Junior Boomers
Who's next? The Net generation.
Move over, Generation X--it's time to make way for a new
breed of boomer children. Even prudent marketers are zeroing in for
a closer look at the "Net Generation"--the youngest clad
in diapers, the oldest aged 20.
"There are now, in the U.S. alone, 81 million
N-Geners," says Don Tapscott, author of Growing Up Digital:
The Rise of the Net Generation (McGraw-Hill). "What makes them
a historic force for social transformation is not just their
demographic muscle but that they're growing up during a
communication revolution."
That revolution was fed by the Internet, says Tapscott, which
transformed the early notion of computers as information management
tools into the major communication mediums of today. The advent of
cyberspace has, in turn, changed the way today's kids think as
well as how they behave as consumers. When marketing to the Net
generation, remember they prefer to shape the world around them.
Give them options and don't force them to commit to
anything.
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Though we've attempted to define the Net generation, the
lines defining the beginning and end of the Baby Boom are possibly
the only ones that enjoy a general consensus. Since then, not only
the labels but the years involved have blurred. Nonetheless, here
are some of the more popular labels circulating today:
- Baby Bust, also known as Gen X: 1965 to 1977
- Net Generation: According to Tapscott, this spans 1977 to
1997.
- Echo Boom: Though many claim the Echo Boom started in 1977, it
truly began booming in 1988, when nearly 4 million children were
born in the United States.