concepts continued

alsooo have been doing research on new technologies that genX daddies would be into.. e-ink and e-paper look like the next best thing since sliced bread and will probably be used with a number of products to be designed and released in the next couple of years.. sooo looks like this e-inky stuff is something big to consider/integrate into my designs.

Concepts

Have had a bit of a hard time trying to work out which area to tackle in terms of concepts for the project - our focus for our target market is currently well catered for so trying to work out a new area to lead into is a challenge.

So I thought I might as well go to the source of the problem and I went and annoyed my neighbour who perfectly fits into the Gen X dads target group. I asked him a few - a lot - of questions and came up with a few areas to consider:

-watches - homewares - beverages i.e. take-a-way food - phones - kitchen appliances

My wishlist is getting bigger and bigger

I've wanted one of these for so long hahah!

- Superblob, Karim Rashid, 2002 (http://www.elle.nl/N_Superblob_big.jpg)

Gen Xers and Marketing

I was reading through this article about Gen Xers, and I found this a bit interesting..

"They desire to control their own destinies and their own experiences. You can see this in the incessant advertising aimed at ’lifestyle" choices. These ads attempt to sell not a particular product or service, but the experience consumers might have using a particular product or service. Products and services are now being sold as lifestyle solutions by companies that understand the deeply rooted desire of these new consumers to control what kind of lives they have".

- Greenburg, P 2006, Gen-Xers want more collaboration with Corporations, CIO: IT Organisation: Staffing, viewed 5 August 2008,
http://www.cio.com/article/17907/Gen_X_ers_Want_More_Collaboration_With_Corporations

I found this to pretty much sum up a lot of what we found in our research: Gen Xers are the so-called creators of "Me, Inc"; they have to feel a strong sense of individualism and prefer products that either allow them to gain satisfaction from use, or allow them to control some aspect of their life so there is a balance between work/family life - one of their main values.
It's interesting how companies have responded to such values of generational groups; they're now actually considered and promoted as "lifestyle solutions". And Gen Xers will most likely buy them!!

I also read in the article about how a large percentage of those within the generation actually research the products they're after to a high degree before considering a purchase -- might be something we might have to consider when moving onto concept generation -- the products will have to really satisfy these customers because they know what product they want, what they want it to do and what the results should be.

Gen X Dads

Today we went to uni and worked on our gen x dad research and brief.. we found this really good site which shows "The Day in the Life of Gen X Dads", which shows a photo gallery of the basic events of their day.

It was really helpful to add to our research.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/galleries/2005/0116/dads?pg=14

Gen X

With my sister working for a major accounting and consulting firm, she told me how a lot of them do studies on particular generations.

So I had a search through the internet and found a study done by Deloitte - focuses a bit on insurance and wealth but there was a few pages with a lot of information about generation X, which is really helpful to add to our research on Gen X Corporate/family dads.

http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/cda/doc/content/us_consulting_hc_genXprofile_050207.pdf

Found this in the Paper..

I found this in the paper this morning.. looks kinda interesting.

August 2 2008, Good Weekend.