Experiential marketing is all about creating experiences that are immersive and memorable. When done right, it engages customers and never fails to leave a lasting impression. Achieving this involves understanding that not every experience is going to resonate the same way with every customer. Age demographics and generational preferences have a major impact on the effectiveness of experiential marketing campaigns.

For brands to effectively reach these demographics, tailoring their experiential marketing campaigns to their preferences is a must.
Getting to Know Generational Demographics

Connecting with customers based on their age or generation is more nuanced than it seems on the surface. While each age demographic will share some commonalities, it’s important to not lose sight of the individuality of each consumer and what potentially attracts them to your brand.

As a primer to tailoring experiential marketing campaigns to various age demographics, let’s start with a basic breakdown of each generation and an overview of their general characteristics.

Gen Alpha

This generation encompasses those born between 2010 and 2025, gen alpha are currently babies, children, and young teens. They don’t currently have much purchasing power themselves, but they are extremely influential in their parent’s brand choices.

Connecting with Gen Alpha often means connecting with their parent’s age group as well. Gen Alpha’s parents are primarily millennials and Gen X.

Gen Z

Born between 1997 and 2012, this generation is either entering or solidly footed in early adulthood. They’re tech-savvy, having never experienced life without many of our modern tech conveniences.

They’re generally highly engaged with social media, which means they’re also keen on instant gratification. Still, they value authenticity and transparency and are quick to engage in shared interactive activities in the digital space.

Millennials

Born between 1981 and 1996, millennials are firmly in adulthood, with older millennials on the cusp of middle age. Millennials are also tech-savvy and highly connected to social media, but they choose experiences that are aligned with their personal lifestyle and beliefs.

Generation X

Born between 1965 and 1980, Gen X has split their lives between the time since the world has been online, and when it wasn’t. They’re entering or comfortably in middle age, and they value practicality and brands that respect their time. Gen X is also the no-nonsense generation and is more likely to be skeptical of experiences that feel inauthentic or overly showy.

Baby Boomers: Born between 1946 and 1964, baby boomers are at a place in life where they value personal interaction and connection. They are, in general, less tech-savvy than other generations, which makes them more difficult to reach via social media channels. However, they’re not totally off the social radar. Still, brands are more likely to engage them with face-to-face experiences and connect through touches of nostalgia.

4 Keys to Tailoring Experiential Marketing Campaigns to Specific Age Demographics

Know the Audience

The first step in developing an experiential marketing campaign should be to really get to know your audience and how you can best connect with them. What are their values, and how do they prefer to engage?

Consider the different types of experiences that are going to best resonate with them at the stage of life they’re in. Look at the trends that are driving their behaviors and aim to understand what motivates them.

Expand Audience Segmentation

As we mentioned earlier, segmenting your audience by generation or age demographic only goes so far. There isn’t a single age demographic that fits a single mold, so now the goal is to segment them further to tap into what really engages them.

Consider segmenting based on lifestyle and current interests. The more precisely your brand is able to target the audience, the more meaningful the experiences become.

Set Goals

What is it that you want to accomplish with your experiential marketing campaign? How does the age demographic you want to appeal to factor into this goal? It’s possible to develop a campaign that has one primary goal while having different sets of sub-goals for each age demographic.

Personalize the Experience.

Personalization. This right here is the key to successful experiential marketing campaigns. Once brands have gotten to know their audience, segmented them to connect with them personally, and set goals, it’s time to dig in and personalize the experience.

Let’s take a look at how to personalize experiential marketing campaigns based on generational age groups.

Experiential Marketing for the Generations

Gen Z

The more tech-focused the experience, the better for connecting with Gen Z. Consider experiences that involve AR, VR, and gamification. This generation is social and ready to play. They love viral experiences and content.

Consider the various TikTok challenges that capture this generation’s attention. Also consider connecting to Gen Z through more meaningful interactions, such as those that focus on environmental sustainability, equality, and mental health.

Millennials

Millennials were the first generation to really experience FOMO in the digital landscape. With social media exploding during their teens, this generation was the first one to engage in endless scrolling and to follow their favorite digital content creators. Yes, many of them have matured past this point, but there’s still a lingering fear of missing out that when leveraged can really attract them to a brand.

Millennials also value authenticity and crave experiences that provide real value to their lives. This could be in the form of personalized events, workshops, and events that speak to their social values. Millennials are also likely to play along with experiential campaigns that involve simple processes, like scanning a QR code as entry into the experience.

Generation X

Generation X isn’t lacking in tech savviness, but they are receptive to engaging with brands through other channels as well. The generation prefers experiences that are streamlined and easy to navigate.

They tend to lean into brands that are reliable and dependable, and will appreciate experiences that tie into that. They also have a strong emotional connection to nostalgia from the 80s and 90s. Marketing events and experiences that highlight these decades are likely to be loved by Gen X.

Baby Boomers

Baby Boomers are traditionalists in many ways. They like engaging in person and appreciate the human value of face-to-face interactions. They do engage with brands digitally but are more engaged with this combined with other channels.

Baby Boomers are also at an age where they’re focused on health and wellbeing. Events that feature experiences based on this are highly attractive to Boomers. Think along the lines of community health screenings or senior fitness initiatives.

Is There a Generational Common Ground for Experiential Marketing?

So, this leaves us with the question of whether there is a common ground for connection with multiple age demographics with a single experiential marketing campaign.

The answer is yes, although brands might find this to be more challenging and might also miss out on opportunities that can be found when segmenting by age group.

The key to finding common ground among different generations is to focus experiential marketing campaigns on authenticity, value, emotional connection, and interactivity. These are the universal touchpoints that appeal to customers of all ages.

Experiential Marketing That Engages All Ages

Creating experiential marketing campaigns that appeal to different age demographics involves a deep understanding of what makes each generation or age group unique in today’s culture. Tailoring experiences based on their preferences and lifestyles is a way for brands to effortlessly connect and form strong customer relationships.

At Factory360, we build experiences that connect, engage, and inspire. Contact us today to learn more about how Factory360 can make your brand stand out with experience-based marketing.