The Product of a Generation
October 2022
As Product Managers we have to be able to ask the right questions and be skeptical enough not to take anything for granted, before even thinking about starting to manufacture anything, be it a physical product, a digital product or a mixture of both.
We should be able to ask ourselves questions like, Do I know the industry and the market? Am I clear on WHAT I want to solve? Am I clear on HOW I want to solve it?
But if we look at the definition of Product: “that which is produced naturally or artificially to meet a need or desire through its use or consumption”, then the main question should be: Do I really know the potential users of my product?
Then, let’s suppose that we are planning to launch a product whose target audience is in certain age range, would it be possible to create a single definition for all of them? Are we capable of identifying a set of behavioral traits to describe them?
There are already studies which say that this is possible (1), and although it is far from the intention of this article to delve into or try to justify the previous studies in this regard, let’s continue with our theoretical model and assume that they are correct, that the peer personality of individuals born in the same time frame, and therefore that they have lived in the same socio-economic context, in which the same historical events have happened, have marked their behavioral patterns, their way of understanding life (2) and their future expectations.
If we were able to find such a common definition and, consequently, create our product adapted to it, surely we could reduce the uncertainty associated with any new launch and our final creation would have a greater chance of success.
Among the facts that determine this shared vision, we can find wars, or the absence of them, the social context, the technology, the political reality,… All this factors, and many others, contribute to forging distinctive character traits, a spectrum of common ambitions and desires, shared phobias and a way of behaving towards life and the future.
Always speaking from the generalism, of course, the particular experiences of each one, the family, the circle of friends, the family’s socio-economic position,… contribute in the same way to form the personality of each individual. But, isn’t it true that we have all exclaimed or at least heard expressions such as “today’s young generation…” or “the generation of my parents…”? (3).
Anyway, rarely the target users of our product will be perfectly grouped under a common definition, more often they will have different behavior patterns, differents concerns and fears. Nevertheless, if we assume that at least part of their behavioral traits are common, since they are based in a generational factor, then we can establish our base assumptions from which to start making decisions.
We could even theorize about “how much” of the personality (4) is determined by the generation the individual belongs to, and how much by other factors, such as the biological or the personal experiences that occur throughout life.
Without the intention of complicating this article with more theory, that, unfortunately is not my specialty field, it should be enough by saying that there is a lot of literature on the subject and numerous authors have tried to explain how the personality is formed, and how it is statistically distributed along the sample space of analyzed individuals.
Trying to get to know the user is not a very crazy concept, in fact every new project should take it into account. And I am referring to the authentic knowledge of the target user, because if we have this knowledge and adapt our product accordingly, with a greater probability we will be successful in our plan.
GENERATIONAL CYCLES
It is said that history progresses in cycles, and that it can be analyzed based on the collective behavior of individuals, grouped into Generations, if this were true, and we also knew the typical behavior traits of such collective people, would it not then make sense to apply the most appropriate strategies based on such target group or generation?
Just for the reader to understand better this article, I am going to try to explain how these generational theories arise, and what are they proposing. (5)
Back in 1991, the Americans William Strauss and Neil Howe tried to explain the history of the United States based on the character traits and the way of looking at the world of the different generations of individuals who populated America.
The unification of their points of view under a single theory led them to define different collective personalities or archetypes, which occur chained and continuously throughout history.
According to their theory, historical events are associated with generational characters or archetypes. They then identified four archetypes: idealistic, reactive, civic and adaptive, later redefined as Prophets, Nomads, Heroes and Artists.
They say that the generations in each archetype share values and attitudes towards institutions such as the family, in addition to the way of facing risk, understanding culture, among others. These archetypes would follow each other cyclically over time. After each crisis a next generation would emerge, which would be classified in an archetype.
Both Strauss-Howe and other authors deeply theorized about the generational impacts in shaping the personality of the individual.
Scholars of these theories have named the Generations that, nowadays, coexist:
There are plenty of analysis that, regarding the characteristics of each one of the generations can be found on the Internet. Anyone who is interested in knowing more about a specific Generation can access this information.
ADAPTING OUR PRODUCT
But, what if we try to use all this knowledge about the characteristics of the different generations, what impact would it really have on our product?
