Advertising attitudes of Generation X compared to Baby Boomers

Abstract

In the June 6, 1994, edition of Newsweek, four writers commented that the only two things which could be said with certainty about Generation X & that they are Americans and they are in their twenties (Ehrenfeld, Henderson, Springen, & Pryor, 1994). Herein is the marketing anomafy: How do companies advertise to people who are members of such a diverse demographic group? How do members of Generation X perceive advertising? Are there any remarkable differences between how Xers and older American generations think of advertising? If so, marketers would benefit from such knowledge, because certainly they could not employ the same marketing strategies for Xers and other Americans if perceptions about advertising differ.

Known as Generation X, the baby busters, the 13th Generation, the twenty-somethings, the forgotten generation, this is considered a difficult group on which to focus (Steinhauer, 1994). Generation X is a vastly diverse group in regard to such factors as age, race, and lifestyle, and is commonly defined as consisting of all Americans bom between the years 1966 and 1977 (Zill & Robinson, 1995). It is difficult to find one marketing strategy which appeals to the entire generation. In order to market to Generation X, the first thing which needs to be discovered is how members of this demographic group perceive advertising, compared to other generations of Americans.