Generation X And Y.

Generation X and Millennium Generation

Travel through time is one of the most enigmatic, imaginative, and scientifically daring concepts that had occupied the minds of many people centuries ago and will continue into the future. Nonetheless, not employing any time-machine contraptions, modern archeologists and paleontologists are traveling back in time more than anybody else. They examine the rich iridium layer in Wyoming’s clay deposits and take exploratory tours back to early Cretaceous period. Why? Scientists search for the proof that dinosaurs’ extinction 65 million years ago was caused by a cataclysmic collision of a large extraterrestrial object with the Earth (What Killed The Dinosaurs, 2007). The hypothesis is still publicly debated, and even the scientific world at large is full of non-believers. Luckily, the controversy has not harmed the study of mass extinction causation, but rather has made it a dynamic and interesting area.

The reader would rightfully wonder: what does this scientific hypothesis have to do with Generation X (Gen X), Generation Millennium (Millenniums), and marketing? The author of this paper offers the answer in sociocultural, generational cohorts’ trend comparisonвЂ"in yet another hypothesis that might not be too far from the plausible truth. As Homo sapiens of today anxiously try to unearth the secrets of previous civilizations through tireless archeological, astro-biological, forensic DNA, and other scientific endeavors, the future generations of marketers would likely peel the history’s onion uncovering socioeconomic, psychological, and sub-cultural structures to re-discover marketing trends of modern times. Just as modern paleontologists dig through the layers of Wyoming clay, or enologists associate specific characteristics of вЂ?terroir’ accentuated in single-varietal wines, marketing professionals of the distant future will try to describe the social and economic forces’ affects on marketing in the 21st century.

How would they conduct their research? What would they deduce from artifacts found in knowledge layers of human history? Which of the two generationsвЂ"X or MillenniumвЂ" would consume their imagination, guide their inspiration, and influence the sociocultural beliefs? What is important to Millennium Generation? The author of this paper will answer these and many other questions in the following sections. Even though the paper will depart from a typical third-person, APA-required format of story-telling, the author hopes the style deviation will be redeemed by engaging and inspired research. The story is told through the open letter written by the University of Phoenix, MBA570 class of 2061 to both generational cohorts.

Letter from the FutureвЂ"To Gen X and Millenniums

Hello dear Gen X and Millenniums. We are the Generation 21-3, MBA marketing students. Unlike in your 20th century, when marketers followed socio-economic cycles while stamping different names on consecutive generations, we systemized everything. For example, the name of our generation stems from the third quartile of the 21st century. We were tasked by our professor to analyze, compare, and interpret attributes and marketing processes of your generations. We conducted our research based on everything we could put our hands onвЂ"from the university library records to free press archives 1990-2007. Hence, we enclose our findings, and we hope that they accurately depict your times.

Gen XвЂ"Traits and Attitudes. Even though we found discrepancies in records for Gen X’s timeframe estimationвЂ"Kerin (2005) insisted on 1965-1976вЂ", our research gives preference that Gen X’ers occupied the birth period from 1961 to 1981 (Campbell-Bruneau, 2003). Nonetheless, we asked ourselves a question:--How this organizational cohort was represented by social, psychological, and economic attributes in the global consumer environment?

Approximately 20 million strongвЂ"15% of the total population at the timeвЂ", and worth $125 billion in cumulative spending power (year 2000 dollars), you were the successors and children of exuberant and unique вЂ?Woodstock’ generation of the Baby Boomers (The Boomers), who were born between 1946 and 1964 (Kerin, 2006). Our insistent secondary research into solving the enigma of the Gen X’s social attitudes uncovered stronger than Boomers’ family orientation which manifested in subtle detailsвЂ"phoning home hourly from mobile phones or daily (Campbell-Bruneau, 2003). You were also rebellious individualists, skeptics, and critical of everything cohort. Additionally, and in our view controversially, Gen X displayed the traits such as brand and job disloyalty, lack of self-confidence, and nihilism.

To put it into prospective, while some Boomers were entering their wisdom age at 50-60 in 2007, their children (Gen X) were between the ages of 26 and 45.

As the Baby Boom cohort was followed by Gen X, we had learned that your group was known as the “baby bust” (Kerin, 2006) because the number of children born each year was declining. You were the generation of consumers who were self-reliant, entrepreneurial, supportive of racial and ethnic diversity, and better educated than any previous generation (Kerin, 2006). You were not prone to extravagance and likely to pursue lifestyles that were a blend of caution, pragmatism, and traditionalism (Campbell-Bruneau, 2003). For example, we had learned that Gen X was saving, planning for retirement, and taking advantage of this strange, rigid, and almost forceful 401K plans much earlier than your parents. As Boomers moved into grandparenthood, Gen X was becoming the new parent market. In response, some brands that Gen X’ers helped popularize were expanding their offerings. For instance, during our 2060s “20th Century”-themed fun parties, sometimes we dress our children into these antique, quaint 1990s uniforms as homage to Tommy Hilfiger and Donna Karan New York (DKNY). What a trip that is for some grand-grandparents!

Products and Businesses For and From Gen X. As the 78 million Boomers (your parents) have aged, their participation in the workforce and their earnings had increased, making them an important consumer market. Kerin (2006) estimated that this group accounted for 56-58% of the purchases in most consumer products and service categories. Boomers’ interests were reflecting concern for their children (Gen X) and grandchildren (Millenniums), their own health, and their retirement, and marketers needed to position products to respond to