While Generation X has become known for its mindless consumption, Gen Y has grown up over-exposed and highly educated about the material market place. Information on everything they pull from the shelves is available at the click of a button and this extensive knowledge has led to a new type of consumption. This consumption may still be conspicuous but it is no longer mindless.
Gen Y is hyper aware of the realities of the products they engage with and expect a transparency that is brand new in the marketplace. This new found knowledge is not going to go away but only continue to develop at a rapid rate forcing companies to retool their approach to marketing and selling to Gen Y and future generations. While this is causing havoc in some areas, it is also presenting countless opportunities for those companies - large and small - willing to embrace this consumer engagement and transparency.
Bio
Andrew Wagner
Andrew Wagner is the Editor-in-Chief of ReadyMade magazine. Prior to coming to ReadyMade he was the Editor-in-Chief of American Craft magazine. Wagner was also the Executive Editor and Founding managing Editor of Dwell magazine, where he helped push the boundaries of architecture and design journalism, garnering the publication the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) General Excellence Award in 2005.
In 1997, Wagner founded LIMN, the unorthodox design and arts magazine published by the equally unorthodox furniture and design company of the same name, and served as its Editor-in-Chief until 2000. Wagner was also the Founding Editor of Dodge City Journal, a magazine dedicated to documenting life in America's under-explored cities.
In addition to his work at ReadyMade, Wagner is a Consulting Editor at Places magazine and has been a guest lecturer at University of California Berkeley, Southern California Institute of Architecture, California College of the Arts, and Columbia University. His writing has been published in, amongst others, Azure, Blueprint, Breathe, Loud Paper, Vanity Fair, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Travel and Leisure.
Activities that direct the flow of goods and services from producers to consumers. In advanced industrial economies, marketing considerations play a major role in determining corporate policy. Once primarily concerned with increasing sales through advertising and other promotional techniques, corporate marketing departments now focus on credit policies (seecredit), product development, customer support, distribution, and corporate communications. Marketers may look for outlets through which to sell the company's products, including retail stores, direct-mail marketing, and wholesaling. They may make psychological and demographic studies of a potential market, experiment with various marketing strategies, and conduct informal interviews with target audiences. Marketing is used both to increase sales of an existing product and to introduce new products. See alsomerchandising.
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