Archive for the 'Youth Marketing' Category

Should all college majors pay the same tuition?

Published May 3, 2021 Education , Marketing , Youth Marketing Leave a Comment
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Despite all that is written about the costs of higher education and how student debt is crippling an entire generation, college remains a solid investment for most students. The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that people with bachelor’s degrees earn about $1,173 on average each week while those with only high school diplomas earn an average of $712 per week. That is a difference of $461 per week, about $24,000 per year, and about $958,880 over a 40-year working lifetime. On average, four-year college graduates literally are about a million dollars better off in their lifetime than those that stop their education after high school.

This calculation suffers from a selection bias, as individuals that choose to go to college likely have higher earnings potential that those that do not, independent of their education, so it is not appropriate to credit the colleges entirely for the million dollar increase in value. But, at pretty much any tuition level it would be hard to argue that college does not pay off for most graduates.

This helps put the student debt debate in perspective. The average student debt is about $30,000. A typical U.S. college student goes $30,000 in debt to gain a credential that will earn an average of about $1,000,000 more over his/her lifetime. College costs are far too high, have grown considerably faster that colleges’ ability to increase value, and limit many worthy students from being able to furthering their education. Yet, college remains a stellar asset for most.

These calculations concentrate on an “average student” and much can be lost by doing that. About 1 in 5 college graduates carries more than $50,000 in loans. About 1 in 20 has more than $100,000 in loans. Not all college graduates make a million dollars more over their lifetimes. Plenty of students slip through the cracks and many are underemployed because of a mismatch between their training and what employers demand.

Many young people are in financial trouble because college is not an investment that is paying back quickly enough for them. There are too many students who begin college, take on debt, and never graduate and gain the credential that enhances their earning power. The most hidden statistic in America may be that only about 60% of those who enroll in college end up graduating.

There is an enormous disparity in the average starting salary for college graduates depending on their major and their college. When thinking of the financial aspects of college, parents and students would be wise to look more at the debt to earnings ratio rather than concentrate solely on the costs of college. That is, what will an expected first year salary be and what will the expected college debt be?

A rule of thumb is to try to get this ratio as far under 1.0 as possible, and to not let it go over 1.0. This means that students should seek to have loans that do not total more than their expected first year salary, and hopefully loans that are just a fraction of their first-year salary.

Data from the Department of Education’s College Scorecard shows average student debt and average first year salary by college and by major. What is striking is how much variability there is on the salary part and how little there is on the debt part. Broadly speaking, salaries vary widely by college and major, but the debt students end up with does not vary nearly as much.

Suppose you owned a business and two customers walked into your door. For customer A, you provide a service that is worth twice as much as what you provide to customer B. Would you charge both customers the same amount? Probably not. They would not expect you to even if it cost you the same to produce both products.

However, that is what colleges do. In the College Scorecard data, the most lucrative college majors result in starting salaries that are about two and a half times greater than the college majors that result in the lowest salaries. Yet, students graduating with these degrees all end up with similar levels of debt and pay similar tuition along the way.

Why? Why would colleges charge the same for a student who can expect to make $75,000 per year upon graduation the same as one that can expect to make $30,000? Colleges are pricing solely off the supply curve and ignoring the differences in demand among subgroups of students.

I have discussed this idea with many people including some who work in higher education. I have not found even one person that supports the idea of colleges charging different tuition rates for different majors, but I also have not heard a cogent argument against it.

This idea would provide an efficiency to the labor market. If too many students chose a particular college major, resulting first year salaries will decline because there will be an excess supply of job seekers in the market. This will cause fewer future students to flock to this major and cause colleges to adjust their recruiting tactics and tuition prices. The market would provide a clear financial signal to colleges that would help them adjust their program sizes appropriately. The incentives would be in place to produce the right number of graduates from each major.

Students majoring in traditionally higher paying fields, like engineering and computer science, would end up paying more. Those in traditionally lower paying fields, like arts and human services, would pay less. All would be paying a fair amount tied to their future earning potential and the value the degree provides. You could argue that in the current system students enrolled in liberal arts are subsidizing those enrolled in engineering. Currently, because pricing isn’t in equilibrium across majors, many students are unable to attend because their preferred major will not pay off for them.

