Riding the Wave and Saving the Titanic

Interesting Q&A with Paul Parkin, founding partner of a brand consultancy firm in San Francisco whose clients range from Disney and Coca-Cola to start-ups, on marketing to “Generation Y” or the “Millennial Generation”:

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=129587

(The exact demographic of Generation Y is debatable and varies significantly… a rough consensus though could be said to be those born between 1979 and 1995, or in other words, those that are currently between the ages of 15 and 31, the upper end of which are certainly a potentially desirable demographic within our industry.)

I’ll mostly let this interview just speak for itself – it’s relatively short and to the point. It did strike me though in reading the article that, if true – and I personally would expect more of what it describes to play out now or in the near future than not – then this is a trend that companies will be forced to deal with, no matter how “begrudgingly”, as Mr. Parkin puts it.

If the Titanic knew it was headed for a giant iceberg, (in the movie I think they do kind of find out, but too late to do much about it?), would this knowledge have helped to avoid a catastrophe? Well, no… not on its own. Not unless they actually did something as a result of that knowledge, like change course for instance. So what’s the point of us knowing of the changes required to effectively market to this up and coming generation of buyers if we aren’t prepared to do anything about it?

To continue with the aquatic theme for a moment, the wave is definitely still cresting on the impact that this generation will have on business. Everyone knows that if you catch the wave just right you’ll boogie board a long way. (And conversely, if you miss it you’ll watch everyone else disappear while you start paddling.) So what’s your plan to reach out to Gen Y and “ride the wave”? Hopefully it involves more than Celine Dion's rather vague and untargeted - in a marketing sense - Titanic movie theme song lyrics "near, far... wherever you are...".