Who are the Founders?

I stumbled across an article on American Marketing Association's website about how MTV decided to rename the Post-Millennial Generation to "the founders". In marketing, it is important to understand different demographic groups, paying particular attention to their generation. My age group is characterized as millennials, and the name has stuck. There are certain marketing tactics that work effectively depending on which generation of consumers you are trying to reach. This new name and understanding of the post-millennial generation may have an influence on marketing strategies in the future.

How did they decide on this name? MTV decided to have different qualitative focus groups to better understand what the post-millennials thought about their name. They noticed a theme within the responses, all relating to the idea that this generation is about "founding". They are considered to be an extremely diverse generation "founding" a whole new lifestyle and way of living. I thought it was funny when the article mentioned that the people in this generation "were born with an iPad in their hand". This is so true- I have younger cousins that were born in the 2000's and they could probably use an iPad better than me. When I was that age, I was concerned with finding outfits for my Barbies and American Girl dolls. This generation is obsessed with technology, because it's all that they know. They did now know a life without it, because they were born into the digital world we live in now. I'm grateful to have been a kid when it was normal to play outside after school, not sit on the couch playing games on an iPad.

The article said that this generation is "building a new society in the wake of disruption". This generation seems like it requires extremely different marketing tactics than other generations. It may be even more difficult to market to this cohort, because it is so diverse. I wonder if there are enough similarities within consumers to create effective marketing messages. The article mentioned that in order to effectively reach this generation, they need to use visual imagery. It also discussed how they live in a world offering extreme customization, more than ever before.The representative from MTV said that "they're going to expect a level of customization from marketers that I don't think we can imagine at this point.

It looks like marketers have a tough road ahead of them when trying to market to "the founders".