Generational Marketing: Boomers vs. Xers - Audi A8

The main weakness of the Audi is that their competitors, mainly Mercedes and BMW, are luxury brands that have been around a long time, and are established as luxury cars.

The key message for the "Escape the old luxury" campaign is that Luxury has progressed. Audi took advantage of its main weakness turning it into a selling point and created a commercial that attempts to classify Audi automobiles as the new luxury brand in contrast to Mercedes as the old luxury brand.

Throughout the commercial they contrast two men buy having one seem born rich and not very smart, while the other is quick, athletic, and modern.

It was a great commercial that turned out to be even more effective move once Mercedes played their commercial. The Mercedes ad showed their cars throughout history and ended up making Mercedes look old allowing Audi’s strategy stand out.

GENERATIONAL MARKETING

The Audi commercial plays on a Generation divide ad specifically on the differences between Baby Boomers and Generation X.

A cultural generation is a cohort of people who were born in the same date range and share similar cultural experience (Brown) .

A generation gap is the difference in behaviour and the lack of understanding between generations (Oxford Wordpower Dictionary).

 Consumers in all generations must deal with the same current conditions. But each generation will respond to these developments in ways that are determined by a the early shared experiences that shaped their world view, expectations and aspirations.

Members of a generation are linked through the shared life experiences of their formative years. pop culture, economic conditions, world events, natural disasters, heroes, villains, politics and technology are all experiences that created bonds that unite the members of a generation. As a result, each cohort develops and retains its own shared values and life skills as they learn what to hold dear and how to navigate life.

_______________________BABY BOOMERS

Growing up in the unparalleled prosperity of the post-WWII years (born 1946-64), Baby Boomers were doted on by parents delighted to be able to give their children the material advantages they had not had themselves.

The post-war generation benefited from an unprecedented combination of benign economic conditions.

The great burst of innovation through the 1950s and 60s, from TVsto missions to the moon, shaped Boomer visions of limitless future possibilities (Kirkup).

GENERATION X________________________

Generation X (born 1965–78) is sometimes characterized as a “forgotten” generation.

Growin up in a period of uncertain economic conditions and caught up between the Baby Boomers and the Echo Boomer, two generations that are 30 to 40 percent larger, the Xers learned early in life to be self-reliant, skeptical and pragmatic to maximize the likelihood of achievement.

Xers have been raised with television, videogames and the first PCs therefore they can be considered the first digital natives.

For Xers, it's less about guaranteeing success in life and more about ensuring survival.

Xers are on the cusp of entering their peak earning years en masse.

Many experts place peak earning years between the ages of 40 and 54 highlighting a great potential to target this group (Marketing Charts)  

GENERATIONAL VALUES

According to Yankelovich Report both generations are characterized by 3 core values: 

BOOMERS
Individuality: a lifelong celebration of self and disregard for the “old rules”.

Self absorption: a dedication to focusing their energies on maximizing their unique qualities and life experience.

Youthfulness: the drive to stay vital and connected to the world, ignoring what's expected in outlook or behavior at any given age.

XERS
Savvy: a combination of critical judgment, knowledge and wariness.

Diversity: during their formative years, Xers were the first to represent meaningful ethnic diversity, household diversity (the first “children of divorce”) and lifestyle diversity.

Entrepreneurial mindset: driven by a need to forge a future on their own terms. They feel that they can't rely on anyone or anything. They develop their own talents, use their own judgment and succeed in their own way

THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

In order to target Xers the spot features the promoted Twitter hashtag #ProgessIs, and Twitter users participating in the hashtag relay automatically entered themselves into an Audi contest with the chance to win a series of swish prizes.

Social-networking sites such as Bebo, MySpace and Facebook are traditionally associated with younger users in their mid-teens to early twenties, but when it comes to micro-blogging site Twitter, ComScore found that this demographic segment was 12pc less likely than average to visit while is massive the presence of people from late twenties to early forties.

57% (60 million) of twitter users are aged 26-44 while only 19% users are aged 44+ (digital surgeons).

See you soon Hitchhikers and...don't leave the Earth without the Guide!

Sources

>Brown S. (2003) Marketing to Generation(R). Harvard Business Review. June. v. 16, no. 6
>Digital Surgeons (2010) Facebook vs. Twitter: a Breakdown of 2010 Social Demographics[online]. Available from: http://www.digitalsurgeons.com/facebook-vs-twitter-infographic/
>Marketing Charts (2010) Gen X,Y Will Lead Economic Recovery[online]. Available from: http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/gen-xy-will-lead-economic-recovery-12482/

>The Futures Company (2009) Yankelovich MONITOR Minute, May 2009                                           
>The Futures Company (2008) Yankelovich MONITOR Think Tank, Q2, 2008