More than 70 million new consumers


The immediate future of business is being reshaped by the challenges and opportunities of marketing to a huge generation of new consumers known as Generation Y, or the millennial generation.

The challenge for business is that Generation Y is very different from its predecessors. They have different ways of pursuing value and making buying decisions, for what they buy and why they buy it.

In 2004, Criteria launched the first, and as far as we can determine, still the only, strategic study of GenY buying behavior, using innovative methods to discover how and why GenY buy. We've discovered that GenY thinks like Boomers and Generation Xers , except when they don't. And from that one extra element grows a whole New Buying Paradigm. Our unique intelligence is now available to any organization that would like to pursue this massive marketing opportunity.

Some of our more fundamental discoveries
  • Connecting with genY is not a channel problem, it's a message problem. GenY has become used to relentless advertising with the logos, brands, endorsements, and sponsorships. GenY notice messages in all channels, but only respond to the message that resonates with them, no matter what channel it comes through.

  • Putting a traditional or badly executed marketing message into a Gen Y channel can create "reverse branding," saddling your brand with a perpetual negative image. Put the right Gen Y message into the same channel, and the buyers are all yours.

  • Traditional focus groups and market surveys don’t work with Generation Y. And some traditional market research just makes them mad.

  • The quality that distinguishes GenY’s New Buying Paradigm is a generational thing, not an age thing. They won’t suddenrly “grow up” and act like boomers.


  • Give Criteria a call to discuss how connecting with Generation Y can explode your sales, create new products and services and open new business opportunities.