"Talkin' bout my g-g-g-generation"

I was brainstorming pitch strategies with a client yesterday and stumbled on an idea that really resonated with me, perhaps even more than The Who’s rendition of “My Generation.” 

Here’s the gist of it: Do age cohort generations matter post-Covid?

As marketers, we commonly aggregate target audiences by demographic terms, particularly age cohorts. So (the theory goes) millennials are different from Gen X and Gen X from Boomers, etc. And the corollary is that not only are they different from other cohorts, they behave similarly within their own. (I have a problem with that thought but I’ll save that argument about segmenting vs. aggregating audiences for another article.)

My hypothesis is that we as a total population will all emerge as one generation, the Post-Covid Generation. It is defined not by age, but a shared experience that rocked everyone’s life and basically reset the social fabric of every country back to one common fixed point when things opened up.

To be clear, I have no data to support this, only anecdotal stuff…news of raucous fans at last night’s Knicks game at The Garden and the electricity I’m just beginning to sense now that we are going back to bars and restaurants here in the U.S. But more than that is the sense of camaraderie I feel just being out in public and talking to people without a mask on. There seems to be an underlying feeling that we’ve all come through this together.  Maybe we should call that “rational exuberance.”

That’s the theory. The kicker is, if it’s true, it will change the marketing game, certainly for the bev. alc. business. Literally:  fundamentally. Using the metaphor of our world being a home resting on pilings, and a big ole tsunami came through and knocked all the pilings down, and the house went with it. So now we start rebuilding from scratch.

I believe messaging that captures this essential thought will resonate with people…consumers...more than any age cohort-shared behaviors.

 Your thoughts?