CRM - November 2008 - (Page 32)

Generational Spending Generation X of those people born between 1968 and 1979, a group with a reputation for apathy and cynicism.” They got that part right, whatever the specific age of the people. Or maybe not: “The study will use a brief survey, semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and site observations at places that Gen-Xers congregate (such as ‘powwows,’ civic groups, coffee houses, and other ‘slacker joints’),” the document says. “This group will constitute the core respondents for the 2010 Census, so knowledge of their attitudes toward privacy and government may suggest ways to motivate response from this group.” Good luck with that. THE SETUP To understand how Generation X is spending whatever money it has, it’s crucial to get a sense of the forces that shaped it, and not dismiss it with the S-word— slacker—it’s so often tagged with. This is a highly educated, entrepreneurial, and individualistic generation, and the one that bridged the analog and digital eras. Age is not at the core of Generation X’s self-perception—something important to realize if we’re to understand how Xers spend their money. More than any generation before them, with the possible exception of latter-day Baby Boomers, Gen Xers never completely grew up. Too many changes of direction in our formative years saw to that. “The whiplash of the economy is what has shaped Gen X. It affects how we view money and spending,” says Gen Xpert Lisa Chamberlain, author of Slackonomics: Generation X in the Age of Creative Destruction. “There’s the obvious sort of demographic definition…but the cultural definition of Generation X is more relevant. We’re really talking about middle-class, educated kids, who mostly grew up in the suburbs. They were raised in the 1980s, with Reagan as the president and ‘morning in America,’ with the expectation they’d go to [business] school and be rich by 30.” That mentality, as personified by Michael J. Fox’s character Alex on the mid-1980s sitcom Family Ties, was not destined to survive.“Gen X’s expectations 32 changed greatly in or just after college— it’s the first generation to really rely on student loans and credit, so all these people started their adult lives in debt,” Chamberlain says. “They graduated into the early-1990s recession, when entrylevel pay was down, costs were going up, and globalization started to eat into the job market and the economy.” “What is it that you want from me, huh? You want me to get a job on the line for the next 20 years ’til I’m granted leave with my gold-plated watch ? Well, you can just exhale because it’s not gonna happen, not in this lifetime.” —Troy Dyer (Ethan Hawke), Reality Bites (1994) any given workforce there are always 3 or 4 percent who are unemployable. It was this unemployable faction that gave Generation X its undeserved reputation.” (See Required Reading, page 20, for an extended interview with Gronbach.) Despite being perceived as slackers, Gen X attended college at twice the rate that Baby Boomers did—500 enrollments per thousand of population compared to 250 per thousand for Boomers, according to Gronbach. That ain’t slack. WHEN YOU SPEND, SPEND WISELY But for all its education and entrepreneurial spirit, Gen X finds itself needing to be a little cautious about where it puts its money. According to an Economic Mobility Project report, the median income for men in their 30s is 12 percent lower (when adjusted for inflation) than it was 30 years ago. There are significantly fewer Gen Xers in the U.S. than there are members of the generations either preceding (Baby Boomers) or following (Gen Yers). This has reduced Gen X to an oxymoron: a massive niche market. As a result, it’s a perpetual “other” as far as marketing and advertising are concerned. This phenomenon, combined with corporate America’s failure to successfully engage Gen X in large numbers, has left Xers at odds with marketing outreaches. “Gen X is a smaller demographic than Boomers, and it has less money, but we hate being marketed to,” Chamberlain says. “Businesses tried to market to us the same way as they did the Boomers—as part of a generation. We’re too individualistic.” That size differential is significant for another reason: economic sustainability. Xers are the core of the U.S. tax base; at the same time, they’re caring for their aging parents as well as putting their own kids through school. Gen X is caught “We went from yuppie wannabes to apathetic slackers,” Chamberlain says. Then the Internet bubble came along, and Gen X thought, ‘Maybe we’ll be millionaires after all,’ but then that bubble burst.” But really, where did that slacker label come from? According to Kenneth Gronbach, author of The Age Curve: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Storm, Xers “were labeled ‘slackers’ and ‘lazy couch potatoes’ because so few Xers responded to help-wanted ads when they entered the entry-level labor force, and the Xers who did respond were said to have a poor attitude and work ethic.” The reason for this isn’t laziness, though; Gronbach’s numbers show that Generation X is 11 percent smaller than the previous generation—he uses a larger age range for his definition—and this led to skewed perceptions as Boomers moved up or out of positions. “For every 10 jobs the Boomers left behind, there were only nine Xers to replace them,” he writes.“Job number 10, often a less-desirable position like fast-food worker, went begging. In “The Internet bubble came along, and Gen X thought, ‘Maybe we’ll be millionaires after all.’” Not so much. www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | NOVEMBER 2008 http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - November 2008

CRM - November 2008 Contents Front Office Feedback Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Working with the Years CRM on Twitter Virtual Spenders Contact Centers Chatting to Success The Complexity Chasm Required Reading Generational Spending: A Special Report Who, What, Where, When, Y The Slackers’ X-cellent Adventure The Boomer Boom The Matures Endure Boosting Productivity North of the Border Changing the Channel Invicta’s Thrill of Victory Secret of My Success Connect Re:Tooling Pint of View

CRM - November 2008

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