When comparing Generations Y and Z with previous generations, it is clear that how decisions are made, and how consumers are engaged, have indeed changed.
We are dealing with consumers today who need to be engaged more on the emotive scale than the cognitive scale (Figure 1). They have been influenced not just by the scientific method but also by virtual reality. For them it is a world of experience - not just evidence.
These shifts are evidenced in various fields of study. In leadership we read about the shift in focus from IQ (intellectual intelligence) to EQ (emotional intelligence). In educational psychology we read not just about engaging students' left brain hemisphere (logical, analytical thinking) but also their right brain (creative, unstructured thinking).
In the same way, marketers need to be not just engineers but also artists; they need to be social observers, not the process managers.
Figure 1 - Convergence model of generational decision-making
Rational/Emotional decision making
Connecting with twenty-first century consumers requires an appreciation of the relationship between emotive and rational approaches to decision-making.
The dynamic model of emotive marketing shows consumer behaviour as a linear transition that toggles between the emotional and the rational, resulting in a converged purchase decision, resulting in action. We find that while this model applies, in part, to all generational segments, it is realised more in younger generations.
The decisions of the Builder and Boomer generations are largely tempered by rationalism, while the younger generations have been shaped by emotionalism.
While decision-making has never been a matter purely of the head, as this model makes clear, it is increasingly a process that must engage the heart, connect with the head, but then re-engage the heart. Let's look at the stages in more detail (Figure 2).
Figure 2 - The dynamic model of emotive marketing - five facets to connect with the emotionally driven twenty-first century consumer
Vision
This is where consumers want to go based on who they see themselves as - and how they see their needs ideally being met. This involves not an objective self-assessment, but an emotive self-projection.
An insert in the May 1996 issue of Rolling Stone, for example, features the latest in Nike's effective and iconic 1990s print campaign. Under the image of an athlete was the copy ‘I am not a target market. I am an athlete'. And the tag line: ‘We don't sell dreams. We sell shoes. We sell shoes to athletes'. And so many thousands of shoes were sold to non-athletes who envisioned themselves, in an idealised way, as athletes.
We're talking heart stuff, not head stuff.
Mission
This is how (practically) the consumer is going to get their vision.
To get what they want they have to move from hype, to hope, to help. They move from fantasy to strategy, in an effort to move to reality.
This is not the what or the why - but the how. It requires rational processing of emotional visioning. When the heart is engaged, it is only a matter of time before the head gets involved again to add some rational application or justification to the decision-making. This is true even for the most radical, postmodern Generation Yer - they still have a brain which is wired for structural tasks and process thinking.
Passion and compassion
These are the emotional turbo boosts to drive action. More than ever we have a society - and an emerging generation - which is encouraged to consider the impacts beyond the bottom line. Whether it is called the ‘triple bottom line' or ‘corporate social responsibility', we now have a corporate culture which espouses and often enacts social and environmental sustainability and practices. Marketers, too, have observed the trends and moved with these times.
In twenty-first century society - for right or wrong - the crossroads of a cause, of passion and compassion, intersect with commerce. Many people give to charities through the programs organised in their workplaces. Many companies are more diligent in their environmental programs than their workers are at home. Many causes are viable only through corporate support.
As a career-focused, self-absorbed generation, the Ys have not taken up the protest placards of their Boomer parents, who in their teens drove social change through civil action. Moreover, the protest movement has been hijacked by marketing and media who have left little for young people to protest about - even if they had the inclination. In short, the protest movement has been corporatised. Much to the angst of many activists, there is no ground left on which to get active.
Action
This is where the emotions and the rationale merge, and the decision is consummated.