When’s a boomer not a boomer? Who cares?

This is the subtitle of an article from the Wall Street Journal: “Some 'young' baby boomers think it's a big mistake to lump them together with the 'old' ones, and they're beginning to cry about it.”

You can read the article from this site.

The core of the article is that there’s a great distance somebody born in 1946 and in 1965, the end of the generation. Well nearly 20 years to be precise.
The article goes on to say: “Typically, those born within that period are lumped together as the "baby boom generation," as if their values, habits and product preferences are unified. In fact, as the "late-wave boomers" turn 40 this year, it's clear the classes of 1946 and 1964 are often very different, at times resulting in alienation and even finger-pointing. It's a much-overlooked development that marketers, the media and policy-makers ignore at their peril.”

I think there is some strength to this argument. I think there is even more strength to the argument that all of these age demarcations are not worth the paper they are written on. Life after the Second World War is going to be a hell of lot different to that before. But why chose 1964 to end the boomer generation. Why start Generation Y in 1980?

The obvious reply to these questions is that marketers must have some way of grouping people by age. But why do you need to have such groupings? I think this question deserves more of a response so I will endeavor to write my own ideas. Has anybody else got a view on this subject?

Dick Stroud: www.20plus30.com