A new generation of Americans is on the rise. Young, media-savvy
and freespending, they’re the baby boomers’ bumper crop.
A record number come from broken homes or single-parent
dwellings.
A new generation of Americans is on the rise. Young, media-savvy and freespending, they’re the baby boomers’ bumper crop.
A record number come from broken homes or single-parent dwellings.
They’re working, but they’re also incurring debt at startlingly young ages. One in nine has a credit card before 18, and they’re ready to use them.
At 80 million strong, theirs is the generation of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. But for these new power-spenders, the real poster child is … Alex P. Keaton?
That’s right. What, after all, could be more anti-Boomer than group think?
Advertisers, historians and market researchers have now begun to call this group, born between 1982 and 1995, the Echo Boomers, not only because they echo the boom of their parents’ births, but because they echo another time in America’s history.
Raised in a culture that stresses the importance of teamwork, diversity, mutual benefit and trust, Echo Boomers draw more parallels with their “Greatest Generation” grandparents than their stereotypically ego-driven, self-obsessed parents.
“(Our parents’) ways are old-fashioned,” said Jesse Jasso, a 22-year-old Hollister resident who is currently a computer science major at Gavilan Community College. “We think in more of a group. We’re ‘all’ instead of ‘individual.’ When you talk about people, everybody is part of ‘us,’ but they (baby boomers) classify groups of people (by race, ethnicity and sexual orientation). When there are issues, we work as a group, we protest together instead of each pointing a finger at someone else.
This group ideal fits with the lifestyles of Echos. Thirty-five percent of them are non-white, a record level for the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and they don’t care.
Common interests trump race in friend selection and interracial dating is at an all-time high.
Echo’s stress that they want to build up, not tear down. The first generation to grow up with computers in the home and the Internet an easy click away, they’re equipped with more technical knowledge than any generation in history, making them some of the most proficient multi-taskers the world has ever seen.
Like their grandparents, they have an innate trust of authority, and the Echo Boomers couple that with an extremely fine-tuned sense of PR spin.
At 22, the generation’s oldest members are just leaving college. The youngest are still in elementary school, but they’re already changing the way companies, media conglomerates and schools do business. Echos want choices, lifestyles and causes.
They’re more likely to buy a product because a friend recommended it than because they saw an ad on television, according to marketing groups that are targeting this new generation.
Generating an emotional response, be it funny, sad or warm, is terribly important for retailers. If Echos aren’t talking about a product with one another, it’s not going to be selling in their age range. The U.S. Army’s slogan, “An Army of One” has been doing so poorly among this age group that it’s been pulled.
“Make history,” the branch’s new slogan, ties today’s soldiers to the venerated liberators of past generations, linking the rebuilding of Iraq to the rejuvenation of post-WWII Europe.
But one of the biggest gambles on Echos is being made by Toyota, which launched its Scion brand specifically to target that particular age range.
Seventy percent of their advertising budget goes to non-traditional marketing, like Internet ads, street team buzz generation, and sponsorship viewings at extreme sports venues and concerts.
“Those are the things that appeal, and the options for the cars themselves are really designed to appeal – neon lighting inside the vehicle, low-profile wheels and rims, things like that,” said Bob Farnham, a sales and leasing consultant for Gilroy Toyota. “It’s a pure-priced vehicle, so there’s no haggling. Everything is straightforward and up front.”
That’s expected to appeal to the idea that this new generation prefers to feel in control, making their own decisions with straightforward answers and concrete solutions, which might go a long way in explaining why so many of them are completely disenchanted with politics.
Unfortunately, their greatest assets function as a double-edged sword. Group think has, by the numbers, done good things. Teen smoking, pregnancy and violent crime are all down considerably (violent crime by 60 to 70 percent according to 60 Minutes). However, analysts fear it may snuff out qualities like leadership and innovation.
“They have been heavily programmed,” said Dr. Mel Levine, a prominent pediatrician and professor at the University of North Carolina, in an Oct. 3 interview with 60 Minutes. “The kids who have had soccer Monday, Kung Fu Tuesday, religious classes Wednesday, clarinet lessons Thursday … whose whole lives have really been based on what some adult tells them to do.”
This bears out in the life of Shanika Briggs, a student at Gavilan College who hasn’t yet set on a major.
“I’m more likely to do what (my parents) would want me to do rather than what I would want to do,” said the 19-year-old Gilroy resident. “We always have that. One of my friends was very nervous because she wanted to change her major. She didn’t want to disappoint them. I look at my different interests saying, ‘That looks really neat,’ but then I think of my parents saying, ‘Well, but is it really the best idea for a career?’ That’s a common discussion amongst my friends.”
Employers aren’t so sure of how they’ll perform in the job market. According to Levine, “they expect to be immediate heroes and heroines.
They expect to be told what a wonderful job they’re doing. They expect that they’re gonna be allowed to rise to the top quickly, that they’re gonna get all the credit they need for everything they do. And, boy, are they naive.”
Whatever happens, none of us has heard the final Echo.
The events of the coming years will help to better define their national qualities and, when many of them are too young to drive, let alone vote, it seems a bit premature to be making projections on their futures.
Given time, maybe group think will seem just as natural as mass individualism does now.
