Who is a millennial?
Can we all agree that a junior in
HS and a 35-year old mother of 4 belong to different generations?
The definition of the millennial
seems to shift regularly. When I first heard the term, it included people
born between 1979 and 1990; today, it has drifted to describe people born some
time in the early 80s up until 2000. This broad definition lumps together
people whose first internet experience was on Prodigy and kids that don’t
know what Y2k was.
Generations are defined by events,
not dates
The baby boom generation can be
defined by historical events: the end of WWII, Vietnam, the 70s oil
crisis. No one has considered this when discussing people born in the 80s
or 90s; if we did, we would realize that the biggest events of the last 15
years have impacted “millennials” in different ways, creating groups with
significant differences.
Please consider:
- A 20-year
old experienced 9/11 much differently than a 2-yr old did.
- A
10-year old did not have to pay crushing student loans and while trying to
find a job in 2009.
- A
person born in 1995 did not see her home’s value cut in half in a matter
of months.
Many of the watershed moments of
the last 30 years have shaped the behavior of people of certain ages—it is time
to start recognizing these moments and how they have collectively impacted our
psyches and spending habits.
“Millennials” are actually several
different generations.
Let’s talk about the experiences
of the older “millennials.”
Those of us that entered the
workplace before the Great Recession developed spending patterns that
are vastly different than those that entered after 2008. We
graduated college between 2001-2006 with manageable student debt and entered a
robust workforce; students that graduated 2007-2010 dealt with almost double
our debt and no jobs to be found. Pre-Great Recession grads vacationed,
bought overpriced homes, and were burned by credit cards. Post-Great
Recession grads couldn’t find jobs, moved home with their parents, and are
currently getting crushed with student loans payments.
A brand that tries to reach these
two groups will be targeting people that have had vastly different experiences
and have developed vastly different spending habits. It would make much more
sense to segment us by our experience with this major economic crisis, as was
the “Depression Generation” before Tom Brokaw christened them “The
Greatest Generation.”
Millennials born in the 90s
The dot-com bust. 9/11. The Great
Recession—these are topics that are largely foreign to the younger half of
“millennials.” Half of them were in diapers and the other half were
getting ready for the prom while older “millennials” were struggling with the
aftermaths of these era-defining events. It would be foolish to think
that both groups were impacted by them in the same way. Bunching this
generation with those that were out in the workforce when they occurred is
nonsense.
Recognizing these differences can
help us
When we talk about millennials,
we’re talking about groups of people that have had vastly different
experiences. We would be better served by exploring how these different
groups think, interact, and spend their money. While doing so, we should
also be conscious to avoid mislabeling typical characteristics of youth as
being characteristics of a generation, but that’s another discussion.
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