Perspective

It is true that, as humans, we are all fundamentally the same: We all want love and happiness. However, each generation confronts finding those basic human needs in very different social and economic climates.

Those climates shape each generation in unique and different ways. Baby boomers were shaped by their parents just coming home from a world war. They wanted peace, love and harmony, and they winced at the idea of the Korean and Vietnam wars. Gen X, the group I’m a part of, was and is like the middle child, with very similar middle-child syndrome. We saw little if no war and a mostly healthy economy, and we lived in the shadow of our over-achieving baby-boomer predecessors, but we were happy to please.

And now millennials and Gen Y have come to take what little thunder we had. Like younger siblings, they’ve gotten all the cool new technology, and they are very adept at using it. Many have no idea what it was like to not have internet or a phone in your pocket. This generation never wonders about anything; Google can answer any question in milliseconds. Any generation with that much power at their fingertips would be affected in very strong and unpredictable ways. In addition, social media has shown it can manipulate and separate the masses into happy, productive groups or, often, on the dark side, in angry or non-fact-checked ways.

In this issue, we ask generational experts inside and outside of our industry to define what is important to these younger generations and what makes them tick and turns them off. These experts share general characteristics of today’s younger consumers – traits that influence their purchasing behaviors as well as what we, as retailers, need to know and do to effectively interest them in our products – and to work with and manage them. Our collection of articles in this issue presents fascinating insights into these buying groups that will help you to understand their motivations and mind-sets and, therefore, develop effective marketing strategies that will appeal to them.

From my perspective, we are all still human, and we all still want love and happiness. How Generation Next finds these basic human needs will define them and how they will be viewed by the next generation. I suppose, like most things, we may just have to wait and see, but I hope we provide you with some tips and tricks from what we’ve learned so far.

TRAVIS RIGBY, PUBLISHER
TRAVIS@WILDFLOWER.MEDIA
TRAVIS RIGBY, PUBLISHER
TRAVIS@WILDFLOWER.MEDIA
FACEBOOK: TRAVISRAYRIGBY
INSTAGRAM: @TRAVISRRIGBY
TWITTER: @TRAVISRIGBY .