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Tag Archive: Chanel

How Will Gen-Y Change the World: A Gen-Y Mini-Series (Part 1 of 5)

Written on May 31, 2010 by Josip Petrusa

Last night I went on a TED adventure. “TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading” (and you can read further about TED on their about page). After watching a few videos and clicking through the site, the most fascinating thought hit me. As a Millennial and member of Generation Y, the thought is a question that I think we must answer and have to answer.

How will Gen-Y change the world?

I must admit, it’s a pretty open and broad question. The answers are endless. And each discipline can quite realistically answer this question in a different way. But the reality is that there are huge implications with this generation. Everything about Gen-Y seems to be interesting, complicated, surprising and problematic. However to really see what Gen-Y is about, you have to break them down and get to the heart of Millennial issues.

Today is going to be the first of five articles in a mini-series for this week. I’m going to dub it “How Will Gen-Y Change the World: A Gen-Y Mini-Series” (I know, it’s a pretty obvious title). So strap yourself in. Clear your mind. And get ready for a wild and interesting ride. First on our agenda: the Gen-Y Consumer.

The Gen-Y Consumer

The Gen-Y consumer is drastically changing the commercial landscape. Although to the naked eye this is not apparent, their consumer habits are reshaping many characteristics. This is being fuelled by a series of Gen-Y ideals. We are very clear on what we want and when we want it. Gen-Y wants the dream lifestyle now. And this itself is pushing products and brands into a lifestyle brand culture. In simplest terms, we want everything to happen now. We want the Benz (google search “Generation Benz” and you’ll see Mercedes is going in the right direction), the 7 For All Mankind designer jeans, the Chanel handbags and so much more. Can we afford it? Definitely not. But has that stopped us from trying and wanting to live this lifestyle? Not at all.

Hyperconsumerism and Gen-Y

Increasingly, all members of society are becoming hyperconsumerists. We are buying absolutely everything. And what we buy often causes us to buy more just to satisfy the first thing we bought. It has come to a point where you can quite realistically have multiple items that do the same thing, and yet we purchase more.

It’s really nothing new to know that we buy more now than ever before. And this increases as years go buy. What’s mind-blowing is the combination being created between Gen-Y and hyperconsumerism. This relationship is the catalyst to something more profound. It’s what I would like to call “consumer horizontalization”.

Consumer Horizontalization

Products and brands have always been placed on a vertical scale. One ranked higher than the other based on aspects such as brand name, exclusivity and price amongst other characteristics. In lamest terms, you would have differentiation based on top-level, middle and low-level categories. With that, you would have social classes that would fit these categories. Gen-Y is dramatically turning this vertical scale into a horizontal one.

Consumer horizontalization is the effect that Gen-Y is having on hyperconsumerism and all products and brands involved. As Gen-Y seeks to fulfill their dream lifestyle and as brands take on a lifestyle brand culture, you will effectively see a horizontal scale beginning to emerge. Although products and brands can very well bring their existing characteristics with them, they will differentiated based a series of other characteristics such as quality, customer service and ability to be customized.

And for those of you who made it down to the bottom of this article, you might be asking for some proof. The proof effectively exists in the malls and stores we all frequent. As time goes by, we see products and brands, which are ranked differently on a vertical scale, right beside each other, which is the emergence of horizontalization. With that it can’t be ignored that a horizontal scale is emerging. Nor can it be denied that Gen-Y is leading consumer horizontalization. As smartphones become “smartphones” and cars become “cars”, what will you do to standout and get a Millennials attention?

So stay tuned this week as we explore how Gen-Y is changing the world…

Introducing Lifestyle Brands: The Emerging Branding Strategy

Written on May 10, 2010 by Josip Petrusa

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My blog post today has been inspired by the feedback I’ve received from two previous posts that I’ve written. And I’m going to expand on the ideas and insights a little further (free of charge of course). Not too long ago, I wrote a blog post called 4 Insights Into the Future of Advertising that has received some buzz. The article itself addressed what the future of advertising will look like. And I highly suggest you read it before or even after this article.

Not too long after that article, I also wrote a guest blog post on idaconcpts.com called How to Market to Millennials, which received some significant buzz. It dealt with the mysterious issue of marketing to the Millennials (or Generation-Y) demographic. Again, I highly suggest you read it before or after this article.

By Christopher Chan

The idea behind today’s article originally stemmed from a comment left by Carol Phillips but involves ideas from both articles. She suggested a 5^th insight into the future of advertising where it “may be the beginning of the end for the ‘product brand’ and a golden age for ‘lifestyle brands’.” And I completely agree with her on this. Either brands will have to transform or it will be the end of them.

Previously, brands have been an aspect of life. Something we interact with and use but most important, something we did not necessarily need for life. It seems that there is a shift occurring where brands are becoming a part of our life, representing a style of life. Some brands have all along had this aspect of “lifestyle brand” (for instance Virgin, as brought up by Carol). But there are some outlier brands that are taking this type of brand strategy serious.

Apple would definitely be the simplest and easiest one to dissect. And it’s a brand that is quite frankly apparent to everyone, regardless if they are an Apple product user or not. The fact of the matter is that Apple is simply not selling a product, it’s selling a lifestyle. A lifestyle that is being pushed by the Millennials. A lifestyle that is putting outlier brands into the mainstream.

Imagine for one second if you couldn’t use your iPhone, iPod, MacBook or iPad. The brand is not simply reflecting your lifestyle. It is becoming your style of life. We are making these products more necessary to life than they have previously been.

Though, Apple is simply a small piece in a pie that is getting larger. In a recent article, Chanel and BMW were considered top brands by Gen-Y amongst others. One thing all these brands have in common is that they are not selling you a smartphone or a purse or a car. Rather they are selling you an iPhone, a Chanel accessory and a BMW 6 Series. And it’s an aspect that dominates the Millennials way of thinking.

Rather than waiting to buy products that they can truly afford (and when I say truly I mean they are not simply working for the next thing they want to buy but actually have the capital to live that lifestyle), all Millennials want to live their dream lifestyle now. And it doesn’t really have to do with the products being luxurious. It has to do with the products being part of a dream lifestyle. It has to do with the product representing who you are and how you want to be perceived.

In the next five to ten years, we’ll all be witnesses to lifestyle branding. Some of these brands have always set themselves in that category. And there are plenty that are emerging. However don’t be surprised if you start to see less obvious brands take on this different role. After all, they are all trying to sell to you.