Brass Magazine’s Bryan Simms Gives Us 5 Gen-Y Characteristics to Think About

On Wednesday afternoon, I attended an excellent presentation given by Bryan Simms, CEO of Brass Magazine about Generation Y. The presentation “Generation Y Revealed” included five different characteristics that financial institutions may consider tapping into as means to target this young segment. And while this set of characteristics doesn’t apply to every member of Generation Y, it does provide a starting point for financial institutions to consider when marketing to this group.

First of all, and not surprisingly, this group tends to be tech-savvy. Generation Y uses all sorts of technology – everything from social networking online to text messaging with their friends, Simms highlighted the fact that today’s youth is able to do 44 hours worth of tasks in a 24 hour day because of their ability to multi-task. This is certainly an issue for financial institutions to address as this group demands sophistication, speed, ease of use and fun.

Secondly, Generation Y is very entrepreneurial, and this group is not likely to work for the same company for the duration of their career. Therefore, financial institutions must address both the personal side of this trend (i.e. making it easy to transfer accounts during job transitions) and the business side (i.e. offering small business loans to start-up companies).

In addition, Simms suggested that financial institutions consider the large number of New Americans that are a part of this age group. The average age of many immigrant groups tends to be younger than the average age of the American population; therefore many can be considered part of Generation X and Y. Financial institutions should consider how they target New Americans when they are looking to attract a younger demographic.

Also, this segment tends to be socially conscious. Financial institutions can attract the socially conscious members of Generation Y by taking an active role in areas of interest to this group – this could be anything from Habitat for Humanity home building to participating in community green initiatives. Or, institutions may support the socially conscious efforts of local groups through donations and/or fundraising for the efforts.

And, many members of Generation Y are considered to be underserved. While underserved segments exist across the age spectrum, Simms emphasized the importance of not necessarily associating “no credit” with “bad credit”. One approach to this market for financial institutions could be hosting financial education programs and offering services that are designed to help the underserved build a better financial future.

Overall, the presentation brought out some great points about attracting Generation Y to today’s financial institutions. I would also encourage you to take a look at Brass Magazine’s website for more about how financial issues impact young people. And, if you have the opportunity to see Bryan Simms speak, don’t miss it – he was excellent.