Millennials: A segment filled with trends and counter-trends

Observation:   Many demographers and trend watchers—me included—have long-held that Baby Boomers are a group too large and diverse to be stereotyped into a single behavioral group.  Likewise, a story in today’s Marketing Daily suggests that there are up to six distinguishable cohorts with the generation we refer to as Millennials.  The article is based on a study by the Boston Consulting Group, and you can click here to see the story.

Implications:   When talking about advertising, some companies will identify their target as Women, Adults 25-54, or some other such over-generalization.  Even narrowing the concept to Boomers, Millennials or another life stage might be too broad.  Often, consumers are defined by a passion, a values system or other criteria.  Putting everyone into a single target group because of the year they were born, exclusively, might not be the best approach.  Age might be coincidental to a group, but it may not always be incidental to a purchase.

What else can you know about the heavy users of the products and services you sell?  Beyond gender, age, or life stage… what matters to them?  What are they worried about?  What gratification would they like to enjoy or what problem would they like to solve through the purchase of what you sell?  Answer those questions, and age will soon become less important. 

Mike Anderson, for the Elm Street Economics consumer trends blog. A service of The Center for Sales Strategy, Inc.