Later this year, I’ll be co-authoring MARKET SMART: The Best in Age and Gender-Specific Design, pubished by HarperCollins. You can contribute work to be featured in the book. Visit marketsmartdesignbook.com.
I’ll be joining Dr. Daniel Acuff, President, Youth Marketing Systems Consulting; Dave Siegel, President, WonderGroup; and Jim Gilmartin, President, Coming of Age, Inc., who are each contributing an introduction and oversight on a chapter focused on marketing to kids, tweens, and boomers respectively.
My chapter will focus on marketing to Generation X, that skeptical group who were somehow conceived after the widespread use of “The Pill” in the early 60’s. Gen Xers are sometimes called “Busters” for busting up the Boomers’ freedom party that resulted from the demographic tsunami that landed on home shores after WWII.
Generation X seems to be best identified with believing they’ve inherited the problems left by the Baby Boomers. They generally have birth dates sometime between 1964 and 1985.
If you were born during those years, I’d love to know what people, gadgets and events most influenced you early in life.
Born in 1966, I most recall Nixon’s resignation, the end of the Vietnam war, The Miami Dolphins, O.J. Simpson as a football hero, Ali and Cossell, Dr. J, being a latchkey kid, Disco, Nixon, The Exorcist, Jaws, Star Wars, Rocky, Pong, The Pet Rock, MTV, CB radio, video games, the Iranian hostage ordeal, Reagan and an actual computer with floppy disks and a blinking green cursor, in our home. Robots and flying cars couldn’t be far behind. I’m still waiting.
4 Comments
Well, this is going to be quite the trip through my early days. I was born in 1974 so many of my earliest influences are in that period between 1980-85.
My love for tech was inspired by my Atari 2600, Apple IIe, and Commodore 64. I remember diligently coping the code from a Mad Magazine in order to produce an ASCII printout in the image of Alfred E Neuman.
I also remember the thrills of staying up late on Friday night to watch Friday Night Videos with my friends. Growing up in West Virginia, a lot of that music just didn’t get to our local stations and it blew my mind.
Politically, I remember the day that Reagan was shot, the trouncing that Mondale got in 84, and the Soviet boycott of the Olympics in LA.
I loved movies like Star Wars, The Black Hole, Tron and shows like the A-Team. And I once had every single GI Joe and Master of the Universe figure produced up to that point. Damn…those were great toys!
I figure there’s more hanging out in my gray matter, but these are the things that immediately come to mind. Good times!
This must be net karma, but I’ve been in some discussions about this topic with some folks lately, mostly revolving around where do you draw the line between gen x and y. One interesting thing that seems to overlay the attitude of Gen X was the totally dystopian mood caused by the thrill of all the new technologies coming out at the time, vcrs, mobile phones, personal computers, microwave ovens, video games, ground breaking cinema, and space flight was still new, but in the background was the shadow of impending nuclear holocaust that seem to make that euphoria from technology pointless.
When you look at it from that point of view the cynical nature of Gen X’er starts to make a bit more sense. We grew up during a time where the future painted for us in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Buck Rogers,” “Star Trek,” and even “The Jetsons,” seemed obtainable within our lifetimes. At the same time, the Cold War made it seem like the picture painted in “Red Dawn,” “Wargames,” “Blade Runner,” and worst of all, “The Day After,” where not only possible within our lifetimes, but inevitable. A cultural cocktail of that nature could only breed brilliant, creative, cynical, slackers.
For me persoanlly the things I most culturally associate with that generation are the obvious things like “Star Wars,” the space shuttle Challenger disaster, the Regan assassination attempt, video games like Space Invader, Donkey Kong, and Pac Man replacing pinball machines at the arcade. I remember a 25″ T.V. was as big as they came, getting our first VCR was a big deal, as was getting a Atari 2600, and a little later a Vic 20 (5 1/4″ floppies baby!!!)
One last thing that came to mind was seeing the Berlin Wall fall was a big deal to me. It was symbolic that perhaps that darker future we feared, as a generation, had at last been put to rest. I think the real progress that we’ve made in technology and communication since then, has been in no small part, that an entire generation finally believed that the brighter future they dreamed about could finally come about.
I’m also still waiting for the flying car, hooverboard, and teleportation too, but as far as robots go, did you see Boston Dynamics’ Big Dog? I’m not sure I’d want my Rosie the Robot to be able to take a kick like that, it would be unnerving to say the least.
I don’t believe you can count the baby boomers out yet. If Obama is elected president you’ll have another boomer president. The youngest boomer is currently 44. Boomers have plenty of time to “clean up their problems” before they die.
The CEO of AARP has written a book about how boomers still have the opportunity to change the world for the better if they can show leadership on issues such as health care and global warming.
Rita
I write a blog for boomer consumers called The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide at http://boomersurvive-thriveguide.typepad.com.
I think Chris Bailey just summed up my entire life. I to was born in 74 and Star Wars, GI Joe, and the Black Hole are also faves of mine. He had a Commodore 64 I had a 128. I was also drug into something called Q-Link, on my Commodore 128, you now know Q-Link as AOL.
I also remember the day Regan was shot and the first shuttle tragedy.
I guess we are seriously children of media. So many great things were taught to us. Sesame Street, a show I grew up watching, is watched by my daughter today.
Gen -X to me is also a mind set. I think we are the first generation to just say “What the Hell, let’s do it.” I think we are a lot more rebellious then the generation before us.
Gen X is also a big generation of gamers. We have gone through console games more then board games. From Atari and Intellivison, to Nintendo, Sega, now there are 3 generations of Playstation, 2 Xbox’s and now a Wii.
Gen X culture is cutting edge media, that’s the way it is.