A few years back there was a proposal in Florida to have differential pricing for different majors at state institutions. However, this proposal was not letting the market determine pricing. Instead, it sought to lower the cost of STEM majors in an effort to draw more students to STEM majors. This would result in a glut of STEM graduates and lower starting salaries for these students. Counter to the current political discourse, it is the case that salaries in STEM fields have been growing at a slower rate than other college majors on average, which is the market saying that we have too many students pursuing STEM, not too few.

Differential pricing would likely be good for the colleges as it would maximize revenue and would help colleges get closer to the equilibrium price for each student. There is a reason why everyone on an airplane seems to pay a different fare – it maximizes revenue to the airline. Differential pricing is most often seen in businesses with high fixed and low marginal costs, which perfectly describes today’s traditional colleges. Differential pricing would also help colleges allocate costs more efficiently, as resources will flow to the demand.

This is a radical idea that I don’t think has ever been tried. The best argument I have heard against it is that it has the potential to limit students from poorer households to the pursuit of lower paying majors and to draw richer students to the higher paying majors, thus perpetuating a disparity. This could happen, but is more of a temporary cash flow issue that can be resolved with intelligent public policies.

Students need access to the capital necessary to get them through the college years and assurance that their resulting debt will be connected to their future earnings potential. That is where college financial aid offices and government support of higher education should place their focus. Students with ability and without financial means need temporary help getting them to a position where they have a job offer and a reasonable amount of college debt. We all have a stake in getting them to that point.

Let’s charge students a fair price that is determined by the value they receive from colleges and concentrate our public support on being sure they have a financial bridge from the moment they leave high school to when they graduate college. Linking their personal financial stake to their expected earnings is inherently fair, helps balance the labor market, and will cause colleges to provide training that is in demand by employers.

Common Misperceptions About Millennials

Published February 2, 2020 Generations , Marketing , Millennials , Youth Marketing Leave a Comment
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We’ve been researching Millennials literally since they have been old enough to fill out surveys. Over time, we have found that clients cling to common misperceptions of this generation and that the nature of these misperceptions haven’t evolved as Millennials have come of age.

Millennials are the most studied generation in history, likely because they are such a large group (there are now more Millennials in the US than Boomers) and because they are poised to soon become a dominant force in the economy, in politics, and in our culture.

There are enduring misconceptions about Millennials. Many stem from our inability to grasp that Millennials are distinctly different from their Gen X predecessors. Perhaps the worst mistake we can make is to assume that Millennials will behave in an “X” fashion rather than view them as a separate group.

Below are some common misconceptions we see that relate to Millennials.

