What Defines A Generation?

IN THIS ISSUE, contributing author Linda Lombri notes while innovation is key to successful marketing and product development, the real answer that brands, especially private-label brands, should seek during a time of crisis is how to reach your target audience. The experts Lombri interviews in her excellent article, which starts on page 10, encourage marketers and designers to leverage digital marketing tools to reach certain market segments—specifically, Generation Z. Sound advice, because as one of these experts, Perry Seelert, notes, Gen Z doesn’t know what “life was like before the Internet and smartphone” and “74% of them report they spend two hours or more a day on YouTube.”

The role of digital communications is changing for all of us, though. My birth date definitely doesn’t put me in Gen Z, but COVID-19 is also changing how I interact in business and with my family. When I see this shared experience, I can’t help but to think back to a post in late March by Seth Godin on his blog, seths.blog. Just weeks after President Trump declared COVID-19 a national emergency, Godin noted that the pandemic will create shared experiences that will cut across age ranges to define a new generation called Gen C.

If the pandemic has bonded consumers of all ages into Gen C, how are brands responding to this new market in both their design strategies and market research? Are you changing your market segmentation approach, or do you caution team members to exercise restraint when looking at the pandemic’s impacts to avoid a myopic view of your products’ and brand’s roles in your consumers’ lives?

Linda Casey
Editor-in-Chief
linda.casey@smartworkmedia.com