Marketing Pilgrim

Baby Boomer, Gen X, Millennials – each label stands for an age group which, in theory, has similar wants, needs and goals. But a new study commissioned by MTV shows that there’s a big difference between the upper and lower age brackets that fall into the Millennial category. Keeping with the theme: older (or first wave) Millennials are like Harry Potter but younger (age 13-17) Millennials are more like Katniss of The Hunger Games.

At first glance, these seem like cutesy pop culture references designed to capture the search engine spiders. But when you dig in deep, you’ll see that the comparisons fit – sadly.

The study, “The New Millennials Will Keep Calm and Carry On” leads us to these two points.

The Harry Potter Crowd:

According to Constant Contact’s “Small Businesses: Then and Now Survey”, 59% of small businesses believe it’s harder to run a business today than five years ago. That’s a sad, sad fact.

Running your own business used to be the American dream. It was your ticket to an independent lifestyle. A way out of the 9-5 madness. Or maybe that’s what we all hoped it would be.

The truth is, running your own business is tough, especially when you’ve grown large enough to have a couple of employees on the payroll. I’m a company of one. If I have a bad week, it’s not fun but at least I don’t have to consider laying off an employee.

When asked why things have taken a downturn: