Analysis of the Problem of Marketing to Generation Y Consumers
Cohort marketing is an important approach for ensuring relevance of content and consumer driven priorities when designing a product. Generation Y (born between the 1980s and mid 1990s) has been the subject of intense but inconclusive research. Key issues that highlight inconclusiveness include the mode of communication and how the generation interprets messages, socialization and values (Venter, 2017; Williams and Page, 2011). With these issues still unclearly addressed in existing literature, this proposed study will undertake to fulfil two aims:
1. To determine if a cohort-based subculture of generation Y is existent.
2. Undertake in-depth analysis of the factors underlying the observed patterns as a subculture.
Developing a clear understanding of the cultural factors that make the generation under focus display identifying characteristics could form the basis for better, focused, and knowledgeable marketing campaigns driven by real historical and socio-cultural forces. It is important to underscore that generation Y is the first to experience a serious wave of social networking driven by increased communication fora such as mobile phones and social networking (Venter, 2017). Venter further explains that in understanding generation Y, it is impossible to ignore the generational endowment derived from social networking. In undertaking the upcoming research, this endowment will be investigated for its ability to build a cohort-based subculture, which is at the heart of the research.
Available Information on Marketing to Generation Y Consumers
Varied information regarding generation Y has been documented in research. Venter (2017) avers that a lot of research on generation Y is focused on their use of social media. Perhaps this is the generation’s major defining factor, but it also provides a basis for interrogating their behaviours. While Venter’s (2017) study was primarily concerned about the nature of communication between a generation (baby boomers) that cherishes face-to-face communication and the more virtual-oriented generation Y, it highlights the expressionless form of communication that marks digital communication as a feature of the latter generation. According to Venter (2017), this form of generalized approach towards normal digitalized communication can been transferred to develop an understanding of many other relational needs. This observation by Venter can be explained using the generational cohorts theory (GCT). “Generational cohorts within populations coalesce around shared experiences or events interpreted through a common lens based on life stage” (Bolton et al, 2013, p. 247). Bolton et al. (2013) further observed that such cohorts defy socioeconomic stratifications. The phenomena that defines their shared culture is overwhelmingly defiant of the social and economic setups that define the population. Furthermore, according to the GCT, such defining characteristics develop into common traits for an entire generation regardless of its location, particularly in the present times of global networking (Ordun, 2015; Bolton et al, 2013).