Gen Y: Does the Shoe Fit?

Written on 10:04 PM by Sarah

First of all, I think most people tend to resist the idea that they can be lumped into a group of people who are “just like them”. Everyone likes to think that they are special, and no one wants to believe that they can be described by a generalization. As Tyler Durden (pictured below) tells us in Fight Club, “You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake,” and older generations have been all too happy to group those born from the late 70s to the late 90s into a group known as “Gen Y”.

Gen Y goes by many names, including the Millenials and Echo Boomers, and my personal favorite: the Trophy Kids. For the most part, I agree with the characteristics attributed to us Gen Y-ers. I think the most accurate attribute of Gen Y is our dependency (one might even say addiction) to technology. To pull out a few personal examples: I began instant messaging at the tender age of 11; I registered for an email account before my mom did (and I’m not sure that she even uses hers); and when the Facebook website is down, I am incredibly and inexplicably uncomfortable (even angry, sometimes).

Our ease with technology has contributed to another characteristic frequently attributed to Gen Y, which is our propensity to change our minds and interests rapidly. This has in turn earned us the label of the generation with no attention span. With the whole internet at our fingertips, there is no shortage of new bands to discover, new video games to beat, or new fashion designers to follow. The BusinessWeek article “Generation Y” suggests that we tend to switch loyalty among brands very easily, which implies that we have no brand loyalty. However, I disagree with this idea. In fact, I think we are very loyal to our brands until they lose favor with us. We know what we want, and when another brand comes along that fits better with our wants, we do not hesitate to jump ship. Our loyalty may not be very long-lived or consistent, but it is no less intense.

This brings me to another large part of growing up in Gen Y, which is that we want options. We like to have choices, and we want to discover these choices for ourselves, instead of having them presented to us or worse, blatantly waved in our faces (hence the recent popularity of viral or guerilla marketing).

Another so-called phenomenon associated with Gen Y is our propensity to share a wealth of personal information with complete strangers, usually through the internet via social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace. Is this bravery or stupidity? Well, that’s up for debate. Nevertheless, there is no question that we are very fond of it. We like voicing our opinions and sharing our lives with other people, and we feel that those people should be interested in what we have to say. This is probably why many people feel that Gen Y is blessed with a very high level of self-esteem, whereas critics of Gen Y may be tempted to call it arrogance.

Putting aside the underlying reasons, we can all agree that this is something that companies need to consider when trying to market to Gen Y. Not only do we like choices, but we also like to share them with the world. We don’t want to be told what we want, we want to tell companies ourselves exactly what it is that we want, and interact with them to create something which will ultimately have more value to us because we had a hand in making it. Most companies have caught on, and nowadays there is no shortage of products that are customizable. On the Nike website, you can design your own shoe, down to the color of the laces. And there are at least a dozen sites where you can design your own t-shirt. One website which has gained considerable popularity among Gen Y is Threadless, which sells a variety of graphic tees. The appeal of Threadless (aside from its shirts’ quirky designs - see below), is that all of its designs are user-submitted.

And what’s more – they’re scored by users, too. The designs with the highest scores make it into print and are sold as t-shirts. It is this kind of interactivity that Gen Y wants from its brands, and that we have maybe even come to expect. No company can successfully market to Gen Y if they ignore this vital attribute.

So to answer the question posed in the title of this entry: Yes, it fits – because we designed it ourselves.

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