Gen Y: not easy to reach
Once upon a time, advertising your product was easy, if expensive. You hired an agency, rented some billboard space, bought some slots in newspapers and, if you could afford it, paid for two minutes on a commercial television channel. True, it was a hit-and-miss process, but you could be fairly confident that your audience would see your ad, even if they then decided to turn the page or switch off the tv.
It doesn’t work like that any more. Today’s 20-somethings – generally known as the Millennials, or Generation Y-ers – aren’t spending their coffee break poring over advertisements in newspapers, and when it comes to television, they regard the appearance of the ad break as an excuse to channel hop.
Generation Y prefer to spend their leisure time on the web, sending instant messages and joining Facebook groups, or on their phones, texting their friends. Which is why, according to this Texas newspaper story, car manufacturers are targetting Gen Y by using the tools that they themselves prefer. Mercedes Benz launched a social networking site, Generation Benz, offering advance pictures of new models, while BMW made some short videos for the web, featuring performers such as Madonna and James Brown.
So, how can your business reach Gen Y? They won’t come to you, so you need to go to them. Send texts. Set up Facebook groups. Create viral videos. But whatever you do, don’t assume it will be easy. As Alan Whitebread, a marketing professor quoted in the piece, says: “Gen Y is a very difficult group to understand. Gen Y probably splits into more subsegments than any other group.”
