A tale of two generations: Baby Boom and Echo Boom
By Kay Anderson -- Furniture Today, December 29, 2002
For the past three decades or so, Baby Boomers have dominated the marketing scene. By sheer force of numbers, their merest whims could spell the difference between the success and failure of new products. But as the Baby Boomers approach their retirement years — and there is every reason to believe they won't ride quietly into the sunset — new kids are making marketing news.
They are literally chips off the old block, these children of the Baby Boom. Their numbers indicate they will wield an even bigger influence on the marketplace. By 2010, current Census Bureau projections indicate there will be approximately 78 million Echo Boomers, compared with 75 million Baby Boomers.
The many names applied to this group might indicate multiple personalities, not in the psychological sense, but certainly in the cultural sense. Among their names: the Echo Boom, because they are the children of Baby Boomers; Millennials, because they are coming of age in the new Millennium; N-Gen, because they are the Net Generation; and Gen Y, because they are younger than their much smaller group of elders, Gen X. Some also call them the Digital Generation, because they cut their teeth, at least metaphorically, on videogames, computers and cell phones.
They're also called Kaleidoscope Kids because they will be the most ethnically diverse generation in American history. More than a third of Echo Boomers are members of a minority group compared with 27% for the total population. Their very diversity will make them a more difficult audience to pigeonhole than their parents have been — and marketers know that the Baby Boom has often defied being lumped into a single category.
Technology's impact
Advances in technology account for many of the differences between the two generations. On the one hand, Baby Boomers have witnessed and contributed to some incredible technological advances. The oldest boomers, for example, can remember black-and-white TV and two or three channels. Now TV comes into homes via cable and satellite as well as the airways, and there are hundreds of channels available.
Baby Boomers took the computer out of climate-controlled rooms where they were maintained by white-coated technicians and put them on the desktop — even the laptop. They are certainly not adverse to the computer age — but they don't take it for granted. Boomers can remember gathering in classrooms to watch NASA launches; their children view shuttles to the space station as only slightly more newsworthy than the Boston to New York shuttle.
Baby Boomers have seen the country go through major cultural changes. The oldest boomers were in school in the 1950s, when desegregation began, and came of age in the 1960s — marked by assassinations and Vietnam. They really entered the workforce in the 1970s when double-digit unemployment was not unusual. They grew up with the Cold War. Some even had bomb shelters in the backyard.
And while their mothers entered the workforce to help during World War II, Baby Boomer women — 75% of them — entered the labor force because of family economic needs and wants as well as for personal fulfillment.
Howard Smead's look at Boomers, Don't Trust Anyone Over Thirty: A History of the Baby Boom, gives the timeline for the generation: "The majority of us went to elementary and secondary school in the '50s and college in the '60s. For the most part we were old enough to serve in Vietnam or have friends who did.
"We entered the working world, adulthood, that is, during the '70s. At the same time, while some of us were getting married and starting families, many of us, especially women, held off in favor of careers until the mid-'80s."
The Boomer's kids — the Echo Boom — have until very recently known peace and prosperity. It's too soon to know how the aftermath of Sept. 11 and the War on Terrorism will affect their psyches or what economic impact it will have on their pocketbooks.
On these two pages, Furniture/Today highlights some of the other differences — and similarities — between the two generations.
| U.S. population shifts, 2003–2010 in millions | ||
|---|---|---|
| 2003 | 2010 | |
| Source: Bureau of the Census |
||
| Baby Boomers | 77.8 | 75.2 |
| Echo Boomers | 75.9 | 78.0 |
| 2003 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|
| Baby | 28% | 25% |
| Echo | 27% | 26% |
| Baby Boomers | |
|---|---|
| White | 79% |
| Hispanic | 10% |
| Black | 12% |
| Asian | 4% |
| Echo Boomers | |
|---|---|
| Source: Zell Center for Risk Research Conference Series, conference on the Risk of Misreading Generation Y: The Need for New Marketing Strategies, 2002. |
|
| White | 72% |
| Hispanic | 17% |
| Black | 15% |
| Asian | 4% |
-
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