On the Subject of Generational Nonsense (Part 4)

Over the past three posts, I have unhesitatingly criticized the marketing community’s obsession with clumping people together under generational names and then holding forth about the supposed differences from other generations. This tends to cause marketers to overlook critically important commonalities between people across generational divides.

Ever since RCA research director Wendell Smith wrote an article about segmenting consumers for The Journal of Marketing in 1956, the marketing community has moved away from thinking about consumers in terms of “human universals”.

Smith argued that marketers should give up the shotgun approach that targeted everyone indiscriminately and replace it with a rifle shot approach that targeted defined groups of consumers. His logic had instant credibility. It triggered one of the greatest paradigm shifts in the history of marketing. The problem is, it led marketers to focus almost exclusively on consumers’ differences.

The late Bill Bernbach, one of advertising’s greatest minds ever, would understand why that was a flawed approach to marketing. In a posting I made September 15, 2005, I recalled a strategically significant thought of Bernbach’s:

“Human nature hasn’t changed for a million years. It won’t even change in the next million years. Only the superficial things have changed. It is fashionable to talk about the changing man. A communicator must be concerned with the unchanging man – what compulsions drive him, what instincts dominate his every action, even though his language too often camouflages what really motivates him.”

You can see the rest of that post together with comments it generated by clicking here.

Needs drive our behavior. Our need to be physically and mentally comfortable, whole, safe and secure does not change from one generation to the next. In Maslow’s hierarchy, that bundle of needs is the most basic of all needs. Then, our need for love and to be loved never changes from one generation to the next. The same holds true of our need for self-esteem and the esteem of others.

What does change from generation to generation are the ways in which we strive to meet our needs. Yet, even then we don’t operate without the influence of those who came before us. In fact, what to many is one of the most surprising facets of young people’s behavior today is that they are reflecting much stronger influence by older people than anyone can remember.

Adult development psychologists talk about how in the natural course of aging, in the second half of life people tend to become more others-centered, concerned about the meaning of their lives and generally inclined toward more spiritual behaviors (not necessarily rooted in an organized religion). Further, the older person tends to become more subjective in processing information from the external world and more comfortable with “going with the gut.”

Today, younger people are reflecting in varying degrees behavioral attributes long associated with the second half of life. And why should we be surprised at that. People 40 and older are now the adult majority by a huge number – 136 million to 86 million. So, why shouldn’t the sheer weight of the number of older people in our society be changing the zeitgeist?

Comments

[C. B. Whittemore]

David, wonderful and thought-provoking series on generational nonsense. I have just referred to it at http://flooringtheconsumer.blogspot.com.

[richard Royce]

David, I'm still and advid reader of your blog..and always find it of special interest. Keep up the good work..it's necessary for many people to learn this..

[David Wolfe]

Thank you, C.B. for your note which led me to your blog, which I subscribed to. I look forward to spending more time there. I'd also like to list you blog in my annotated listing. Please pick a category and give me a sentence describing your blog.

Thanks,

David

[David Wolfe]

And thank you, Richard for your kind comment. It spurs me on to try even harder!

David

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