Whether you call them Millennials, Generation Yers or members of the Internet Generation, you’re likely to have opinions—some valid, some not so much—about the segment of the population that was born in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
And those opinions may not be positive: Attention spans ruined by MTV. Egos inflated by permissive and overly encouraging parents. Narcissistic tendencies solidified by internet sites like MySpace and YouTube.
But there are a few reasons why you should take the time to get to know this powerful group. The first is that they’re becoming your co-workers. The second, and more important, is that they’re becoming your clients. Or they should be. The third is that, despite the negative press you’ve heard from the pundits, this isn’t a bad generation to do business with.
Many agents shun Gen Y because they think they’re too demanding, too fickle and too expensive to insure. (“Why do I want to sell bare-bones auto and HO-4 policies to people in their 20s?”) Perhaps not the ideal customer today, Generation Yers will comprise a great deal of your sales tomorrow, when they start to buy homes and life insurance policies and more cars and health insurance for their kids, and on and on. If you’re smart, you see their long-term potential. You think of those renter’s policies as loss leaders.
Misinformation, simplification and confusion
When it comes to talk about generational differences, there is a lot of hyperbole, misinformation and hostility. (Many of the harshest critics of Gen Yers are boomers who suffered similar antagonism from their predecessors.) Yet no one wants to admit it: successive generations usually have more in common with preceding ones than not. Pop demographers—the kind that coin phrases like “soccer mom” and “Nascar dad”—have little incentive to see nuance and thus tend to exaggerate generational differences. But even the experts seem mystified by Generation Y. Are they hard-working or lazy? Self-centered or altruistic? Healthily confident or over-dosed on self-esteem? Here are some of the sometimes contradictory adjectives used to describe this group:
Cynical. Idealistic. Narcissistic. Lazy. Innovative. Capricious. Thick-skinned. Thin-skinned. Exacting. Connected. Diverse. Savvy. Distracted.
You could probably apply most of those adjectives to every twenty-something in the last century, from the Lost Generation of Hemingway and Fitzgerald through to the present. Still, there are some qualitative differences between Gen Y and the rest of the populace. In fact, in feature story from 2006, New York magazine said the gap between Gen Y and the rest of the country was the biggest since the advent of rock and roll. If music was the wedge between generations then, it's the microchip now.
Moore’s Law
Moore’s law, named after Gordon E. Moore, the co-founder of Intel, stipulates that that “the number of transistors on an integrated circuit for minimum component cost doubles every 24 months.” [Source] This very specific (and rather nerdy) "law" has come to symbolize the general trend of information technology’s exponential growth.
Gen Yers came of age as Moore’s curve started to bend upward at a steeper angle. Technologies became smaller, cheaper and faster. Gen Yers adopted each new development with gusto. They began surfing an ever-wider array of channels and stations and web sites; their first bank accounts and insurance policies came with online access; then came e-mailing, chatting, Googling, text and pic messaging, ripping, burning, downloading, uploading, streaming, IMing, blogging, vlogging, podcasting, LiveJournaling, MySpacing, YouTubing, Digging, and Facebooking. They got used to easy access and speed, then they demanded them. They adopted technologies not so much as helpful accessories but as a part of a new hyper-connected way of living. Speed and choice and independence became, for many, not just preferences, but imperatives.
Barring a backlash against technology or a faltering of innovation, successive generations will continue the race up Moore's curve, adopting new technologies that their elders will either not have the time or inclination to use. Therein is another reason to engage Generation Y: successive generations will likely have more in common with Yers than with Xers or Boomers. Consider this 2007 survey of 7,705 college students:
Technology use
From a 2007 survey of 7,705 college students:
97% own a computer
94% own a cell phone
56% own an mp3 player
76% use Instant Messaging
15% of IM users are logged on 24 hours a day/7 days a week
34% use websites as their primary source of news
28% own a blog and
44% read blogs
49% download music using peer-to-peer file sharing
75% of students have a Facebook account
90% of college students have a MySpace account and almost all teenagers over the age of 16 have one as well
60% own some type of expensive portable music and/or video device such as an iPod
Selling to Generation Y
Question: What happens when you combine innate skepticism with an infinite variety of choices? Answer: Zero patience for the hard sale. Try the pushy used-car-salesman shtick and the result won’t be pretty: Gen Yers will be out the door before you get to your best line.
The Long Tail effect. [def] With so many media choices available, Generation Y has developed varied tastes and little patience for what they deem unworthy of their attention. They won’t sit through a bad ad on TV. They won’t read unsolicited e-mail or take unwanted calls. They will simply cut out unwanted advances by employing everything in their growing arsenal: TV recorders, spam filters, pop-up blockers, do-not-call registries and good old indifference. (Not to mention manual filtering: changing the channel, clicking away, etc.) The old interruption marketing techniques, once effective, will simply generate ill-will these days. Having come of age in a media-saturated, advertising-heavy, ultra-glossy world, Gen Yers are sick of being sold.
The best way to persuade Gen Y is to be fast and fair. In this regard, Gen Yers are relatively easy to please. They’re not looking for a relationship, so you can rest easy there. They are looking for speed and expediency, and as a group that’s not yet flush with disposable income, they also want a good deal.
And that’s pretty much it. :)
You, the brand. 
Understand their fear of the unknown.
Jeffrey Sachs, celebrity economist, has a revolutionary idea. 
“Company,” by Max Barry 