  • Today’s kids and teens are Millennials. This is false as Millennials have now largely grown up. If you use the Howe/Strauss Millennial birth years Millennials currently range from about 16 to 38 years old. If you prefer Pew’s breaks Millennials are currently aged 23 to 38. Either way, Millennials are better thought of as being in a young adult/early career life stage than as teenagers.
  • Millennials are “digital natives” who know more about technology than other generations. This is, at best, partially true. The first half of the generation, born in 1982, hardly grew up with today’s interactive technology. The iPhone came out in 2007 when the first Millennial was 25 years old. Millennials discovered these technologies along with the rest of us. A recent Pew study on technological ownership showed that Millennials do own more technology than Boomers and Xers, but that the gap isn’t all that large. For years we have counseled clients that parents and teachers are more technologically advanced than commonly thought. Don’t forget that the entrepreneurial creators of this technology are mainly Boomers and Xers, and not Millennials.
  • Millennials are all saddled with college debt. We want to tread lightly here, as we would not want to minimize the issue of college debt which affects many young people and constrains their lives in many ways. But we do want to put college debt in the proper perspective. The average Millennial has significant debt, but the reality is the bulk of the debt they hold is credit card debt and not college debt. College debt is just 16% of the total debt held by Millennials. According to the College Board 29% of bachelor’s degree graduates have no college debt at all, 24% have under $20,000 in debt, 30% have between $20,000 and $30,000 in debt, and 31% have over $30,000 in college debt. The College Board also reports that a 4-year college graduate can expect to make about $25,000 per year more than a non-graduate. It is natural for people of all generations to have debt in their young adult/early professional life stage and this isn’t unique to Millennials. What is unique is their debt levels are high and multi-faceted. Our view is that college debt per se is not the core issue for Millennials, as most have manageable levels of college debt and college is a financially worthwhile investment for most of them. But college debt levels continue to grow and have a cascading effect and lead to other types of debts. College debt is a problem, but mostly because it is a catalyst for other problems facing Millennials. So, this statement is true, but is more nuanced than is commonly perceived.
  • Millennials are fickle and not loyal to brands. This myth has held sway since before the generation was named. I cannot tell you how many market research projects I have conducted that have shown that Millennials are more brand loyal than other generations. They express positive views of products online at a rate many times greater than the level of complaints they express. Of course, they have typical young person behaviors of variety-seeking and exploration, but they live in a crazy world of information, misinformation, and choice. Brand loyalty is a defense mechanism for them.
  • Millennials are fickle and not loyal to employers. On the employer side, surveys show that Millennials seek stability in employment. They want to be continuously challenged and stay on a learning curve. We feel that issues with employer loyalty for Millennials go both ways and employers have become less paternalistic and value young employees less than in past times. That is the primary driver of Millennials switching employers. There are studies that suggest that Millennials are staying with employers longer than Gen X employees did.
  • Millennials are entrepreneurial. In reality, we expect Millennials to be perhaps the least entrepreneurial of all the modern generations. (We wrote an entire blog post on this issue.)
  • Millennials seek constant praise. This is the generation that grew up with participation trophies and gold stars on everything (provided by their Boomer parents). However, praise is not really what Millennials seek. Feedback is. They come from a world of online reviews, constant educational testing, and close supervision. The result is Millennials have a constant need to know where they stand. This is not the same as praise.
  • Millennials were poorly parented. The generation that was poorly parented was Gen X. These were the latch-key kids who were lightly supervised. Millennials have been close with their parents from birth. At college, the “typical” Millennial has contact with their parent more than 10 times per week. Upon graduation, many of them choose to live with, or nearby their parents even when there is no financial need to do so. Their family ties are strong.
  • Millennials are all the same. Whenever we look at segments, we run a risk of typecasting people and assuming all segment members are alike.  The “art” of segmentation in a market research study is to balance the variability between segments with the variability within them in a way that informs marketers. Millennials are diverse. They are the most racially diverse generation in American history, they span a wide age range, they cover a range of economic backgrounds, and are represented across the political spectrum. The result is while there is value in understanding Millennials as a segment, there is no typical Millennial.

When composing this post, I typed “Millennials are …” into a Google search box. The first thing that came up to complete my query was “Millennials are lazy entitled narcissists.” When I typed “Boomers are …” the first result was “Boomers are thriving.”  When I typed “Gen X is …” the first result was “Gen X is tired.” This alone should convince you that there are serious misconceptions of all generations.

Millennials are the most educated, most connected generation ever. I believe that history will show that Millennials effectively corrected for the excesses of Boomers and set the country and the world on a better course.

Truth Initiative wins Ogilvy for Opioid Campaign

Published September 27, 2019 Marketing , Ogilvy Award , Opioids Leave a Comment
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Truth Initiative has won two 2019 Ogilvy awards for its campaign against opioid misuse.

The ARF David Ogilvy Awards is the only award that honors the research and analytics insights behind the most successful advertising campaigns. Crux Research, along with our research partners at CommSight, provided the research services for this campaign.

A case study of the campaign can be found here. 

You can view spots from the campaign here and here.

We are very proud to have provided Truth Initiative with research support for this important campaign.

Why Your Child Hates Sports

Published August 1, 2019 Generations , Youth Marketing 1 Comment
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It surprises many to learn that on most measures of well-being today’s youth are the healthiest generation in history. Violent crime against and by young people is historically low. Teen pregnancy and birth rates continue to decline. Most measures of drug and alcohol use among teens and young adults show significant declines from a generation ago. Tobacco use is at a low point. In short, most problems that are a result of choices young people make have shown marked improvement since information on Millennials entered the data sets.

But an important measure of well-being has tracked significantly worse during the Millennial and post-Millennial era:  childhood obesity. According to the CDC, the prevalence of obesity has roughly tripled in the past 40 years. This is a frightful statistic.

This is not new news as many books, documentaries, and scholars have presented possible reasons for the spike in youth obesity. Beyond genetics, there are two likely determinants of obesity: 1) nutrition and 2) physical activity. Discussions of obesity’s “nutritional” causes are fraught with controversy. The food industry involves a lot of interests and money, nutritional science is rarely definitive, and seemingly everyone has their own opinions on what is healthy or unhealthy to eat. The nutritional roots of obesity (while likely very significant) are far from settled.

