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  3. Generation Y—the group of Americans currently in their late teens to early 30s—gets called a lot of names. Personal finance advi

Generation Y—the group of Americans currently in their late teens to early 30s—gets called a lot of names. Personal finance advi

admin2012-07-06  42
问题     Generation Y—the group of Americans currently in their late teens to early 30s—gets called a lot of names. Personal finance advisers dub gen Y-ers spendthrifts. Marketers consider them brand-lovers. Pop psychologists describe them as coddled products of helicopter parents; a generation that can barely survive in the real world on its own. But one of their defining characteristics—their savviness as consumers, derived from growing up in the Internet age as well as experiencing the most recent recession—has been largely ignored. As a result, many of the companies trying to win them over are doing it all wrong.
    Gen Y likes to feel influence and power. They like to feel that companies are serving them and really bristle at the idea of being taken advantage of. These relatively new consumers are also on the lookout for potential scams and bad deals, she says, and are wary at the first sign that they are being manipulated.
    For the most part, banks, retailers, and other companies have failed to embrace this generation’s new mind-set. Banks further erode the trust of many young customers, who already regard financial institutions with suspicion, every time they blast off a slew of product offers. "People feel like they’re getting bombarded with irrelevant offers," says Ron Shevlin, senior analyst at Aite Group, a research and advisory firm.
    In the retail sector, traditional lifestyle advertising has become as outdated as low-rise jeans. Abercrombie & Fitch’s reliance on its "cool and sexy" collegiate image no longer resonates with 20-somethings who now set a priority on saving money over following the latest fashion trends. "These consumers are very adept at Internet searches and feel comfortable price-comparison shopping," says Stephanie Noble, associate professor of marketing at the University of Mississippi. Instead of feeling embarrassed about being "cheap," they have a sense of accomplishment at finding the lowest price, Noble adds. That’s not to say gen Y doesn’t also love brands. The brands that resonate are the brands that provide value.
    That focus on value can work in retailers’ favor, if they know how to exploit it. Nita Rollins, a trends expert at Resource Interactive, a digital marketing agency, urges companies to embrace the kind of secondhand swapping popular on sites such as Craigslist and eBay. A snowboarding company, for example, could allow customers to trade in their used snowboards for a discount on their next purchase. Such a program would show that the company "is cool enough to know customers want to recirculate their possessions," says Rollins. If the company refinished the secondhand snowboards it collected and resold them, it would show that it was in tune with gen Y’s interest in sustainability, too, she adds. "This trend of ’ unconsumption,’ where people don’t just spend less but also try to repurpose what they’ve already got, is here to stay. "
    That other defining characteristic of the demographic—love of and access to technology— has led some companies astray in their marketing efforts, especially on social networking sites such as Facebook. If you’re a company, don’t tell gen Y-ers about yourself. Instead, just let them know what you can do for them, and if you’re lucky, they’ll tell their friends. And that brings up one more name you can call gen Y: influential. [515 words]
The first paragraph intends to tell us that Gen Y-ers are______.
选项 A、spendthrifts
B、brand-lovers
C、well-protected children
D、informed consumers
答案D
解析 本题考查段落主旨。
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