and inequalities across countries and regions that made the exploration of low-cost manufacturing possible. It is also closely linked to how children are being raised by parents and the school system—and there is little doubt that the emphasis on self-realization has increased at the societal level as the economic standard in broader terms has developed in the labor market, reflecting a transition in coworker expectations, and at the individual level.

The attention paid to environmental scanning, market intelligence, and different facets of the macro environment in marketing research and practice emphasizes that it is crucial to create good match between the environment and the organization’s resources. Hence, companies try to link opportunities in the environment to market potential in selling to consumers, and coworkers are often crucial in this process as bearers and communicators of the company’s values and culture. The concept of generations is inherently different from the concept of age, although both may give similar results and recommendations in some applications.

In defining the 90s Generation, it is unavoidable to refer to other generations while the characteristics, too, largely stay on their own. Toward the end of the chapter, the reader will understand why it makes sense to define a generation through analysis of key elements in the larger—societal, social, economic, political, and cultural—environment in which individuals belonging to the 90s Generational cohort grew up, and what it means to societal institutions, businesses and its managers, and policy makers.

Defining the 90s Generation

The 90s Generation has grown up in a branded society overcrowded with commercial messages and a never-ending supply of choices and opportunities. Consumer markets have witnessed an explosion in the number of products, offers, brands, and choices. Increasingly demanding buyers, with great tools to run product and price comparisons and awareness of their rights, are less loyal than they used to be in general terms. Young buyers, in particular, see brands as an integrated part of consumption and personal image building. Hence, personal branding (climate activist Alec Loorz, Chinese architect Wang Shu, comedian Mindy Kaling, or fashion designer Miuccia Prada), employer branding (Google, L’Oréal, & IKEA), and place branding (Barcelona, Hong Kong, Aldeburgh, &Sydney) are something natural. Not only are fashionistas, celebrities, and talk show hosts seen as brands, but also politicians, cultural personalities, political parties, unions, churches, public authorities, hospitals, universities, and primary schools.

Virtual networking, an array of new communication technologies, and intensive feedback are natural parts of everyday life of the 90s Generation. These changes and tendencies cannot be explained by the 90s Generation alone. Changes at different levels—society, the market environment, the social environment, and the way organizations respond to the emerging situation—taken together, create a new situation for individuals who behave differently than earlier generations at the same age. As a consequence, individuals’ attitudes, priorities, and choices change.

It is often argued that the 90s Generation is technology savvy and individuals of this generation are digital natives: Having grown up with the Internet and the opportunities and challenges it entails, they are certainly more used to computers than their parents. This could imply that the 90s Generation, thanks to using new technology to execute work more effectively and efficiently than older people, would have an advantage in the workplace.

In an Australian report from 2012, which promises insights into the lifestyles and aspirations of young Australians (Kalra, 2012), the following characteristics of the 90s Generation (denoted Generation Z) are presented as the main findings.

• Generation Z is heavily digitally oriented, reporting greater use of social media, especially Facebook, and downloading more music than did the previous generations.

• Generation Z has a high interaction with technology with nearly four in five saying that they have a laptop, and the vast majority have a mobile phone and most a smartphone.

• Nearly a third (29%) report spending more than 10 hours a week interacting with their phone—this is higher than previous generations, comparing to 26 percent of Gen Ys, 13 percent of Gen Xers, and only 4 percent of Baby Boomers.

• The younger Gen Zers are still reliant on pocket money as their main source of income. Most Australian children are getting less than $10 a week.

• While some Gen Zers spend money on technology such as music and apps, most pocket money is still being spent on old favorites like food and going out with friends.

• Most Gen Zers save less than half of their pocket money each week, with one in five usually spending it all.

This focus on technology and media use is certainly correct, and few people would largely disagree with these conclusions. However, it provides a limited view on who the 90s Generation are, how they have become what they are, and what is likely to happen in the future in terms of attitudes, consumption patterns, their views on career, etc.

Technology savviness also largely holds for Generation Y, the 80s Generation, and even Baby Boomers may be pronounced computer-savvy since they were in their early to mid-forties when computers gained a strong foothold in offices. An Australian study indicates that there are no significant differences between the 90s Generation and the 80s Generation. In both the cases, 46 percent spend less than five hours a week with their devices, 26 percent (90s) and 27 percent (80s) spend five to ten hours a week, 14 percent (90s) and 15 percent (80s) spend ten to twenty hours a week, and 15 percent (90s) and 11 percent (80s) spend more than twenty hours a week (Kalra, 2012).