However, the “physical activity” side of the discussion tends to not be so heated. Nearly everyone agrees that today’s youth aren’t as physically active as they should be. There are likely many causes for this as well, but I believe the way youth sports operate merit some discussion.

When I was young, sports were every bit as important to my life as they became to my Millennial children. The difference is my sports experiences as a child were mostly kid-directed. Almost daily, we gathered in the largest yard in the neighborhood and played whichever sport was in season. It took up an hour or two on most days and sometimes the entire weekend. The biggest difference to today’s youth sports environment is there wasn’t an adult in sight. There were arguments, injuries, and conflicts, all of which got resolved without adult mediation.

Contrast this to today’s youth sports environment. Today’s kids specialize in one sport year-round and from a very young age join travel and elite leagues organized by adults. There is a general dearth of unstructured play time. Correlation and causation are never the same thing but the rise in youth obesity has correlated closely with the rise in youth sports leagues organized by adults. Once adults started making the decisions about sports, our kids got fatter.

As a matter of personal perspective, I have two adult children and I can count six sports (baseball, soccer, ice hockey, track, skiing, cross country) that they played in an adult-organized fashion while growing up. We encountered situations where I had a child who was one of the least talented kids on a team, others where I had a child that was the star of the team, and many others where my child was somewhere in the middle. Between them, my kids were on teams that dominated their leagues and went undefeated, they were on some that lost almost every game, and they were on some teams that both won and lost. I coached for a while and my wife was “team mom” for most teams they were on.

Along the way I noticed that kids seemed to have the most fun when they won just a few more games than they lost. The kids didn’t seem to think it was as fun to dominate the competition and it was even less fun to be constantly on the losing end. 

I remember once when in the car after a hockey game I asked my son what he wanted to happen when he had the puck. He said, “I want to score.” I asked him “suppose you scored every single time you touched the puck. Would that be any fun?” At 10 years old, he didn’t have to think long to say that wouldn’t be very fun at all. But, that is what most hockey dads are hoping will happen.

There seems to be a natural force kids apply to sports equality when adults get out of the way. Left to their own devices, the first things kids will do when choosing up teams is to try to get the teams to be evenly matched. Then, if the game starts to get too one-sided the next thing they will do is swap some players around to balance it out. This seems to be ingrained – nobody teaches kids to do this, but left on their own this is what they tend to do. They will also change the rules of the game to make it more fun.

I’ve encountered many parents who are delusional when it comes to the athletic capabilities of their children. I don’t think I have ever met a dad (including myself) who didn’t think their child was better than he/she really was. We want our kids to succeed of course. But we have to have the right definition of success. Are they having fun? Are they improving? Learning how to work as a team and treat competition with respect? Making friendships? That is what is going to matter down the line.

Far too many parents look to the future too much and don’t let their kids enjoy the moment. They will spend thousands and sacrifice nearly every weekend to send their kid to a camp that might get them noticed by college recruiters. The reality is, their child probably won’t get an athletic scholarship, and if he/she does it probably won’t come close to offsetting the money spent getting him/her to all of the camps and travel league games. Parents also don’t realize that most kids don’t find participating in college sports to be as fun as participating in them was in high school.

When I coached Little League baseball, I used to tell the kids to play catch with their mom or dad every day. I remember a mom once asking me why I was pushing them to do this so much. I told her that playing catch with a baseball in the backyard with your kid is one of the great moments in parenthood. It forces you to talk and listen to your kid. I told her that her son would remember that time with his mom or dad far more than playing on our team.

There are debates over rewards for participation in sports. In my day, you had to win to get the trophy and sometimes you didn’t even get that. Now, kids get trophies for showing up. That is not necessarily a bad thing. As Woody Allen says, “80% of success is showing up.” So, why not reward it?

My youngest son was fortunate to run cross country for a coach that most would classify as a local legend. He has coached the team for 30+ years, has had many state championship teams and individuals, and is widely respected. My favorite memory of him was something I observed when he didn’t know I was looking and it had nothing to do with championships and developing elite athletes.  For the first race of a new season, he took the varsity teams to an out-of-state invitational. The girls team was quite good, and for his 7th (and slowest) runner he brought a freshman girl who was inexperienced and running her very first race. She didn’t do very well and came in about 120th place in the race. I saw the coach come up to her right afterword with a beaming smile on his face. The first thing he said to her was “was that FUN or what?” as he gave her a hug. She smiled, hugged him back and ended up staying on the team for all four years of high school and last weekend (8 years later) I saw her jogging in a local park. She didn’t excel at running in high school, but the coach sparked a lifelong interest in fitness in her.

