Gen X forgotten by marketers but influential, valuable: Carat

News 9 Dec 2021 - 3 min read

Gen X forgotten by marketers but influential, valuable: Carat

By Sam Buckingham-Jones - Senior Writer

"Whatever you call them, they’re influential, often overlooked and undervalued by marketers," a new whitepaper from Carat Australia writes.

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Tags: Carat Danni Wright senior marketers

Generation X have lived through history-altering tech shifts, cultural changes and political movements and are starting to reach the end of their careers, a new report from Carat has found – and many marketers don’t understand how to think about them in campaigns. Here’s what you need to know.

What you need to know:

Dentsu has released a report detailing the four categories of people that comprise Gen X, an ‘undervalued and overlooked’ generation that marketers are missing out on.
The report explores who these 6 million people are, builds some personas and gives advice on how to reach them.

Marketers are undervaluing and overlooking Generation X, once known as the MTV generation, who have experienced profound shifts in culture, technology and politics and are some of the most valuable audiences, a new report from Carat Australia has found.

The Dentsu agency has released a new study, ‘Gen X in view’, exploring the personas often found in Gen X, which covers people born between 1961 and 1981 who are now 40-59 years-old.

“Whatever you call them, they’re influential, often overlooked and undervalued by marketers. Gen X have lived through technology revolutions, social revolutions, lead big business, and have strong spending power,” the report states.

There are four personas captured in the Gen X cohort:

Carefree CEOs: Career-driven, tech-enabled people for whom speed and ease are key and sporting influence counts for a lot.
Ambitious Progressives: The successful, environmentally-motivated grocery buyer with plenty of hobbies.
Comfortable Idealists: The ‘happy’ Australian living in the suburbs who craves routine and time with family.
Hometown Sceptics: The fiercely patriotic, private and protective communities that enjoy quiet time at home.

“These are people who in many ways shaped the levels of equality that we are realising as a society today,” Danni Wright, Carat’s Chief Strategy Officer said.

“The biggest provocation I would urge marketers to consider is the level of cultural nuance that this audience represents. More than one fifth of this audience speaks a language other than English in the home; it’s the brands that solve for this cultural duality that will disproportionately earn the attention and affinity of this cohort.”

There are 10 rules for engaging this cohort – which Carat estimates makes up about 6.1 million people in Australia – including balance, valuing their loyalty, honesty, nostalgia and celebrating their individuality.