Millennials: What’s in a Name?

What defines a Millennial? A birthdate? A mindset? Whether you played Atari or Nintendo as a kid? How much your youth was shaped by the events of 9/11?

While there is no official definition, the birth rates suggest the line is somewhere around 1980-1982, roughly the high school graduating class of 2000 or later, hence the name “Millennial”. Most marketers use the names “Gen Y” and “Millennial” interchangeably, but Millennial seems to be ascendant, perhaps because it is catchier, though undoubtedly harder to spell.
According to the Washington Post in an article, “What Comes Next After Generation X”?, not all Millennials appreciate the label. Aside from the natural aversion to being labeled at all, they rightly point out that this generation is so varied that it is difficult to categorize the many “niche” audiences that make it up. Some suggest that use of technology is a better way to define them than simply age:

“My sister is 32. We believe them to be Generation X, but it’s not that many years apart,” said Giacomo Abrusci, 26, an American Chemical Society project coordinator. “But they managed to get through their education without technology. My sister thinks she’s in Gen X, but she’s also super into Facebook and MySpace.”

Ways to “define” — rather than label — this generation include politics (liberal), social views (community-oriented, tolerant), academic (lots of degrees) or lots of debt (to pay for the degrees). Ultimately, what will matter most to marketers is how the Millennials label themselves. Boomers considered themselves the “Me Generation,” a label Pepsi was able to leverage and exploit. Gen Xers see themselves as entrepreneurial and independent, a self-image luxury marketers are doing their best to leverage.

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