Generational Marketing - Baby Boomers

Baby Boomers are the over-fifties. They have $2.3 trillion in annual spending power and control 50% of all discretionary income.


Baby Boomers respond to the youth culture and are against ageism expecting stylish products. This generation have more free time as they have no children left to raise and their careers are established and stable. A lot of over-fifties are taking an interest in new-age technology like Apple's iPad despite Apple focusing their advertising towards youths who have less disposable income.

Generational Marketing - Generation X

Generation X is adults who are in their thirties who are mainly independent and skeptical. They are establishing themselves as consumers who are starting to settle down, buying houses and starting families. Marketing to this generation most effectively is through Direct Mail because although this generation uses technology like the internet - according to a recent study conducted by InnoMediam NuStats and Vertis, 86% of Gen X bring in the mail the day it's delivered. Furthermore, 68% of Gen X retail direct mail readers have used coupons received in the mail. Gen X consumers rate 75% of the mail they receive as valuable (statistics taken from http://www.powerhomebiz.com/).

Generational Marketing - Generation Y

Generation Y is today's teens. It is hard to market to this group as they have become increasingly savvy and have little brand loyalty. They also don't have to rely on parents to make purchases on their behalf as the majority of them have part-time jobs. The generation has a cynical and practical view of the world which makes it hard for ad campaigns to efficiently hint at buying the product. PepsiCo attempted to earn Gen Y loyalty with it's Generation Next campaign that featured kids showing off branded trinkets, jackets and gym bags but the general consensis was that it was annoying and just one long "please, please buy me".


What HAS worked for Pepsi is their celebrity campaign which features celebrities from the Spice Girls to Britney Spears to Michael Jackson:

Marketing companies have caught on that the best way to advertise to teenagers is to keep up with their latest obsessions like Twilight and Lady GaGa and use this information to target their products at them.

Generational Marketing - Pester Power

Pester Power refers to the power children have of influencing their parents to buy items that are advertised by constant nagging. The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) have set up rules for advertising to children so that companies can't take advantage of children's inexperience or their sense of loyalty and natural credulity. Any expensive toys must show their price and cannot use words like "just" or "only" to minimise the cost.

Adverts must avoid anything that could encourage an unhealthy lifestyle, they should not directly ask children to buy or ask their parents to make any purchases and promotional offers should be offered responsibly - not targeted towards pre-school or primary school. Adverts must not condone any kind of abuse or bullying and must not imply child will be inferior without the product.

Generational Marketing - Tweens

Definition of Tween - a child between middle school and adolescence, usually around eight to twelve years old. Too old for toys - too young for boys.

Tweens are still dependent on their parents for money in the forms of gifts or allowances unlike teenagers with after-school jobs. They are a huge sector of the market and a $300 billion economic force with most of the attention focusing more on the female tweens. Tweens are too old for toys that are linked to children but still young enough for Barbie dolls and games that are specifically aimed at being used within a group like the Charm Girls Club Pyjama Party game on Nintendo Wii:

Tweens are now a well-established group and sites such as www.gifts.com have a specific category for tween girls and tween boys.

Group Conformity, Opinion Leaders and Peer Pressure

A group is made of up of two or more people who may share a set of views and norms. Two aspects that are important in group behaviour are compliane and conformity. Conformity entails the members of the group changing or developing their attitudes and views to match those of the other members of the group.

Solomon Asch led a number of experiments asking groups of students to participate in a vision test. In reality, all but one of the participants were confederates of the experimenter, and the study was really about how the remaining student would react to the confederates’ behavior. The method consisted of showing the group a picture of a line and asking them to compare the length to everyday objects, which line was longer than the other, which lines were the same length and how long the line was.

The students were asked to answer the questions aloud. The confederates always provided their answers before the study participant, and always gave the same answer as each other. They answered a few questions correctly but eventually began providing incorrect responses.Solomon Asch hypothesized that the majority of people would not conform to something obviously wrong. However, when surrounded by individuals all voicing an incorrect answer, participants provided incorrect responses on thirty-two per cent of the questions. Seventy-five percent of the participants gave an incorrect answer to at least one question.

An opinion leader is an individual whose ideas and behaviour serve as a model to others. This is useful in marketing as companies can use celebrities to boost sales - Cheryl Cole and L’Oreal work together to make women feel like if they use L’Oreal they can have hair like Cheryl. Opinion leaders influence attitudes and can change the behaviour of their followers.

Peer pressure refers to the influence and force exerted by a group in encouraging a person to change their behaviour, values or attitudes in order to conform with the group. This is present in bad habits such as smoking and drinking - people feel if they don’t do what everyone else is doing they will be deemed an outcast. Also effective in marketing with fashion trends and “it” products such as the iPhone or BlackBerry.

Values

Definition:  The ideals, customs, institutions etc of a society toward which the people of the group have an affective regard. These values may be positive such as cleanliness, freedom or education. Or these values may be negative such as cruelty, crime or blasphemy.

