For decades, brands have used age as a means to connect with people. We’ve all seen ads which speak directly to Gen Z, Millennials and Boomers, and use stereotypes about those generations in their messaging.
But is age the best way to reach people? Amazon Ads’ recent report, ‘Beyond the Generational Divide: The new rules for consumer connection’, doesn’t think so. The report finds that 25% of consumers identify with a different generation than the one in which they were born. And shows that the variables which create the greatest connection between consumers are actually values, communities and interests.
Campaign Canada and Amazon Ads Canada teamed up to put these insights to the test. We took to the streets of Toronto to ask real people what they think of age-based targeting. One person said, “I don’t think it’s the best way to decide who a person is…because everyone has different interests.” They continued “A lot of my generation take interest in the seventies, eighties and nineties, and that has nothing to do with the year we were born.”
We also wanted to understand what brands stand to gain from going beyond age-based targeting. TD Insurance recently ran a campaign with Amazon Ads which sought small business owners – a community which share similar values and face similar challenges. To reach them, TD Insurance used Amazon Ads’ advanced targeting capabilities, first-party insights and full funnel marketing capabilities. “Small businesses are a community: they share similar values, they provide support to each other and face similar challenges,” said Alan Wen, vice president of marketing at TD. Reflecting on the partnership, Samantha Monteiro, account director at Starcom, said “Reaching the small business community on Amazon allowed us to be timely, relevant and impactful with our messaging to this community.”
Watch our video – produced in partnership with Amazon Ads Canada – for more.