Your consumer persona must change – or die.
Millennials are a pain in the backside. They dominate the room during ideation sessions, and management teams are fixated on them as the single most important customer segment.
So much has been written about the behaviours and preferences of the millennial generation that it probably isn’t surprising if product designers think they’re the only game in town.
But they’re not. Have a look at this chart.
Generation Zs are in the market and old enough to buy everything you can throw at them, from mugs to mortgages. And guess what? With population growth comes the compound growth of following segments. The more Gen Ys having families, the faster Gen Z is growing.
The moral of this tale is, if Millennials are your target market, they’re already in decline as the main event. Let’s go further still. If Gen Z is set to be your growth segment in the short term, how will the Alpha generation affect you?
Too far off to worry about? Get over yourself.
By the time any pharmaceutical product in Phase II today is marketed, Alphas will be voting. By the time all new cars are fully electric, Alphas will be having children and probably won’t need to take a driving test to use their autonomous vehicles. Before Alphas start buying phones, Telcos had better have shifted from comfortable inertia into warp drive to keep up with the demands of the second generation that’s totally native to digital communication.
So, why should you care what Alphas will be doing ten years from now? Because what you do today, the way you view their need, and the way you plan your short-term strategy will directly impact how you can exploit the market later. Failing to consider if your product will even have a place in the new market context could bring about the end of your business much sooner than you might think.
This isn’t alarmist, it’s a heads-up that you’re already under threat – you just don’t know it yet. Whether you make avocado dip or ZX utes, get used to the idea that your market is on the move and you aren’t necessarily keeping up.
As ever, you can talk to room44 about this. Make the call – 0208 144 9800.
Seeing it differently. Future-proofing. It’s what we do and we have a range of project designs and courses to help.