To me, that signified not just what sports should all be about, but what adults’ role in sports should be all about. We have a real problem with childhood obesity. The cure is to make sports and physical activity more fun, and many times that means getting the adults out of the way.

Is getting a driver’s license still a rite of passage for teens?

Published February 4, 2019 Gen Z , Generations , Marketing , Millennials , Youth Marketing 1 Comment
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In the 80’s and 90’s, before the Millennial generation hit their teen years in force, we would use “driver’s license status” as a key classification variable in studies. Rather than split focus groups by age or grade in school, we would often place teens who had their license in one group and those who did not have their license yet in another group. Regardless of the topic of the group. We found that teens with licenses were more independent of their parents and more capable of making decisions without parental input. Drivers license obtention was often better predictor of consumer behavior than age.

Young people experience many rites of passages in a short period of time. These are experiences that signify a change in their development. They ride the school bus for the first time, get their first smartphone, enter high school, go to the prom, leave home to go to college, vote for the first time, etc. As marketers, we have always looked at these inflection points as times when consumer behavior shifts. The obtaining of a driver’s license is traditionally seen as a watershed moment as it signifies a new level of independence.

However, this wisdom no longer holds. Millennials, particularly second wave Millennials, are not as focused on obtaining drivers licenses as their Boomer and Xer parents were. Where I grew up, we couldn’t wait until our 16th birthday so we could get our learner’s permit. My classmates and I usually took our road tests at the first opportunity. Failing the road test was a traumatic experience, as it caused us to remain in our parents’ control for a few more months.

This is no longer the case. In 1983, 46% of America’s 16-year-olds had a driver’s license. That is now less than 25% currently. I was very surprised to notice that my children and their friends seemed to be in no particular rush to get their licenses. Many times, it was the parents that pushed the kids to take their road test, as the parents were tiring of chaperoning the kids from place to place.

There are likely things that have caused this change:

  • Today’s parents are highly protective of children. Parents no longer push their children to be as independent as quickly.
  • There are societal pressures. In most states, there are more stringent requirements in terms of driving experience to be able to take a road test and more restrictions on what a younger driver can do with his/her license. The license simply isn’t as valuable as it used to be.
  • Driving has peaked in the US. People are driving less frequently and fewer miles when they do. There has also been a movement of the population to urban areas which have more mass transit.
  • The decline of retail has played a part. Going to the mall was a common weekend activity for Xer teens. Now, staying home and shopping on Amazon is more common. Millennials never went to the mall to socialize.
  • Online entertainment options have proliferated. Movies and shows are readily streamed. Many teens fulfill a need for socialization via gaming, where they interact with their friends and make new ones. This need could only be met in person in the past.
  • Teens are working less so have less of a need to drive to work. Of course, this means they have less of their own money and that tethers them to their parents even longer.

There are likely many other causes. But the result is clear. Teens are getting licenses later and using them less than they did a generation ago.

As a result, researchers have lost a perfectly good measure! Obtaining a driver’s license is not as strong a rite of passage as it used to be.

We’ve been thinking about what might make a good alternative measure. What life event do young people experience that changes them in terms of granting their independence from parents? Leaving home and living independently for the first time would qualify but seems a bit late to be useful. There may be no clear marker signifying independence for Millennials, as they stay dependent on parents across a much wider time period than in the past. Or, perhaps we need to change our definition of independence.

The most selective colleges have the least effective marketing

Published November 1, 2018 Education , Marketing , Youth Marketing Leave a Comment
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Recently, Stanford University made headlines for deciding to stop issuing an annual press release documenting its number of applicants and acceptances.

There has been a bit of an arms race among colleges with competitive admissions to be able to claim just how selective they are. The smaller the proportion of applicants accepted, the better the college does in many ranking systems and the more exclusive the “brand” of the college becomes.

This seems to be a bit crazy, as publicizing how few students are accepted is basically broadcasting how inefficient your college marketing system has become. We can’t think of any organization beyond colleges that would even consider doing something analogous to this – broadcasting to the world that they have enticed non-qualified buyers to consider their product.

