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It made sense 50 years ago to market to entire generations as if they were one persona. It was a way for companies to understand consumers when there was little else to go on.<\/p>\n
But does this approach still work today?<\/p>\n
In the 1960s, marketers needed to reach the large cohort of post-war consumers entering adulthood (and peak spending years). Et voil\u00e0<\/em>, the idea of the Baby Boomer generation<\/a> was born. The conventional wisdom was that the entire cohort had lived through similar experiences that shaped their values and spending patterns similarly.<\/p>\n It was largely true at the time, but a lot has changed since then. Technological progress was impressive, but it didn’t happen at today\u2019s pace, and change took longer to propagate through the consumer world.<\/p>\n We also have a lot more tools now, giving us more granular views of consumers: behavioral segmentations, psychological profiling, CRM databases, hyper-personalization<\/a>, and algorithms.<\/p>\n All this considered, it just doesn\u2019t make sense to pack consumers into cohorts built around 15- to 25-year birth ranges. Especially given the way AI is transforming how we interact with the world every few months.<\/p>\n Consider a Gen Z consumer who was in their mid-to-late teens from 2020 to 2022. They were gearing up to make connections, start driving, establish<\/a> an identity independent from their family, and clarify their place in the world. COVID-19 completely upended that formative period. Their worldview, perhaps characterized by anger or resentment, might be wildly different than that of a younger sibling just finishing elementary school\u2014and for whom the extended time at home with their parents was comforting and reassuring.<\/p>\n Both siblings are part of the same generation but likely have very different worldviews\u2014each part of a different micro-generation.<\/p>\n They <\/em>know they\u2019re wildly different from each other. And marketers are finally catching on. We\u2019re already seeing a lot of new labels as market researchers find ways to get more granular: Geriatric millennials, Xennials, Zillennials<\/a>, Generation Alphas, Zalphas<\/a>, Generation Jones, the digital generation, the pandemic generation\u2014and that cohort that came of age between 2020-2022 that I like to call Covidians, shaped by a lockdown and a lack of human-to-human interaction, right when they needed it the most.<\/p>\n These micro-generations are an attempt to drill down into the decades that define individuals, because culture, technology, trends\u2014and people<\/em>\u2014change too quickly for their existence to be represented by a decades-long generation<\/strong>.<\/p>\n One way we can better understand individual consumers is to examine their lived experiences\u2014including the cultural, social<\/a>, and economic factors that affect them.<\/p>\n Millennials, some entering the workforce before the 2008 financial crisis, some after, faced very different situations. Some began and maintained successful career momentum; others lived with their parents until they were 30. Giving the credit or blame for these behaviors to being born between 1981 and 1996 doesn\u2019t make sense.<\/p>\n Harvard professor Louis Menand calls this approach \u201castrology<\/a>,\u201d saying, \u201cYou are ascribing to birth dates what is really the result of changing conditions.\u201d He also denies that there is a shared cultural identity driving behavior; it has more to do with real-world factors, like business cycles. The point being, members of generations aren\u2019t all the same. This is true economically, culturally<\/a>, and politically. There are vast splits in worldviews even among groups that we sometimes imagine to be homogeneous.<\/p>\n You can see this in Generation Z Ivy League college students, for example, who found themselves bifurcated<\/a> and even radicalized by their experiences in the pandemic: In the spring of 2024, Trump trailed Biden by 26 points among 25- to 29-year-olds\u2014but by only 14 points among 18- to 24-year-olds, according to the Harvard Youth Poll. Being just a handful of years apart meant these students had, on average, very different worldviews and priorities.<\/p>\n The takeaway? They\u2019re called \u201cZoomers\u201d for a reason\u2014they’re moving and differentiating fast<\/em>. Just a few years can make a huge difference in how Gen Z perceives and reacts to their world; missing the mark with your messaging can get you called \u201ccringe\u201d\u2014a hard label to lose.<\/p>\n Consider: the number of households with personal computers only broke 50% about 25 years ago<\/a>\u2014decades <\/em>after the PC was<\/a> invented. But it only took about five years<\/a> for smartphones to cross the same threshold. Technology is evolving more quickly, and it\u2019s being adopted more rapidly. This results in faster, more frequent changes to how tech affects each emerging cohort of users\u2014and how these users, through the adoption of feedback loops, can shape technology\u2019s use cases as they emerge.<\/p>\n In the wake of this rapid change, adjacent generations find themselves positioned very differently within the tech landscape. Some are PC-native while others are born with smartphones in their hands. The nascent Generation Beta is being born into the world of AI, while the rest of us are figuring out how to adapt to it.<\/p>\n The challenge for marketers, innovators, designers<\/a>, and market researchers is to realign their segmentation approach, moving from 20-year generational cohorts to smaller, more targeted micro-generations of three, five, or seven years. This would better align with the pace of these consumers\u2019<\/a> lived experiences\u2014and serve as a more useful marker for developing messaging, products, and experiences that speak to these micro-generations. It\u2019s how we’ll avoid becoming \u201ccringe.\u201d<\/p>\n Consumers are already demanding this of marketers: precise, timely messages and products that speak to them, in the moment, by understanding the zeitgeist and the exact needs of their micro-generation.<\/p>\n Covidians who came of age from 2020 to 2022 represent a unique challenge and opportunity for marketers in this increasingly fragmented, fast-moving world.<\/p>\nSAME GENERATION, DIFFERENT EXPERIENCE<\/strong><\/h2>\n
A FEW YEARS, A BIG DIFFERENCE<\/strong><\/h2>\n
THE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY<\/strong><\/h2>\n
THE CHALLENGE<\/strong><\/h2>\n