Marketing to Gen Y

Too often marketers trying to reach the generation possessing over $150 billion a year in disposable income, according to a recent article by Joanna Krotz, use the same marketing techniques as if reaching a broad-based target market sharing similar characteristics. Marketers applying this to such a highly diversified generation as Gen Y will find they often haven't reached their target at all and may be watching their marketing budgets waste away on campaigns showing poor return and results. As we compile our research and prep our book "Y: Outside the Polls and Inside the Minds of the Millenials" for publishing the complexity of this generation continues to surface.

So where exactly do you begin? How can you distinguish between the different peer groups? What outlets do they use most for entertainment, sports, and news? While our book answers these questions and details the process step by step, including charts and spectrums with the separate groups within Gen Y, one factor remained consistent: focus groups. Before you even begin to brainstorm creative concepts you consider to be "hip", hear it from Gen Y, more specifically your target peer group. This is a generation loyal to values and influencers sharing and portraying those values, as well as a generation prone to anything shadowing the possibility of being an "advertisement".

Creating a successful campaign for reaching Gen Y cannot rely on gut instinct, yet research. Observe, conduct surveys and focus groups and find out what their true interests are. The more research the better. As True Life, the popular MTV program showing issues facing Gen Y, states, "You think you know, but you have no idea."