Scientist Yarrow brings her marketing and psychology expertise into the field of retail and reporter O'Donnell nicely wrote it down in this book. The promise is that by 2017 Generation Y (born between 1978 and 2000) will have overtaken the baby boomers in numbers and income. Yarrow and O'Donnell name this generation Tweens, Teens and Twenty-Somethings.
People that were born between 1978 and 2000 are:
- more confident consumers demanding authenticity;
- more skeptical about business demanding transparancy;
- more willing to use technology to find bargains;
- more open about their standards and communities; and surprisingly
- more eager to buy from products, brands and retailers they trust.
Marketers are advised to set up collaborations and partnerships between consumers, brands and retailers. Now here's the part where it gets interesting: the part about revolutionizing. It appears this generation consumes and processes information differently. It must be from playing all those video games, using the internet and being overwhelmed with visual resources and peer reviews. That's why these kids are KGOL (Kids Getting Older Later)! Or was it KGOY (... Younger)?
Working in retail? Then you might want to remember these three statements.
- This generation expects state-of-the-art technology in stores, on their websites and it has to be both mobile and interactive.
- This generation shops more and more in online stores and expects shipping to preferably be free and overnight.
- This generation can be reached through social networking; it's their number one portal for communication.
