2010 is going to suck

2010 is going to suck. And if that doesn’t catch your attention in an ad headline, I don’t know what does. You may have heard of this by now. Seen it. Come across the ad in a magazine, perhaps. In any case, it’s one of the components in the suck-less (great double entendre) ad campaign by Nicorette.

Why it caught my eye — other than the clever copy — was that it struck me as being very GenX in tone and style. GenXers (those born in the U.S. between 1961-1981) experience and/or view their generation’s young adulthood years with a whole lot of cynicism and a big dose of Reality Bites! GenXers follow, as they do in the line up generations, the Boomers (born 1943-1960), who orient toward  inner exploration then megaphoned out to the world and big messages laden with moral purpose. I’m guessing a slew of GenXers ad campaign designers are a bit tired of the “second-hand smoke causes more cancer than …” messages  and the endless moral tirade against smokers to make them social pariahs.

GenXers typically aren’t swayed by big-message campaigns. Boomers orient toward aligning behind values (remember the whole red-state/blue-state thing that will, in the next 15 years fade) that reflect their inner spiritual knowing. GenXers orient more toward “Yeah, that’s good and all, but I got stuff to take care of now … and fast.”

GenXers, now, by the natural cycle that has the generation ascending into midlife as being the one with the most cultural influence and power, are much more interested in confronting reality vs. aligning behind fantastic morally principled messages. The Nicorette ad campaign recognizing that quitting smoking sucks, but that their product can — to their claim — make it suck-less is a very GenX-style message.

I’m trusting you’ve seen TheTruth.com ads, which are more of a nonprofit org approach to messaging around smoking. I love ‘em. Very straight up in your face about the smoking industry. Guerilla warfare. Irreverent. Intelligent. Humorous. Info-packed and entertaining. All at once.

These are important points to remember when selling to / employing / collaborating with GenXers:

Straight-up truth wins over moral rectitude.

Irreverence that is a bit self-deprecating wins over high-mindedness.

Humor and laughter makes bitter pills easier to swallow. And GenXers “get” that there are a lot of bitter pills to be swallowed.

Showing some style (intelligently crafted message delivery) ingragriates a GenXer into your audience with higher trust and interest in your message.

Remember: externally imposed moral rectitude doesn’t work for your GenX audience. Doesn’t mean they are immoral; more that they’re not going to be, in general, interested in any “you better listen to me cuz I know better” approaches.

The decision to quit smoking has to be an internal decision an individual makes. Same is so for eating more healthfully or exercising, or being kinder and more understanding, or for any other deep change. Personally, I think the Nicorette “Suck Less” campaign does a nice job of bonding the brand to the prospective customer. There’s no moral righteousness in this campaign about “others” or not harming your  children, or impacting others with the possibly-over-exaggerated impacts of second-hand smoke. There’s a genuineness in the message that says, “Yeah, it can be really tough  to quit smoking. We can’t promise you miracles. Or that it won’t suck. Only that it might suck less.”

And for a generation that grew up hearing a lot of “You suck” (mostly from their own co-horts), the idea that something might suck less … well, that’s not so bad.2010 is going to suck.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 at 8:00 am and is filed under Generational Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.


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