Youth Demographics & Brands: Saying Hello to Your Next Customers

By Tina Zwolinski
CEO and founder of ZWO

 

Over the past several decades businesses have focused on the stable, generally-successful, and large demographic known as “Baby Boomers,” in large part because that is where a concentration of purchasing power is found and because they make up about 24% of the population.  With the Boomers rapidly hurtling into retirement, businesses are increasingly analyzing younger generations, particularly those after Generation X, a smaller generation making up about 16% of the population and now entering middle age. We know — simply by observing great-grandparents who went through the Great Depression, that generations learn about, approach, and remain loyal to brands in very different ways.  Though all human beings are essentially alike, sharing similar attributes and desires around the globe, generations do approach life, career, purchasing, relational, and money decisions very differently.

As the CEO of ZWO, a branding and marketing firm in Greenville, SC that focuses in part on building and reaching youth markets for our clients, I spend a good deal of time living alongside young people, studying young people, listening to young people, and learning from young people. Our work at ZWO is based on word-of-mouth marketing and is fueled by digital and traditional tools – building a client’s social media presence, strengthening e-commerce, and more. Since ZWO partners with a number of companies who pursue consumer sales to the youth market – called millennials or Generation Y (18- 34 years/early 1980s to 2000) and Generation Z or the iGeneration (17 years and under/late 1990s to present) – it’s important to learn as much as we can about them and from them.

As a result, I’m involved in a number of focus groups and surveys on young people and heavily engaged in our annual college internship program, Fivers.  We spend time on college campuses to build and strengthen relationships with student brand ambassadors and key contacts at schools. Our company’s volunteer commitments focus almost entirely on organizations that help young people, through leadership programs, sports camps, adoption, charter and other public schools, and other initiatives. Finally, over the past six years I’ve mentored groups of teens at my church from tenth grade into several years of college. It’s been an amazing, inspiring journey that’s given me a window into the hearts and minds of a group of young people over a long-term basis.

As simply a background note, I see a significant difference between young people in college now, and the youth in junior high and high school; I believe we are seeing another demographic shift that will segment out those in college and above from their peers just a few years younger. The two groups will ultimately be “labeled” separately, just as Gen-Xers and Baby Boomers are categorized and described differently, even when there are only a few years between the older Xers and the younger Boomers.

As a further background note, I am listing general trends that we at ZWO are seeing – always understanding that individuals are unique and don’t always fall neatly into groups, so the below descriptions, while helpful in looking at large demographic groups, don’t always apply to individuals.

There’s plenty of reading to do on youth demographics that may help businesses, youth leaders, and even parents work with young people — start with the Census Bureau, Nielsen, and Pew Research data. But the insights I mention below on today’s college and high school-age youth I have experienced simply through the immersion that my work with ZWO requires.

 

College students today:

• are more relational
• are more cause-oriented
• have a longer attention span[which was the case in their high-school years as well]
• could sustain long-term interest and focus on “campaign-style” branding and advertising
• greatly value “time spent” in relationships, and caring about and getting to know one another
• value and pursue “authenticity”
• feel entitled/special
• still use Facebook and Twitter

 

High-school students today:

• are intensely busy — more so than today’s college students were in high school
• are multitaskers
• are more driven
• lack depth in their relationships, and have fewer deep relationships
• spend most of their time on homework and sports, rather than connections or cause-related activities
• are materialistic
• not as entitled [we are seeing a trend — they understand that they will work hard for college and future careers versus being handed a career with a high salary]
• want stuff in seconds
• are less interested in conversation
• value and pursue “affirmation” more than authenticity
• feel intense pressure to perform
• don’t like Facebook, instead preferring Instagram, Tumblr, Vine, and Snapchat

 

So how are the two groups at all similar?

First of all, for both groups, social media is the currency of everyday life. And social media both shapes and is shaped by their values. To name one example, the latest social media tools – Instagram and Vine – are even less language-oriented than Facebook and Twitter, which are, of course, far less language-oriented then blogging.

Remember when blogs were “the latest thing” – and rightly threatened newspapers and magazines?  Well, they still do – and they usually feature more snippets and less depth of content than newspaper feature articles. But blogs are the medium for a far older demographic – one that is still more interested in words than images.

On the other extreme, Instagram and Vine are visual media, they trade on fast impressions, and they are less engaging and thoughtful, more surface and image-related. If you’re the leader of a youth group, family, or company hoping to introduce your brand to a younger demographic, just know that pictures and images have very high appeal — far higher than when you and I were teenagers or college students.

Second, like it or not, both groups receive self-esteem, influence, and prestige through “likes” and “shares.” You or I may value a handwritten note, a thoughtful voicemail message, or more money as a sign of appreciation. But “the coin of the social media realm” are those actions that indicate that you are interested in a person’s content, thoughts, and day-to-day activities – clicks, comments, likes, shares, re-tweets, repins, tagging, and on and on it goes.

Finally, and ironically, “face time” now is more valuable than ever before – because it’s so much rarer. It’s easier – and far more efficient – to click a like button, than it is to make an appointment for coffee and a catch-up conversation. All of us – no matter the age – have been heavily influenced by the ease of social media. It’s allowed us to expand our social circles like never before, and made it easy to keep our fingers on the pulse of everyday life. But the trade-off has been that old-fashioned phrase “quality time.”

Yes, engage on social media. But, whether you are pursuing a younger target market, or leading a youth group, or trying to parent a teenager, do take the time for face-to-face, low-efficiency, high-investment and commitment conversations, meals, and other activities. These are the connections that can impact and change lives.

 

 

Tina Zwolinski is the CEO and founder of ZWO, a branding & marketing firm that engages brands and consumers in remarkable ways and serves clients in diverse industries, including apparel, student housing, retail, sports, senior life, events, youth, and non-profit segments. For further conversation about reaching youth markets, you may contact her at [email protected] or at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tinazwolinski.