Kahle’s List of Values (LOV) consists of nine items:

• Self respect
• Excitement
• Self fulfilment
• Being well respected
• Sense of accomplishment
• Warm relationship with others
• Security
• Fun and enjoyment
• Sense of belonging

Buying certain products can help one achieve these end-states such as certain brands of clothing can help with the sense of belonging, a certain car can help with the sense of accomplishment and concert tickets can aid fun and enjoyment.

Values change over time which is shown using marriage as an example. In the fifties a good housewife would be one that would be willing to bend over backward to please her husband - it was a very submissive role. However these days it’s more equal and mostly the husband trying to forever please his wife.
A technique called Laddering can help to identify the link between desired end states and functional product atrributes. The key to finding out the terminal value of a person is to keep asking the question “why?”. For example: Mints -> Strong taste -> Solves bad breath -> Able to talk to people -> SELF ESTEEM. The terminal value is the person’s self esteem.

Key events that have occurred during someone’s life can make an impact on them, this is a timeline of an eighteen year old’s life from 1992-present.

1. Croatian War of Independence (1991-1995)
2. Jurassic Park was made (1993), Pablo Escobar shot down in Columbia (1993)
3. Civil War in Rwanda (1994), existance of black holes proved (1994), Channel Tunnel opens (1994), Comet hits Jupiter (1994), start of the OJ Simpson murder case (1994), TV show Friends was released (1994)
4. First planet outside our solar system found (1995), Windows 95 released (1995), James Bond returns to cinemas (1995)
5. OJ Simpson trial begins (1996), Princess Diana and Prince Charles divorce (1996), Nintendo 64 released (1996), cloned sheep Dolly created (1996), JonBenet Ramsey murder (1996), Dunblane Massacre (1996)
6. Hong Kong’s independence (1997), Mars Pathfinder lands on Mars (1997), funeral of Princess Diana (1997), Comet Hale-Bopp first spotted (1997), Tony Blair elected (1997), Titanic the movie opened (1997), Harry Potter published (1997), Mother Theresa dies (1997), Pokemon introduced (1997)
7. Peace in Northern Ireland (1998), Geri Halliwell leaves the Spice Girls (1998)
8. Columbine Tragedy (1999), NASA loses two Mars-bound space probes (1999), first non-stop world trip in a balloon (1999), Y2K scare (1999), creation of the Euro (1999), Extremist bombings in England by neo-Nazi group White Wolves (1999)
9. Dr Harold Shipman found guilty of murdering fifteen patients (2000), the ILOVEYOU computer virus spreads worldwide (2000)
10. Apple release iTunes (2001), Wikipedia goes online (2001), car bomb explodes in front of BBC television centre in London (2001), Mars Odyssey is launched (2001), total solar eclipse (2001), London Stock Exchange goes public (2001), 9/11 (2001), anthrax attacks (2001), Bush declares a ‘War on Terror’ (2001), Apple releases the iPod (2001), Windows XP available (2001)
11. Wall Street Journal reporter kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan (2002), funeral of the Queen Mother (2002), the Mars Odyssey discovers presence of water on Mars (2002)
12. London Congestion Charge scheme begins (2003), global protests against Iraq war (2003), SARS virus (2003)
13. Facebook was founded (2004), Hurricane Ivan (2004), Boxing Day Tsunami disaster (2004)
14. Pope John Paul ll dies (2005), scientists announce they have created mice with small amounts of human brain cells in an effort to make realistic models of neurological disorders (2005), Hurricane Katrina (2005)
15. Scotland ban smoking in public places (2006), UK Terrorism Act becomes law (2006), toiletries banned from commercial airplanes (2006), Saddam Hussein sentenced to death (2006)
16. Final book of the Harry Potter series released (2007)
17. The price of petroleum hits $100 per barrel (2008), Northern Rock in financial crisis (2008), Fidel Castro resigns as President of Cuba (2008), Global financial crisis (2008)
18. Swine Flu pandemic sweeps the world (2009), death of Michael Jackson (2009)
19. Chili miner incident (2010), earthquake in Haiti (2010).

Upon taking the VALS survey (http://www.sric-bi.com/VALS/presurvey.shtml) the results could not be shown although the survey was repetitive in a lot of it’s questions. It also had a few questions about religion and religion in schools which is a touchy subject for most and a lot of questions about fashion trends.

Values in marketing differ for companies. Companies such as Cadbury's and Costa use Fair Trade in their marketing campaign to reach more ethical people whereas companies such as Marlboro or any cigarette companies tend to be viewed as highly unethical. Back in the day, Camel (a cigarette company) used celebrities as spokepersons in their adverts:

However this backfired when Camel smokers died due to their habit:

Camel went for a new campaign in the 80s and introduced Joe the camel, a smooth character.

This campaign was accused of directing cigarettes at children so had to be scrapped. Nowadays cigarette companies have been banned from advertising as they are seen as unethical and the values in society have changed. Smoking is no longer socially acceptable and considered cool.
The latest trend in advertising is all about the brand image of the company being ethical - Cadbury's:

People have higher values now than they did a decade ago and this has to be reflected in advertising in order for the product to sell.