targeting

Generation Generalisation: Targeting by Generation Does More Harm Than Good

Business people love to target by ‘Generation’. ‘Gen Z’, ‘Millennials’, ‘Gen X’, ‘Gen Alpha’ have all become convenient shorthands for talking about audiences. Like calling a child ‘naughty’ these labels are quick short hands with long term consequences. Generational tags hold the promise to make segmentation simple, offering tidy demographic boxes that allegedly explain how people think, behave or buy stuff.

For business people who love to tacitly play bullshit bingo, talking about “Gen Z” is another strategic amplifier – it makes board table conversations sound insightful and current. And frustratingly, the media pick up on this too… ‘work shy Millennials’; the ‘Burnout Generation’ and so on. Together the illusion is formed that age alone defines people’s outlook and choices.

The problem is, it’s not only lazy, more often than not, it’s factually wrong.

Three Big Problems

Firstly, generational labels ignore the immense diversity that exists within any age cohort. Treating Gen Z as a single segment assumes that a 22-year-old graduate in Manchester and a 22-year-old care worker in Cornwall share the same motivations and media habits — when they almost certainly don’t.

Secondly, these generational labels are always applied out of context. ‘Baby Boomer’ was first used in a 1963 article in the Daily Press. Gen X from a 1991 novel by Canadian, Douglas Coupland. Gen Alpha in 2008 by Australian researcher, Mark McCrindle.  So how are these sweeping generalisations relevant to someone in Barnsley, Crief or Newtonards?

Thirdly, there’s chicken and egg – this kind of targeting reinforces stereotypes and inherent biases. Older audiences are portrayed as brand loyal and tech illiterate. Young adults as work shy and low on attention. With these lazy generalisations the curiosity and connection with real people is lost and the tone of a business or brand becomes to objectify and talk down to the very audience it’s trying to engage with.Fourthly, people’s choices are far more influenced by what they can afford, the beliefs they hold, and what matters to them that when they were born.

Four Solutions

  • Segment by mindset, not year; identifying common attitudes, values, and needs across age groups.
  • Use rich contextual datato understand what people actually do, rather than assuming how they act based on their age.
  • Recognise fluid life stages. Someone renting their first flat or planning for retirement can belong to any generation.
  • Designing inclusively, so creative and messaging are accessible and relevant to all who share a motivation, not just those who share a date of birth.

How to Persuade Others

Challenging generational stereotypes takes tact, particularly because these labels are sticky. Start by using evidence, not opinion, facts not myths. In the UK we have research data from ONS, IPA or WARC, or indeed your own bespoke research, showing that attitudes differ more by income, education and worldview than by age.

And it’s important, because these beguiling clichés lead to lower opportunity. Understanding audiences as people, not categories, makes brands more inclusive, more empathetic, and ultimately more effective.

But more than this, the real irony is that in generalising by Generation, the opportunity becomes smaller not larger for brands. If you’re clear on your audience by attitude, beliefs and by simple economics, you open a bigger field of play and a bigger size of prize.

 

David Preston is founder of The Crow Flies, a research, strategy, innovation and brand planning company that helps brands find a direct route to long lasting success.  david@thecrowflies.co.uk; +44 (0) 1889 725670;  www.thecrowflies.co.uk; @crowflieshigh. © The Crow Flies, 2025

The Perils of Penny The Pen Portrait

Bringing to life your target consumer or customer in a way that’s useful and meaningful to your marketing efforts, whilst also acting as an empowering guide in the business is a big question. It’s one we face a lot on many projects from research, positioning and often business strategy too.

It’s an really important question too. Bringing to life consumer segments effectively can focus the business and aid execution and commercial delivery. But too often we reach for the ‘Pen Portrait’ solution – you know, ‘Penny’ or ‘Ethan’, ‘Sanjit’ or ‘Olivia’.

The principles of targeting are well established (if debated and not always agreed with) but whatever your view on it, it’s always a big mistake to confuse ‘targeting’ with ‘micro-targeting’ which is what frequently happens. Targeting can be empowering, but micro-targeting can give the perception of being focused whilst actually restricting your commercial potential. So it’s important to tread carefully…. we see five traps that can catch the unwary marketeer:

  • Too personalised or over specified. This is trap we most often see. By making something very individual (‘This is Dan, he’s 28, lives an apartment in Greenwich with his partner…’) the receiver’s decoding of the targeting becomes personal (He’s not like any Dan I know) and may have the opposite to intended effect – making it unrelatable. The idea of the Pen Portraits here is find a central representation of the target group, but in making it too personal the opposite happens and the target narrows and becomes too singular – when you go out looking for the target you can’t find them.
  • Too broad. Breadth is, counter-intuitively, important in targeting. You want to find a meaningful commercial prize to aim at after all. But too broad becomes useless. Millennials anyone? Yes, that’s right! Let’s assume every one of the 14 million “millennials” in the UK share the same attitudes, characteristics and behaviours. It’s lazy and worse, largely useless in helping a brand.
  • Too stereotyped which may have initial appeal inside the business, but when you actually try and recruit, you find it’s hard to find your targets. The hidden biases inherent in identifying may have some very broad-brush recognition from the audience but in the detail they’re not there – in reality, people just don’t fit the mould.
  • Too unrelatable – a big challenge when you have a business that isn’t particularly customer or consumer orientated. Leadership can often feel that they represent the customer. You need a strong argument and commercial case to dislodge these deep set opinions. And some bravery too – hence, teams often roll with it a bit or don’t nip the problem in the bud at source.

There isn’t a perfect answer but equally, there’s no doubt that building up a set of target audience typologies is useful for helping the business (and decision makers in particular) be clear on who we’re going after, who we’re not, and why. But what’s important in the Pen Portrait is likely to vary by category and you may need different elements depending on your category or brand situation. For example, although broad, life stage may be discriminating for you. Or, perhaps, you want to target everyone but only on specific occasions or moments.

We’ve bags of experience working out through research who to target and how to best bring them to life and set them to productive work in a business. If we can help you with your targeting, drop us a line.

 

David Preston is founder of The Crow Flies, a research, strategy and innovation company that helps brands find a direct route to long lasting success.  david@thecrowflies.co.uk; +44 (0) 1889 725670; www.thecrowflies.co.uk; @crowflieshigh. © The Crow Flies, 2022