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Generations X and Y
Jane Buckingham on what they are really about
By Gabriel Spitzer
Young people’s tastes are often tough to figure out, ranking somewhere between the human genome and the tax code in terms of incomprehensibility. But that has stopped few from trying. One of them is Jane Buckingham, founder of Youth Intelligence, a market research, trend forecasting and consulting company devoted exclusively to plumbing the often inscrutable minds of Generations X and Y. Buckingham, 33, and her staff of "cool spotters" (who are as young as 22) conduct much of their business in pizza joints, bars and hip boutiques, functioning as a sort of hybrid between the marketer and the anthropologist. Youth Intelligence has compiled an extensive list of media clients, such as NBC, MTV and Showtime, as well as a number of advertising agencies like J. Walter Thompson, Leo Burnett and McCann-Erickson. Media Life talked with Buckingham about why so many in media seem to completely miss when it comes to appealing to young people and what it’s like to have one of the coolest jobs in the business.
What’s the office culture like at Youth Intelligence?
We’re in a very informal environment. We’re in a townhouse in Manhattan; we have two cats running around. On any given day you might have half the people there, because half the people are off doing something in a different city. It’s not just about fun, but it’s about being happy to come to work and enjoying what you’re doing.
Can you talk a little about the different places where you hold your focus groups?
It could be a coffee shop, it could be a pizza place, it could be a mall—anywhere where people are willing to talk to us. So we’ll just say, look, we’re going to have an hour discussion there, and if you want to come, come. And so we just try and make it as on-their-territory as possible, so it doesn’t feel formal and scientific, and they can feel comfortable.
I think you get a more authentic response, and I also think you get people who wouldn’t want to go to a traditional focus group facility in some office building.
Why do marketers and media often seem so off-base when trying to appeal to young people?
I think companies often rely on the stereotypes of young people and don’t really talk to them. If you go to the lowest common denominator of what you think a teenager will be, it certainly will not ring true with most teenagers.
What’s an example of something that you think missed the boat?
I think that Pepsi, when they did their Generation Next, didn’t really understand that generation. They were making a cliché of a generation who really didn’t want to be a cliché.
But I think that then they did sort of tap into the young people because they recognized that there were certain celebrities who were meaningful to them, and they said, well, gee, if we include them that gives a better association of who we are, and I think that’s really helped them lately.
What are some of your success stories in terns of trend forecasting?
The trends that I think are most interesting are the more psychographic ones.
We’ve been saying for years that many of the twenty-something women, the generation that’s supposed to bring the first female president, will want to be stay-at-home moms because that’s the reverse of what everyone thought they were going to be.
People said you’re crazy, this isn’t happening. But lately there have been all kinds of articles and all kinds of statistics showing that, in fact, it’s true.
Another example is Target, which has been very kind in saying it attributes some of its success with things like Hello Kitty and Razor scooters to our telling it far enough in advance that these were trends and then bringing them into the store.
If you guys were able to forecast that scooter thing, you have otherworldly powers.
I wish I’d invested in it.
If I had had any idea how big it was going to be, I’d be rich. Every so often we think, gee, maybe we should be a part of these trends, not just call them.
What are some of the emerging trends among Generations X and Y in terms of media preferences?
I think it’s a group that really respects integrated marketing.
It’s not enough just to have a really great print ad or a really great commercial. They want interesting new packaging, they want interesting messages, and they want them to come from interesting places.
It is important to entertain them, because they say, if I’m going to pay as much attention to you as I am to the TV shows that are coming in between, it had better be really creative and really different. It’s all about treating it as what we can do for you that somebody else hasn’t done for you.
How do you see some of the emerging technologies, like the internet and gaming, fitting in with old media for young people?
It makes me nervous when companies only want to do stuff on the internet, or only want to do stuff with video gamers. That’s part of it and it should be part of an integrated media plan, but the reality is that television is still the thing that gets the most viewers.
So unless you want to start with trendsetters, which a lot of people do and I think that that can be really effective, you probably want to be doing some of the traditional media venues, until people figure out what is the best internet site, what is the best video-gaming opportunity.
How do you manage to run a company and still stay connected to the people you’re trying to understand?
I think it’s all about being open to listening and also having young people working with me who might be closer to the age. We really do ages 12-35.
I still know the older segments, but it’s important to always be out there talking to young people and to have young people helping us make sure we’re doing them justice.
If you can be so in touch with young people because you are one of them, what happens when you’re not? Are you going to quit at 40?
I think I’ll be out when I feel like I’m judging and not listening. And I hope that never happens.
For now, I have so much respect for young people that I feel OK doing it. It’s when I start being a judger and not a listener that I’ll stop. Or when I just get too tired.
January 10, 2002 © 2002 Media Life
-Gabriel Spitzer is a staff writer for Media Life.
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