Question

Topic: Customer Behavior

How Do Brands Market To The Tech Savvy Gen Y Well?

Posted by Carl on 2/19/2014 at 5:52 AM ET 250 Points
I am a Gen Y and i am wanting to know what brands are doing now to target our generation. I found a blog that had some good point and was wondering if they were correct or not. Can brands afford to miss out on not advertising to us correctly? https://www.thesharpagency.co.uk/blog/marketing-to-gen-y-from-the-horses-mo...
To continue reading this question and the solution, sign up ... it's free!
SUBSCRIBE
Or, SIGN IN

RESPONSES

  • Posted by mgoodman on 2/19/2014 at 12:44 PM Moderator
    There are thousands (or millions) of brands and categories/segments. Asking "what brands are doing now" is like asking about what women are doing, or what students want -- so open-ended as to be meaningless.

    By the way, not all Gen Y consumers are the same either. They live in different places, have different goals, enjoy different things, etc. So it's only logical that different brands appeal to Gen Ys in different ways. Some brands may not even be targeting Gen Y consumers.

    If you can be more specific, and/or tell us what you would do with our responses, we can certainly offer opinions and examples.
  • Posted by mgoodman on 2/19/2014 at 1:09 PM Moderator
    FWIW, the advice you give (in the blog post) for how to get the attention of Gen Y consumers is exactly the same advice you would give for effectively communicating with ANY consumer:

    - Be more relevant with [your] advertising campaigns
    - Listen to us
    - Actually care about our needs and concerns
    - Talk to us as an individual not as a stereotype
    - Understand that we love to shout about brands both positively and negatively.

    What am I missing here? How is this unique to Gen Y?
  • Posted by mgoodman on 2/19/2014 at 1:24 PM Moderator
    Strange. You say you "found a blog that had some good point [sic] and was wondering if they were correct or not." But it looks like you wrote the blog post yourself. What's going on? Is this an [amateurish] attempt at self-promotion?

  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 2/19/2014 at 1:59 PM Member
    The message varies but the strategy is universal.
  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 2/19/2014 at 7:32 PM Member
    "Can brands afford to miss out on not advertising to us correctly?" Sadly, your generation is no different than any other generation, so there's little really that needs to be different in terms of an approach that any specific brand may be moved toward. Talk about the variations in tech savviness of one generation over another is as divisive as it is meaningless. It's the story lines, messages, and emotional anchors that matter, not the wrappers they're delivered in.
  • Posted by Moriarty on 2/20/2014 at 3:49 PM Accepted
    I agree with what Gary says about messages and storylines - but I do not agree with him about tech-savviness. I remember all too well just how hard it was for me to grasp the Video recorder (if you know what one of those might be). Yet my Tom pressed a few buttons and had the thing humming at the right time, doing the right things - and he hadn't even looked at the manual.

    More to the point is that whatever storyline you do use it needs to have a lead-in that they will connect with. This is where the understanding of their individual culture comes into play (a bit like advertising in NL or Germany needs slightly different lead-ins) - but the general message will be pretty well the same.
BACK TO TOP

Post a Comment

Related Discussions

Community Info

Top 25 Experts
(Customer Behavior)