MTV, Gen Y and the UK Election

I am very interested in the area of generational shift in the workplace. By chance my career has effectively followed a generation from teenage years (interested in urban music, fashion and, occasionally, basketball) through to young adulthood (music, parties, technology and MTV). I now find myself at Lane4 as we support businesses in the process of understanding how to assess, engage and develop their newest and youngest group of employees. This is the population we call Gen Y.

We often find perplexing. They join law firms – but do not necessarily want to be Partners in ten years time. They turn down Graduate roles at McKinsey for the equivalent Cancer Research scheme. They ask for promotions and pay rises before they have any track record of achievement. And they are never, ever, afraid to challenge.

When I was at MTV, we spent a lot of time talking with brands looking to target Gen Y. We talked with them about the power of ‘’experiences’’ and the internet to position their brand . We ran focus groups to demonstrate the importance of nurturing word of mouth among influential populations to drive trend leadership. We showed them videos of teenagers talking about poster advertising (‘’I never look at it’, ‘’It’s just brands paying to target me’’, ‘’Talk with me, not at me’’). We talked about how the internet would change the rules of the game. Often this was anathema to a marketing industry which revolved around making expensive thirty second adverts.
 It is interesting to reflect on where we stand today, six years on. Those eighteen year olds who we talked to in focus groups are today’s high potential talent. They are saying exactly the same things as they were when in the focus groups, just now they are saying it to their employers. ‘’Talk with me, not at me’’. The biggest change has been the coming of age of the technology which now facilitates this. We might not like it, but facebook, linked in and the like are now part of our working lives. This is a generation who will send an e-mail to the CEO. Not only that, they will expect a reply.

I was at an excellent session yesterday morning run by Communications Management. It looked at the potential impact of a Conservative government on British business. What I found interesting was the extent to which the Conservative Party, like Obama before them, are aiming to embrace technology as a means of engaging this population. The Conservative Strategy Director has apparently spent an awful lot of time at Google HQ in the last year understanding how technology can be used to engage its users and influence decision making. Generation Y is going to be a hotly contested area of the election. It strikes me as a fascinating battleground. For Gen Y effective communication is bespoke, two way and authentic. It is not top down, manufactured and impersonal. It will be fascinating to see to what extent the Main Parties’ campaigns genuinely pick that up in the next few weeks and months. My advice to British industry would be to watch closely. The next few weeks might offer some useful learning to those corporate organisations struggling to understand how to engage, influence and retain their future corporate leaders.