Our industry is obsessed with putting people into categories. Since the 20th century, everyone from market researchers to designers and advertising agencies have relied on the distinct binaries of age demographics – and the hyper-specific behaviours and habits associated with them – to market products and services.
But for these marketing shortcuts to work effectively, they rely on larges swathes of people – billions in fact: Generation Z alone account for 32% of the global population, some 2.47bn people – acting in nearly identical ways. As a society, we both understand and champion the quirks of individuals, but as businesses, we still insist on lumping people together by the relatively insignificant division of age.
These labels could become a thing of the past, however, as experts draw attention to their shortcomings. In May 2021, hundreds of science researchers signed an open letter urging global authority Pew Research Center to end its use of generational terms, arguing that such labels are counter-productive. While the researchers agree that the experience of growing up as a Baby Boomer is very different from that of Generation Alpha, the most interesting part of their argument is that generational terms can shape people’s behaviour, rather than vice versa.
By assigning Gen Z, for example, the distinct character of progressive, TikTok-addicted activists, marketers are in danger of imposing such qualities on hugely diverse populations, which then feeds a vicious cycle of cultural parody. There’s also the fact that people are now identifying as members of different types of groups; those based on shared values, climate goals, the same neighbourhoods or even digitally driven DAOs, as spotlighted in our latest macrotrend Neo-collectivism.
