Generation Y a pain in the butts of marketers

We in Generation Y have been pain in the butts of marketers for almost 10 years.  Engaging Gen Y has been a topic of many classes, boardrooms, panel discussions and conferences that I’ve been a part of; what I’ve learned is that none of these traditional marketers seem to have the answer.

Gen Y is a crucial demographic for advertisers; we are the largest generation since the Boomers (roughly 70 million to the Boom’s 75 million).  We are also the first generation to put off starting families until later in life, and many of us move back in with family post-college, which means we have more disposable income than generations before us.

That’s Generation Y, 75 million people with disposable income and, as the first generation to have been born into a world of personal computers, Internet and cell phones, we have high levels of consumerism and media-savvy.

That’s the catch; we’ve been surrounded by media and advertisements since we were babies and therefore tend to distrust the media and are extremely skilled at blocking out anything we see as advertising.

The answer to the question of how to engage Generation Y is to engage with Generation Y.  Event marketing responds to Gen Y on a personal, organic level.  By putting our products in the hands of Gen Y, we let them make their own judgments and provide a path for 2-way communication.  Gen Y responds to experiential marketing because it is genuine in a way traditional marketing cannot be; it forces brands to open up and become vulnerable and transparent to the consumer.

Generation Y has been raised to be skeptical of corporate claims and demand as high of a standard of performance from their brands as they do of themselves.  Event marketing gives these brands a personality and weaves into Gen Y’s lives in ways that flows naturally, opposed to ‘interruption-based’ advertising such as TV spots during your favorite shows or ads in magazines.  Branded event sites draw attention and audience participation; they are a welcome addition to festivals, shopping malls and other venues that people attend for entertainment value.

Can you remember the last ad you read in a magazine, or even one ad from that publication?  Chances are you might not have taken it in, and it’s even less likely that ad convinced you to take any sort of action.  Now, think back to the last festival or concert you attended… if you interacted with an event site, I bet you can name that brand.  If you played a game of Song ID with a Verizon crew, won a phone or even walked away with a small giveaway, that experience resonates much stronger than flipping past an ad or fast-forwarding commercials on your DVR.

As traditional media and advertising continue to struggle and the 75 million tech-savvy Gen Y’ers become even more inundated with new products and technologies, there’s one thing that will never be outdated - the “wow” moment of experiencing a new product first-hand for the first time.  That’s what experiential marketing does and that’s why, as we say at Marketing Werks, “Experience Counts.”

1. Elsie Ayala said:

   Thank you for this post. I am currently working on a marketing plan for my internet marketing course. We are trying to figure out the best way to engage my generation and thanks to your post I now have some good ideas!