At some point in time, we\u00a0decided to begin branding arbitrary age cohorts (and ranges!) with labels.\u00a0Baby Boomers\u00a0(18 year cohort) are people born between 1946 \u2013\u00a01964, giving an age range between 51 and 70 as of 2016.\u00a0Millennials\u00a0(23 year cohort) are people born between 1981-2004, giving an age range of\u00a012-35. Not to mention the fact that not everyone can even agree on these unstandardized, randomly assigned dates (if you Google these terms you\u2019ll see plenty of inconsistency).<\/p>\n
And with this, the cottage industry of pandering to, making fun of and putting humans in (useless) segments\u00a0based on year they were born began.<\/p>\n
Authors write books \u201cexplaining\u201d generations. And it\u2019s just so cringeworthy. It\u2019s either a marketer or media analyst awkwardly explaining passing fads of young people (see\u00a0this one\u00a0describing millennials, which includes the word selfie of course). Almost universally\u00a0these regurgitate faux trends perpetuated\u00a0by other media. Or perhaps even worse, someone from the generation writes a book\u00a0thinking they have blinding insights to share from their limited years on the planet interacting with their small group of friends and\u00a0amateurish sociological take based on a few hours of online research.<\/p>\n
Bloggers and media write stories about millennials \/ trend pieces because they know humans are narcissistic and enjoy reading about themselves, or to create fear in others (hey old people, if you don\u2019t read our story about millennials your brand is going to miss out on the latest trend). Or even obnoxious generational bashing which of course is a mature and adult way to conduct reporting, for example\u00a0this story\u00a0in the Washington Post leads with:<\/p>\n
Dina ElBoghdady and I wrote this morning about how Millennials, the largest and most diverse generation in U.S. history, are poised to impact the housing market \u2014 if, that is, they\u2019d all finally move out of their parents\u2019 homes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Because all 20 and 30-somethings live at home with their parents right? Wait, even their data referenced later in that\u00a0story shows how few millennials actually live with their parents anymore (especially after 25 when it drops to below 20%). But easier to say everyone is the same because that\u2019s the narrative. But what is the reality?<\/p>\n
A ~20 year ago cohort is too large to mean anything.<\/strong><\/p>\n
A generation of marketers totally out of their element and journalists being told to write stories on buzzwords are the ones driving this arbitrary breakdown of our culture and world. But there\u2019s no reason for it and it should be actively questioned (and in my opinion, thrown out).<\/p>\n
Social trends now\u00a0move so fast single moments of significance are less defining, even at the time seemingly\u00a0important ones. Analysis of millennials for any sort of shared preference will\u00a0of course appear\u00a0accurate if you brand it with attributes that you could generalize to any humans.\u00a0But in reality marketing to millennials\u00a0is\u00a0the marketing equivalent of describing someone via their astrological sign.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Psychographics show far more in common than year born \/\u00a0aging demographic breakdown of age range (this is old school thinking). Look, if you can target by not just arbitrary age range as defined by buzzword (who cares really) but by people who live in a certain area, are married and are interested in weight lifting and tropical fish you\u2019d have to be either moronic or lazy to think stepping back and targeting a random 20 year cohort is a good idea.<\/p>\n
Facebook\u2019s ad targeting shows how absurd\u00a0it now is to break\u00a0up the world by age range:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As for marketing to specific age ranges? Sure, there are some product categories with immutable market segments for a certain demographic. But labels aren\u2019t required to market to these groups effectively. Like,\u00a0arthritis meds you\u2019d probably always want to target people\u00a0ages of between 30 and 60, the average onset of RA\u00a0According to the Arthritis Foundation. But if you are just a brand saying \u201cwe need to target millennials\u201d for some reason I can guarantee if you drill down on the \u201cwhy\u201d you don\u2019t actually need to reach a buzzword\u00a0age range to accomplish what you need.<\/p>\n
In fact, I would go as far as to\u00a0bet against any company or startup that has in their pitch deck they are \u201cgoing after millennials\u201d because they are building a business based on a buzzword, not something that matters. The world simply\u00a0isn\u2019t broken down this way anymore, there are far too many interest categories now, passions we work on in our free time, types of products we\u2019re interested in.<\/p>\n
Or, as\u00a0my friend Lucas summarizes quite\u00a0nicely:<\/p>\n
Does it really make sense to speak in absolutes about a demographic that makes up 20% of the\u00a0total<\/b>\u00a0population of the United States? I calculated this percentage using data from the most recent census, via census.gov. If you disagree with my math and can prove it, email me at info@officemalarkey.com and I\u2019ll buy you a cheeseburger.<\/p>\n
Common sense would normally indicate that drawing conclusions about such a loosely defined group of folks is at best \u201cpushing it,\u201d and at worst completely ludicrous. There\u2019s simply no way to make an accurate, universally applicable statement about that many people based solely on a 20ish-year age range.<\/p>\n
\u2026I don\u2019t think this lazy habit of over-generalization comes from a desire to marginalize millennials, but I do believe it\u2019s a broader way people use to try and make sense of a technology-driven world. In most analyses of millennials, the way technology shapes and controls their environment is key to understanding whatever point is being made about them. This overused, way-too-broad categorization provides\u00a0a way to add a human layer to the discussion around those who have been born into a world where technology and the internet automate our existence. Millennial is simply a conduit for a larger discussion on technology and society, but that doesn\u2019t make you sound like any less of a clueless jabroni when you use the term without adding further qualifiers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
For your moment of Zen: I\u2019ve been ranting on how useless the buzzword \u2018millennials\u2019 is for some time now. Enjoy scrolling through 100s of my Tweets on this subject\u00a0here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At some point in time, we\u00a0decided to begin branding arbitrary age cohorts (and ranges!) with labels.\u00a0Baby Boomers\u00a0(18 year cohort) are … <\/p>\n