In the Konversations office, all of us fall within the age bracket of 23-31 years. Our likes and dislikes around food or music are broadly similar, and office banter mostly relate-able for everyone. The Swiggy delivery guy comes to our office every half hour because almost everyone calls for food at some point in the day. If someone steps out for a client meeting, they will hail a ride on Uber. And during office parties, Cheap Thrills and Shape of You are bound to be played at least a couple of times each.

Office life was rather different when I worked for a larger corporation. There, even within a similar sized Finance team, interactions were different. The boss was much older than most of the team at 50+ years. Those in the 35-50 year age bracket talked a lot more about their family life, and their interests never quite matched with those of us who were below 30. While the older members preferred office outings over lunch, the others who were 25-30 years wanted to go bar-hopping after work. The product and services each group loved were very different. Movies often brought everyone together though. “Generation Gap” was the term used to explain the differences.

Wikipedia defines a Generation as “people within a delineated population who experience the same significant events within a given period of time”. An understanding of differences in social generations first became popular in the nineteenth century and these differences are of significant interest to marketers. Generational Segmentation is often used to direct different types of marketing communication to different generations.

In the next two posts of this micro-series, we will cover two generational segments that one hears about a lot these days – Gen Y or Millennials and Gen Z.