I learned firsthand how ingrained this behavior is among college admissions and marketing personnel. About five years ago I had the pleasure to speak in front of a group of about 200 college marketers and high school counselors. I created what I felt was a compelling and original talk which took on this issue. I have given perhaps 200 talks in my career, and this one might have been the single most poorly received presentation I have ever delivered.

The main thrust of my argument was that as a marketer, you want to be as targeted as possible so as to not waste resources. “Acquisition cost” is an important success metric for markers: how much do you spend in marketing for every customer you are able to obtain? Efficiency in obtaining customers is what effective marketing is all about.

I polled the audience to ask what they felt the ideal acceptance rate would be for their applicants. Almost all responded “under 10%” and most responded “under 5%.” I then stated that the ideal acceptance rate for applicants would be 100%. The ideal scenario would be this: every applicant to your college would be accepted, would then choose to attend your institution, would go on to graduate, become a success, and morph into an engaged alumnus.

I used an analogy of a car dealership. Incenting college marketers to increase applications is akin to compensating a car salesperson for how many test drives he/she takes customers on. The dealership derives no direct value from a test drive. Every test drive that does not result in a car purchase is a waste of resources. The test drive is a means to an end and car dealers don’t tend to track it as a success metric. Instead, they focus on what matters – how many cars are sold and how much was spent in marketing to make that happen.

Colleges reward their marketers to get students to test drive when they should be rewarding their marketers for getting them to buy. This wouldn’t matter much if a high proportion of applicants were accepted and ending up attending.  But, even at highly selective colleges it is not uncommon for less than 10% of applicants to be accepted, less than 33% of those accepted to choose to attend, and less than 50% of those that enroll to actually end up graduating. At those rates, for every 1,000 applicants, just 17 will end up graduating from the institution. That is a success rate of 1.7%.

These are metrics that in any business context would be seen as a sign of an organization in serious trouble. Can you imagine if only 10% of the people who came in your store qualified to buy your product? And then if only a third of those would actually decide to do so? And then if half of those that do buy don’t end up using your product or return it? That is pretty much what happens at selective colleges.

This issue is a failure of leadership. College marketers I have worked with can often see this problem, but feel pressured by their Deans and College Presidents to maximize their applicant base. Granted, this can help build the college’s brand, but it is a huge drain on resources that are better spent ensuring targeting applicants who are poised for success at the institution. It has happened because selectivity is considered important in building a college’s brand. Stanford has taken a useful first step, and hopefully other colleges will follow their lead.

Congrats to Truth Initiative – Wins Gold at Ogilvy Awards!

Published April 4, 2018 Gen Z , Generations , Marketing , Millennials , Youth Marketing Leave a Comment
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Congratulations to our client Truth Initiative on winning Gold at the David Ogilvy Awards. The Ogilvy awards are unique in that they celebrate campaigns that effectively use market research to spark an insightful campaign. Truth Initiative won gold in the “Unexpected Targeting and Segmentation” category.

The Truth Campaign was called “Stop Profiling.” It centered on a social justice theme – that today’s youth will ban together if they perceive a segment of the population is being treated unfairly. Truth’s ad (“Market Priority”) can be seen here.

Crux Research partnered with CommSight to provide formative research, copy testing, and campaign tracking. We are excited to be a part of this award-winning effort – and this award is the third Ogilvy we have been involved in for Truth Initiative.

 “Gen Z” should make you cringe!

Published September 5, 2017 Gen Z , Generations , Marketing , Millennials , Youth Marketing Leave a Comment
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Adults have a number of misconceptions about youth generations. A glaring one is a tendency to think that a new generation will become a more intense version of the previous generation. That is rarely the case – new generations tend to sharply break with the old.

Let’s start by reviewing what a generation is. A generation is a cohort of people who share a common location in history. A generation progresses through life stages together and experiences key life events (childhood, adolescence, family life, retirement) at the same time. While our life stages change as we age, our generation does not. There is a commonality of experience and perspective that influences how a generation reacts to challenges presented by any given life stage.

While generational beginning and end points are hotly debated by academics, they tend to be bounded by historical events. For instance, the Boomer generation is known as the generation born after WWII ended as birth rates rapidly grew. Xers are those that were born during the subsequent demographic dip. Millennials began as an “echo” boom occurred as the large Boomer generation had their own children.

