How generational analysis can help marketers predict future trends

Genevieve Silk

Understanding the differences between generations is crucial for predicting the future, but this approach to research should draw on much greater nuance than is often seen at present.

Naming and shaming different generations is effectively a cheat code for generating a clickbait headline, whether that involves claims that Millennials are killing the housing market or suggestions that Baby Boomers are primarily responsible for global warming.

Even detailed studies into generational thinking, and media coverage of demographic attitudes and behaviours, often reduce age cohorts into stereotypes such as these.

But as Bobby Duffy, Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, discussed at the Advertising Research Foundation’s (ARF) 2022 AUDIENCExSCIENCE conference, the differences between generations are far more subtle than might be assumed....

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