Weblogic

Boomers are often accused of not acting their age; emulating their younger counterparts as opposed to turning into their own parents.

But in reality, it’s our younger counterparts (Gen-X, Gen-Y, Echo Boomers – whatever, we’re so self-absorbed we couldn’t care less what other generations call themselves) who emulate us.

What? Well, I didn’t come up with this one on my own. Visa has been doing a series of studies on spending habits (which makes sense, considering that they’re a major source of consumer credit) and in their “How America Spends” series they have come up with some very surprising findings.

It turns out that 68% of Echo Boomers admire their Baby Boomer counterparts and almost 40% of Echo Boomers' purchases are influenced by their parent’s generation.

The reverse is not true: Like aging generations that came before us, Baby Boomers don’t have a high regard for the younguns out there. Irony of ironies – according to the Visa survey – we think Echo Boomers are too self-absorbed. (So much for thinking we would be different from our parents, who still think we’re too self absorbed.)

But the gist of this as regards consumer spending is not that we Baby Boomers are trying to be like the younger generation, but the younger generation wants to be more like us.

Or, like I said to my daughter when I caught her transferring my iTunes library – with everything from Abba to Zappa -- onto her iPod: Doesn’t your generation have its own rock gods?

Comments (0)

Name

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Add Comment