At this point, as Product Managers we should ensure that this knowledge is taken into account in the Product definition process, and rely on other roles such as those specialized in Design (Service Designers, User Experience and Visual Designers), or Research, specialized in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data (quantitative and qualitative), to jointly define the product’s Value Proposal, that is, define how we would provide a unique value to users.
As a result of all this work we should be able to answer questions such as:
What is the most valued feature of the product? Is it speed, security or transparency, or is it rather the daring character or the values that it transmits?
Or, how are we going to motivate users to start browsing our product? How are we going to keep them attentive and focused on the process? Will the language used be impacted?
In the same way, the aesthetics of the products, as well as the navigation flows could be affected…
Therefore, if it is our intention to define a product for a specific target audience, we cannot ignore, as professionals, our knowledge about their personality traits, their values, their aversion to risk, their attitudes towards the family, and above all their relationship with technology. The degree of commitment that we achieved with the target users will depend entirely on the knowledge that we have of them.
NO PRODUCT IS FOREVER
Nevertheless, we have already anticipated that individuals change, that life experiences and the changing environment in which we live has an impact on our perception and our behavior. Given that individuals change, but starting from a common collective personality, it is feasible to think that evolution takes similar paths, and even venture that collective personalities evolve and, therefore, the assumptions that we had established as the basis for defining our product mutate.
We already knew that every product has a certain duration: the evolution of sales, the market and the competitors mark what is known as the Product Life Cycle.
But in reality there is another not insignificant factor in the survival of a product, and that is, of course, its target audience. A product can have all the quality in the world, low competition and ideal market conditions to continue succeeding, but if the characteristics of your target audience vary and our product no longer provides them with the same value, it will begin to decline and will no longer be consumed.
If our audience changes, and it will change, will we want or be able to make the necessary changes to our product to try to keep it or will we “let them go” and look for new users? (6) . Personally, as a Product Manager, and even more so, when my work is based on temporary assignments to projects, without a permanent link to any particular product I tend to have a more static point of view, defining the products based on current reality, so I haven’t had to make this decision yet.
Of course, and although we intuit the inevitable outcome of a product that has not yet seen the light, this should not discourage us from defining and building it as best we know.
Jaime Hernández Vera
Product Manager
Notes and Bibliography
(1) “We explain how a generation is shaped by its “age location” — that is, by its age-determined participation in epochal events that occur during its lifecycle. During childhood and, especially, during the coming-of-age experiences separating youth from adulthood, this age location produces what we call a “peer personality” — a set of collective behavioral traits and attitudes that later expresses itself throughout a generation’s lifecycle trajectory.”, Generations The History Of America’s Future, 1584 To 2069, 1991, William Strauss & Neil Howe
(2) “Las variaciones de la sensibilidad vital que son decisivas en historia se presentan bajo la forma de generación. Una generación no es un puñado de hombres egregios, ni simplemente una masa: es como un nuevo cuerpo social íntegro, con su minoría selecta y su muchedumbre, que ha sido lanzado sobre el ámbito de la existencia con una trayectoria vital determinada. “, La idea de las generaciones, 1923, Ortega y Gasset
(3) Acting Like a Baby Boomer? Birth-Cohort Differences in Adults’ Personality Trajectories During the Last Half a Century, 2022, Psychological Science
(4) “Personality is the way we think, feel, perceive, and react to the external world, which has been thought of by different workers since ancient times. The number of theories itself reflects that personality is not an homogenous entity and the development of personality is biopsychosocial as viewed by psychiatrists and psychologists of different times.” , Kavirayani K. Historical perspectives on personality — The past and current concept: The search is not yet over. Arch Med Health Sci 2018;6:180–6, just to quote any of the existing studies.
(5) Das Problem der Generationen, Karl Mannheim, 1928; Generations, Strauss & Howe, 19910; The Fourth Turning, Strauss & Howe, 1997; among many others.
(6) “In an era when the pace of change was slower, the variety of products and services fewer, the channels of communication and distribution less pervasive, and the consumer less sophisticated, marketing could enjoy prolonged periods of relative stability, reaping profits from “holding the customer constant” and optimizing the other variables. That is no longer the case.” Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Goods to Mainstream Customers. Moore, G. A. (1991).
