Customer Reviews

Defining Markets Defining Moments

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Finally, a marketer's guide to generations that doesn't leave you with the 1946-1964 dates marking the Boomer generation..._Defining Markets, Defining Moments_ is a fresh new research into generations and their use in marketing, and into defining what a generation IS.

In this book Schewe & Meredith introduce cohort marketing by looking at the groups of people born closely enough together to have similar experiences growing up and coming of age. They then throw in a recipe on how to combine this with a few other demographic factors, more briefly introduced, like gender and urbanicity, to create a powerful formula for targeting demographic groups. Also included is information on how each generational personality will grow up and the way generations can continue to be marketed to as they go from adolescence to adulthood to old age -- how each generation will buy its first car, get married, buy a house or retire.

_Defining Markets, Defining Moments_ goes beyond "The Baby Boomers were born 1946-1964 after the war and grew up during the Vietnam War holding peace protests, remembering Woodstock, and are therefore a generation of ideals and can be marketed to through '60s music". These authors carefully considered their dates for the birth of generations and asked themselves exactly how old a person born in each year would be at critical moments of time. Therefore the Baby Boomers (born 1946-1954) who used to be all about love and peace are distinguished from the younger Generation Jones (born 1955-1965), the oldest of whom would be 14 and the youngest of whom (born Dec. 31, 1965) only 3 during Woodstock. Insights are gathered beyond the usual clichés captured in generational marketing books. And rather than assuming history began with the Baby Boomers and leaving everyone older behind as a pre-Boomer group of fossils as many marketers do, these authors identify three pre-Boomer groups who are under 90 today -- the soda-fountain, "Blackboard Jungle" Postwar Generation (1928-1945); the World War II Generation defined by their entry into that war of sacrifice (1922-1927); and the frugal, elderly Depression Generation who came of age learning to do without (1912-1921). An interesting analysis that could be continued with today's nonagenarians and centenarians (even though I bet too many people thought they were too thin a slice to be interested in marketing to). Planning any new updated editions?

On the downside, this book still has a few tweaks to work out with generational dates (1965: Jones or true X? Was 1920 really defined more by the Depression than the war?) or old stereotypes and clichés that linger (generations defined by the economic recession or the Internet), or perhaps just look too much like the workplace and marketing information offered in other books. Maybe it's just me and some of the sentences seem copied verbatim out of other marketing guides. Plus, the description of Generation Y, or "Generation N" (the N-Generation, 1977-19??), is a little off.

All in all, a decent marketing book and more-than-decent exercise in thinking about what really makes generations who they are. Several steps up from your annually recycled Elders/Boomers/Xers/EchoBoomers-in-the-Market guides, and a guide that will likewise give marketers who use it a little edge over all the marketers who use other books.

I highly recommand this book to anyone that wants general knowledge on generations. I found it easy to read and very useful in implementing in research I am performing on this area. I felt like this book was money well spent.