One of our most enjoyable and simultaneously painful Don Quixote quests is attacking the windmills of horseshit that are generational marketing and other random segmentation schemes posing as human insight.

We’ve cited reams of evidence and data galore undermining the weak-minded nonsense of generational marketing, the clusterf#$% of cluster analysis and personas to nowhere. (Here, here and here for starters.)

We’re reminded of all this by a BBH Labs study that provides yet another gem of proof highlighting how profoundly silly this all is.

These generational cohorts (Millennials, Gen Z, Gen X, Boomers) are random collections of people who share nothing in common (beyond what random chance would dictate) save for being born within two decades of each other.

For example, in the UK there are 78,000 millennials whose children are also millennials.  And yet, we speak of parent and child as if they were one in the same.  But if that same child were born a year later, they’d fall into Gen Z and be seen as utterly distinct.

The reality is there are many instances in which parent and child may be alike for our purposes – e.g. both identify as nature lovers and are open to supporting a nature charity or both high in agreeableness Personality traits and should be messaged to accordingly.

Butt those important similarities and differences will never be found in the horoscope equivalent of generational marketing nor in random, statistical clustering solutions that throw everything random and non-random into a pot and stir.

BBH labs proves this folly by using publicly available survey data courtesy of TGI that runs a monthly, omnibus survey.   BBH created the “Group Cohesion Score” to calculate the like-mindedness of groups of people based on attitudes and lifestyles measured in the TGI, year-long, 2019 dataset.   The survey items ranged from mundane (“I use a refillable water bottle most days”) to the metaphysical (“there’s little I can do to change my life”).

The baseline Cohesion Score is 48.7% for the UK population, meaning on whole, all of the UK agrees slightly less than half the time.

The wide range of statements will not produce unanimity of thought among any preselected group but, as an example,  Mormons are more homogenous than left-handed people and thus have a higher Cohesion Score, which lends some validation to the concept.  Though we’re sure BBH would be the first to admit the only purpose of the score was to affirm their view that generational marketing is garbage.

That said, and as further validation of the score having merit, here are Cohesion Scores for different newspaper readerships.

The Financial Times, a highly niche publication, has a higher reader Cohesion Score than the tabloid, The Sun, whose negative score means you’ll get more agreement among a randomly selected group of Brits than a group of regular Sun readers.

And how do the generational cohorts do?  Much worse than daily nut eaters which is a ridiculous group unless you are a nut manufacturer but that makes it one better than marketing by generations since they have virtually nothing in common being barely better than a random group of UK citizens.

If we’ve said it once we’ve said it a thousand times, there is far, far more difference within these random, 16-year birth cohorts than between them.  If your segment has more variation within it than with the surrounding segments, it is not a segmentation that should ever see the light of day.  Similarly, if you grouped people based on random attributes (like birth year or a smattering of attitude statements or a smorgasbord of whatever you can find), it isn’t worth the PowerPoint slides compiled by the agency sharing the “results”.

And yet, seemingly countless charities are relying on or at least spending money on segmentations that suffer from these failings; random groupings that seem alluring and yet have more variation within than between and/or are grouped on things that don’t matter to the giving decision.

Why?  BBH Labs shares their point of view on fellow marketers:

“Why do we fall prey to these sweeping, often useless groupings? Part of it is laziness. Carrying around a caricature is easy, negotiating the complexities of real, breathing human beings is harder. We reduce people to tropes (millennials = experiences, avocados, purpose) to avoid the real work of understanding them. And whilst these shortcuts can be hidden in pretty decks, there’s no disguising them in the work.”

(The “disguising them in the work” phrase contained a hyperlink in the original that we’ve shared in the postscript It is an actual 30 second spot for Diet Coke– not a spoof.)

People are different, just not in the ways often relied on – e.g. demographics, random attitude statements, behaviors (e.g.  our active/lapsed/one-time/monthly/RFM segments).

What unites us and makes us different is Identity, Personality and our perception of experiences.  Measuring these is what matters.  Grouping by these characteristics is what matters if effective fundraising is your aim – fundraising that doesn’t rely on gross stereotypes or tropes like “ask-thank-report back”.

And yet, like Don Quixote, we’re likely being met with the mental equivalent of getting knocked off our horse attacking these generational and other nonsensical persona type windmills.  Confirmation bias is powerful and rears its head when one is met with evidence that runs counter to existing beliefs.  It causes people to dig in deeper and be even more committed to their worldview, no matter how wrong it is.

So, screw it.  Have a Diet Coke and watch the ad, brought to you by an agency whose brief said Millennials like to express their values through their purchases, are independent, like leisure/athletic wear, have or would stay in a yurt and run marathons.

Kevin and Roger

P.S.