The Best Way to Market to Gen Y is to STOP Marketing.

Sounds confusing, doesn't it? The title, I mean.

But when I searched the phrase "Marketing to Gen Y" the first website I came across was all about telling companies to STOP marketing to us.

How do they go about ceasing marketing you might ask? Well, they don't actually stop making advertisements or give up trying to make us loyal customers to their products, but they do one thing before they start trying to pull us into their product.

They have to ask us 'What do YOU want?'. They need to listen to us first.

This website I first read made me come to a very strong realization about Gen Y and myself. According to the article, Tough Customers: How to Reach Gen Y, they say that people born in between approximately the late 70s to late 90s, possibly 2000 are considered main Gen Y.
That puts me smack dab in the middle just about, being a child born at the beginning of 1989.

In our first class discussion about being a part of Gen Y, I almost felt ashamed to be considered one born and classified with a group that is seen to the older generations as selfish, self-centered, and lazy.

The more I've read and written about Gen Y, the more I'm proud to be a part of this generation that is making marketers see that they need to listen to us. That we've been told from a young age to do what makes us happy first and that we can be anything we want to be.
This is becoming a challenge for marketers, because they can't tell us what we SHOULD like anymore.

And here's a list of Gen Y Charicteristics I've found. I rather enjoy knowing I'm part of this list:



Another thing that the first website I visited discussed was about how we need four things from a product.

1. Cheap cost
2. Good quality
3. Fast service
4. "An experience"

I couldn't agree more with all of this. I can't help but think that these are things generations before us wish they could've had at their time of controlling the workforce and finances.
Oh, and there's one other thing we need to see in a product...

Authenticity. I think this word scares a lot of companies because it means they need to stand out from every other group.
But it's true.
Our generation craves things to be real for us, we need reality. We can't be bullshitted, to say it very bluntly.

I think our parents and grandparents have shown us how much companies and the government has pulled the wool over their eyes that we're so determined now to get nothing but the truth and the reality of everything.

And it needs to be original on top of it.

But we've established what we need out of companies.
They should just think of this as a challenge for them.
Rise to the occasion. Apple has. 99 cent downloads?! Ha. Okay so I don't download songs legally, but maybe I should start. And Apple would of course be the first place I'd go to for it. Not just because they have good prices for songs and I can get the songs out of the comfort of my home, but because I have an Ipod and it only seems right.

The first website also mentioned that marketing tattoo parlors would be good because 36 percent of "Gen Yers" have at least one tattoo. Piercings should count too! I found this picture and thought it was pretty hilarious.