

“Business institutions are interested in getting people to buy particular products by any means possible,” Mueller said.

This led to a distinct line drawn between previous generations and baby boomers, marking the beginning of specialized age groups as society entered a post-war lifestyle. The silent generation, having just came out of the Great Depression, was less optimistic about consumerism, making them less than desirable as new targets for marketing tactics, Mueller said. “It’s a marketing tool to characterize a group of people by generations and to think that they will have different spending patterns and tastes from the people before them.” “A lot of the credit for generational divides goes to the business world, and the baby boomers were an opportunity for a huge new market in the U.S. This phenomenon of generations becoming differentiated through marketing wasn’t by surprise, but rather by design following World War II. For a society built on capitalism and consumerism, groups with characteristics are what push institutions forward, said Carol Mueller, professor at the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences.