Generational change is abrupt and disruptive.  My own experience with this goes back to when the Millennial Generation (born 1982 – 2004) was coming of age in the 1990’s. At the time I was conducting studies of young people and was noticing clear breaks in the data sets. Inflection points often appeared when we graphed research measures by age. It took me years to realize these inflection points weren’t linked to a stage of development or age as they were migrating upwards over time. Eventually, I discovered these inflections were happening right at the generational break line – as soon as individuals born in the early 80’s came into the data sets, things changed.

It took me years to figure this out because this generation was most commonly referred to as Gen Y at the time. What does Gen Y mean? To me, it meant this new group would be a continuation of Gen X – only they would exhibit Gen X traits at higher intensity. I went to many youth conferences where speakers said precisely this. I often left puzzled, as what they were saying didn’t line up with what I was seeing in the data we gathered.

This new generation wasn’t behaving anything like Gen X. While Gen X was filled with latchkey kids who had developed a strong sense of individualism, independence, and self-worth, this new generation was all about teamwork, parental structure and oversight, and continuous feedback and validation. Calling them Gen Y seemed ridiculous as it implied they were merely an extension of Gen X. Thankfully, although the Gen Y moniker persisted, the term Millennial soon took hold.

Generations have unique characteristics and tendencies. These characteristics are almost never simply continuations of a previous generation’s characteristics. We can all agree that Boomers have not acted at all like their Silent Generation predecessors or that Xers haven’t been at all like Boomers. Millennials represent a further break with Xers.

There is no authority that has been commissioned to name a generation. Generations prior to Boomers weren’t really named during their time and many will claim that the Boomers were the first named generation. Prior generations were largely named by historians long after they had existed. For example, nobody called the WWII generation the “greatest generation” or the “GI generation” at the time – these terms took hold well after Boomers had been named.

Generational names evolve. Names often begin as something that underscore how adults don’t understand that generations are not just continuations of the previous generations. As an example, Gen X was most commonly called “the baby bust” generation at first, implying that they were  merely a consequence of a birth rate decline extending from the baby boom era. The term “Gen X” was popularized in a novel by Douglas Coupland. It became popular not because of the letter X but what this letter signified – a lack of a name for a largely forgotten generation, but also one that wasn’t particularly interested in being categorized or targeted.

The term Millennial was also established relatively late in the game. It was popularized in a book called Millennials Rising, and prior names either reflected a continuation of a parental generation (“the echo boom”, the “boomlet”) or of Gen X (“Generation Y.”). Millennials is a much better name and has largely taken over for “Generation Y.”

The whole purpose of naming generations from a marketing sense is that generations represent segments of consumers with unique needs. Our goal in naming them should be to show how they are distinct from each other.

Which brings me to Gen Z. This is a term we are seeing more and more, and I am tending to feel that those who use it are displaying a fundamental ignorance not only of generational change but even what a generation is. Gen Z tends to be used to describe today’s adolescents. But, because the youngest Millennial is currently 13 years old, the term Gen Z isn’t being applied to a new generation at all. It is being used to describe young, late-stage Millennials, which is sort of a segment of a segment.

The key characteristic of this microsegment (late-stage Millennials) of interest to researchers is that their parental generation has changed. Whereas the oldest half of the Millennial generation was largely parented by Boomers, the younger half has been parented by Gen X. This has some implications, but today’s teens are still Millennials and will exhibit Millennial traits.

The term “Gen Z” makes is cringe-worthy as it lays bare a fundamental misunderstanding of the generations. I even saw a study released recently on “Gen Z college students.”  Not sure I understand that, as the leading edge of the generation after Millennials is at most 12 years old currently. We are at least five years from the first member of the next generation showing up on campus.

“Gen Z” is also being used to refer to the generation that will come after Millennials (currently children aged up to 12 and yet to be born).  I have also seen this new generation referred to as “post-Millennial.”  And, what are we to name the generation that comes after this Gen Z? We’ve run out of letters, so perhaps we will have to use a spreadsheet convention and call them Generation AA.

Just like for previous generations, I’d expect to see today’s youngest generation eventually named in a way that describes who they are. I have heard some reasonable candidates:  The Homeland Generation, the iGen, The Pluralist Generation, etc. These all are descriptive. If the past is any indication, sometime in the next 10 years some name will achieve consensus (and it won’t be “Gen Z”).

For now please join me in cringing whenever you hear someone say the term “Gen Z.” J.

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