“We’re not only Gen Y, we’re Gen Y-Fi. Born and raised as both consumers and creators of media, we are more mobile and more global than ever. We know we can work from anywhere as long as we’re online.” Read on

Great post by Sarah Perez.  She really nails it.  And…as I said on my comment back…Gen Y wants what we all want.    The difference is that Gen Y is the first generation to have the guts to stand up and say what they want (to live more and work less, to be choosy about who they listen to)  and how they want to live life, and this will change the web and the way we live and work.  The rest of us just sit around and sulk because we don’t get what we want, because we are afraid to ask for it.  So…more power to Gen Y!

We have been saying that Gen Y buys based on what their friends tell them to do. Greg Rollett, one of the bloggers for BrazenCareerist.com spells this out nicely in this post.

Person Greg Rollett

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“Dove’s “real beauties” may not be so real after all, at least by the account of a renowned airbrush artist.”

Read the full article here

Here is my take on how Jones Soda can teach us a few things about how to attract millennials:

Jones Soda Provides Quirky Insight Into Attracting Gen Y

From my blog on ERE.net

Looks like this is last call for high school and college yearbooks. With the popularity of Facebooks and MySpace, there is little need for year books. While some traditionalists might be sad about this and might be trying to hold onto the Yearbook ritual, the reality is that today’s Y gen, doesn’t need it anymore. Yearbooks are great, but they don’t have the depth, the breath and the history of the web. Some folks worry about the web or those Gen Y websites disappearing. But hey, people survived with cassettes disappeared, right? Anyway, lets have a moment of silence for all the YearBooks out there. This might be the last year new ones are produced.

Simmons Research, an Experian company, has chronicled the predilections of consumers in its National Consumer Study since 1960, and recently added social media to its survey. That includes social-networking sites, blogs, message boards, podcasts and e-mail. Simmons agreed to slice and dice its volumes of data for Advertising Age to identify social-media consumer profiles. The first five are from its bank of 38 consumer personalities; the others are pulled from demographic data.

SOCIALLY ISOLATED

These people are generally unhappy with their lives and feel alone. Not surprisingly, they fall at average or below average for e-mailing. But that doesn’t mean they eschew social media. In fact, they’re 12% more likely than the average person to use blogs, message boards or social-networking sites. They also post comments on blogs at least twice a month; personal, music, consumer-product and video-game blogs are most visited.

APPROVAL SEEKERS

This group buys what others are buying and likes to follow styles and trends. They use social-networking sites to meet like-minded people, express their views, get music and entertainment recommendations, and keep in touch with family and friends. They rate average in e-mailing friends and co-workers but above average in using e-mail to communicate with their parents. They are 23% more likely to instant message and download music.

HEALTH AND IMAGE LEADERS

This is eager to try health and wellness products, experiment with diets, and spend to look younger. The majority are under 50. They prefer reading blogs over posting comments or creating their own blogs and prefer to read about TV shows, video games, music and art/literature. They also like social-networking sites: More than one-fifth visit them more than twice a month.

SMART GREEN

Clearly they prefer to buy products in recycled packages and eschew products that pollute. They are average users of social networking, blogging and podcasting but slightly above average in message boards. They are older (50-plus) and are most likely to go online for health or financial information. And in the spirit of their eco-friendly attitude toward trees, they’re 23% more likely to send electronic greeting cards.

BRAND-LOYAL

This group shies away from buying unknown brands just for a bargain and prefers to buy brand-name goods. They’re very average social-media users, but some subjects of interest drive them to social media more than the average person: They’re 21% more likely to read environmental blogs and 22% more likely to use professional-networking sites to make new contacts.

STAY-AT-HOME MOMS

They’re 25 to 49 and have at least one child living at home. They use social media for a variety of reasons, including staying in touch and parental guidance. They visit parenting blogs five times more often than average. They’re also active on social networks, blogs and chat forums but tend to stay away from podcasting. They visit blogs once or more a week and create their own blogs at a higher than average rate.

UPSCALE GRAYS

These 50-plus consumers with college degrees and household incomes of more than $100,000 are low-level social-media users. They are almost 40% less likely than the average person to have read blogs, visited chat forums or instant messaged and 70% less likely to have visited a social network in the past month. One of the only places they skewed higher than average were professional networking sites.

FIRST-TIME HOME BUYERS

It makes sense that people in the market for a home would look online for information about not only real estate but other products involved in home ownership. But Experian found that this under-35 set also includes very active social networkers, bloggers and message-board users. They also rank high in texting, podcasting and business networking. They use social networks to keep in touch but also to find information.

DIVORCED

Unsurprisingly, both sexes index high for dating sites, but women are more likely to visit social networks than men. Divorced women are also 20% more likely to buy something online, while men are 52% more likely to visit sports sites. Neither is into blogs or chat forums, but women communicate more than average via text message, while men use e-mail 45% more than average to communicate with their children.

I had a very nice e-mail today from Briel Zagarow. He is the Communications Manager for Mr. Youth, and he passed along a link to a great white paper that every marketer needs to know about.

The white paper, titled Consumer 2.0, discusses the effects technology and other marketing advances have had on consumer behavior, the youth market in particular. The white paper outlines Five Rules to Engage a New Breed of Consumer. So check it out!
Thank-you Briel…this is great stuff!

Interested in learning more about how to market to Generation Y?  Check out Bea Fields’ articles or contact her today to speak to your company or upcoming event:

Marketing to Generation Y: What You Can’t Afford Not to Know

10 Surefire Strategies for Marketing to Generation Y

Listen to Bea Fields interviewed on the topic of Marketing to Gen Y 

Had a good meeting with our RDP ers last week. Just to refresh your memory, RDPers are employees who are in the first year at Intuit and are in a special program which exposes them to different parts of the company.  In talking to them, I wondered if we are looking at Gen Y in the right way. I often sit in meetings at Fortune 500 companies, where everyone looks at the youngest person in the group and says ‘Your a GenYer, so how do you guys think about this new world.’ When I asked the RDPers thought about this, they said that it was similar to asking an Asian person about Chinese buying habits. Even if that person isn’t Chinese. I thought that was a good point. I also was intrigued how they felt as if they do not use Web 2.0 technologies as much as their younger siblings in high school. The RDP also made another good point. One of them told me that during the freshman year in college having 400 friends on FaceBook was considered a good number, but during his sophomore year, having 1000 friends was considered good, but now high school students have over 2000 friends. There must be a good name for this exponential growth. The Friend Factor?

This is a very thought provoking article by Tamara J. Erickson. I have mentioned a few posts on HBR by Erickson.

Many of us are asking this question these days. I have three kids in college. My twins will be Juniors this fall, and my son is a sophomore. While I still think a college degree gets you in the door at an early age, I am not convinced it is what makes you successful. There are so many skills not being taught in our education system today (or if they are, they are elective courses), such as public speaking, how to network effectively, how to market yourself or your business, how to write a great article, how to save and invest money, and the list goes on.

I want to say that I believe that college is well designed for some people but not for everyone. It is a big world out there, and the street smarts quite often outweigh the book smarts.