More importantly, a high level of technology familiarity and savviness is not really defining a generation. Since many individuals born in the 1940s and 1950s are very familiar with computers and the latest technological devices, and even Generation Xers, born in the 1960s and the 1970s, learned to know computers and advanced technological solutions before or during their coming-of-age years in the 1980s and 1990s, this dimension is rather overemphasized.

Generations and Age

With a generational perspective, people are expected to relate to environmental considerations, the climate discussion, and other issues in different ways, depending on how society in general deals with these issues. Thus, the results of the research on the attitude toward ecological and environmentally friendly food among people aged 20 to 29 may vary, vastly depending on which year’s data were collected.

Twenty-year-old data on the matter means that another generation answered the questions in another societal setting (environmental concerns were less heavy at the time), so although they were aged 20 to 29 when the data were collected, the findings cannot be used without thought-through reinterpretation.

While age has for a long time been used as a segmentation variable, generations have not been discussed in this context until quite recently. Age being an established concept in marketing, few would disagree with Eisenstadt’s (1956) comment that, “Age and differences of age are among the most basic and crucial aspects of human life and determinants of human destiny” (p. 21). However, there are strong reasons to complement the concept of age with that of generations, and integrate research from other disciplines, for example, sociology.

Age cohorts should not be confused with the very meaning of generations. The former does not really consider the societal conditions, while the latter emphasizes that different periods may imply different values, societal priorities, and critical collective experiences, for example, the Cold War, the 9/11 terror attacks, the Arab Spring, the emergence of the Internet and the behavioral traits that came with it, political change, and the economic climate, the latter particularly influential for those who came of age during a financial crisis. The crisis in 2009 hit Spain, Iceland, Greece, and the United States—and its house owners, in particular—heavily, while service-heavy metropolitan areas in many countries were largely unaffected. This underlines the heavy impact of cataclysmic events—and the uneven distribution of them among countries, industry sectors, and socioeconomic groups.

It has been suggested that the 90s Generation grew up with a fundamentally different set of values, since there was unbroken economic growth and the end of the Cold War changed the attitudes toward fear and wars (cf. Meredith & Schewe, 1994; Schewe & Meredith, 2004). The geopolitical patterns have undoubtedly changed in recent years.

The major body of research on age and generations has been done decades ago and, to a large extent, it has been done by sociologists. Majority of sociologists studying the concept of generations emphasize the dialectics between individuals and their behavior, and social structure (cf. Riley, 1982), thus mirroring society as the primary unit of analysis. Moreover, sociologists suggest that generation and age are different principles, the former having meaning in family and the latter in society as a whole (Kertzer, 1983). However, this varies with country and culture, and the muddling of the distinction between generation and age cohort causes confusion.

Sociologists generally recognize that age groups are a product of the interaction of biological and social factors, and the phenomenon of generations is seen as the biological rhythm of birth and death (Mannheim, 1952; O’Donnell, 1985). According to O’Donnell (1985), a generation in its broadest usage comprises all those members of a society “who were born approximately at the same time, whether or not they are related by blood” (p. 2). Mannheim (1952) distinguishes between location, to be located or coexisted with others of the same age, and generation as actuality, meaning individuals who share a community of experience and feeling.

According to Fry and Keith (1982), the number of age grades, the centrality of reproductive careers in determining the stage of life course, and the use of chronological age to allocate social positions vary within and between societies.

At least in Western societies, internationalization and globalization have fundamentally changed the patterns of life cycles, at least from a consumption perspective, and made them less restricted by country and culture (cf. Alden et al., 1999). In every country a multitude of consumption cultures emerge, and they may be shared by a particular generation, geographic location, political interest, or professional association. With our ambition to explore the dimension of generational cohort, it is crucial to keep in mind that factors other than generational belonging may be crucial in understanding the situation at hand.

Generation and Age—the Danger of Mixing Them Up

The generational cohorts’ perspective in this book means that age and generation cannot be mixed. They provide different results and are built on different logics. Age defined as chronological age, that is, date of birth, and generational cohorts diverge over time. In a UK study of the drinks market, the demographic profile of the respondents is provided. There are significant differences in terms of how different age groups consume beer, wine, and whisky. As much as 58 percent of the 18- to 24-year-olds drink beer, while only 7 percent drink whisky. Of those aged 50 or more, 30 percent drink beer, while 17 percent drink whisky. The key question with the perspective taken in this book is: Will individuals stay more or less with the same consumption patterns as they get older (indi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1 The 90s Generation
• 2 Introduction to Generational Studies
• 3 The 90s Generation and Society
• 4 The Market Environment
• 5 The Cultural Environment
• 6 The 90s Generation as Consumers and Coworkers
• Appendix: Methodological Considerations
• Notes
• References
• Index