Generational Marketing Mistakes

Being as it’s about halfway through 2018, it seems that market researchers have suddenly become aware that the next generation is entering their adulthood.  They haven’t figured out what to call them yet (centennials, generation Z, iGen or whatnot) and there’s not a lot of agreement on when, exactly, the generation began (somewhere between 1990 and 2000, depending on what they’re trying to prove) … but apparently, they are understudied and there’s money to be made by being the first to market with a study that defines what this new generation is all about.   Even if it’s completely premature and wrong.

The same thing happened with the Millennial generation: studies came out describing their attitudes and habits when the generation itself was prepubescent and hadn’t had time to form attitudes and habits.  And sadly, the “findings” that were published in the early days tended to form a cognitive filter.  So the profile of the Millennial today – pushing forty, paying a mortgage, advancing in their career, and otherwise doing the “adulating” thing – has changed little from the time when they were teenagers still living at home and working part-time jobs.   

And though I would happily be proven wrong by time, I strongly suspect the same is happening with the market research on Generation Z: they are talking to teenagers about their spending and financial habits, about their tastes as consumers, about their attitudes toward the workplace – well before they have had any experience leading an adult life.   

I’d feel a bit less panicked about it if I were to see a present-day study of the Millennial generation – and better, to see it done by one of the experts who studied them prematurely, who admits to having jumped the gun and come to the wrong conclusion.  But sadly, these are the same “experts” who see the new opportunity in misrepresenting the next generation – to admit they were wrong in the past would be to discredit their present work.

And their clients are little better.   Rather than recognizing their folly and straightening themselves out, updating their research in order to better serve the Millennial market, they are simply moving along. They are writing off the last generation and pursuing the next, gearing up to make exactly the same mistake.  Lather, rinse, and repeat - and watch as history repeats.

Sleeping Watchdogs

It’s fairly well-known that older generations (Silent and Boomer) are more easily influenced by advertising than younger generations (X and Millennial).  The various explanations for this phenomenon, such as media saturation, rang hollow – but a chance conversation with a few members of the Silent Generation led me to better understand their relationship with advertising.  They believe the watchdogs are still awake.

More explicitly, when asked why they believed the claims of an advertiser, the response was invariably that “they wouldn’t let them advertise it if it weren’t true.”

When asked who “they” are, these watchdogs that would prevent advertisers from making false claims, their answers were the media and consumer protection agencies.

Older generations believe that the media is selective in accepting advertising: that when an advertiser buys a magazine or television ad, the publication or network reviews the advertisement and validates that the claims will be delivered upon.  They also believe that consumer protection agencies are proactive in doing the same – that there is some mechanism by which claims are tested and only those which are true are allowed to be communicated to the general public.

Perhaps this was true in the golden days of their youth – I cannot speak to the past – but in the present day, the notion that the media, consumer protection agencies, or anyone stands between a deceptive advertiser and the general public seems incredibly naïve.  

The media are paid by their advertisers, and will run almost any advertisement that anyone is willing to pay them to run.   The one exception is that if an advertisement would be offensive to their audience (by whatever standard), the medium realizes that it would do them financial harm (by causing member of their audience, whose attention they wish to sell to other advertisers, to tune out).   I am unaware of any instances in which a television channel, radio station, magazine, billboard rental, or any other medium was ever held accountable for the content of the advertising it helped to promulgate.

Consumer protection agencies, even those backed with government authority, are not proactive.   They do not have the mechanism to be proactive (there is no required review of an advertisement before it is published), nor do they have an interest.   In the same way that the police can only respond after a crime has been committed, so must the protection agencies wait until deception has occurred and damage has been done before they have any basis to take action – and even then, they bear the burden of proof that there was deception, and that any damage was a direct result, both of which are very difficult propositions.

In all, it is more a matter of faith than fact: the older generations rest on the assumption that the watchdogs are awake and that any advertising message that reaches them can be believed – so they do believe it.   Meanwhile the younger generations are skeptical of advertising and have no such assumptions, nor are they likely to become more trusting and gullible as they age.

And understanding this premise, it makes better sense why advertising is less effective with younger generations in the marketplace, and unless the watchdogs wake, it is doubtful that advertising will ever regain its credibility.