07/13/2006 10:19:00 PM 
(1) 
(1) The "grups" are the latest line in media created segments following in the wake of "yuppies", "generation x" and "generation-y", etc.
Interestingly the term came out of an article published earlier this year in New York Magazine and has subsequently spread to Europe. The article has its fair share of grup stories; 36 years old playing with X-Boxes, playing in rock bands, collecting trainers and basically behaving like they are 20 years old.
A number of planners are quoted in the article, stressing that advertisers need to understand this new group who are "shunning brash status symbols" and are looking for brands that make "discreet" statements.
We have known all this for a long time, people are less and less likely to conform to demographic stereotypes and that psychographics are a way better indicator. It appears that the grups are the exemplification of this old idea, brought into focus in glorious technicolor. It also helps that many of the planners, advertising creatives and clients are also grups, or apprentice/wannabe grups.
What's interesting about this trend is that people have decided by their own free will to do what makes them happy, rather than conforming to past conventions and values. They have enough confidence, so they simply don't care what others think and some of this confidence comes from knowing they are not alone.
They can do this because of radical changes in the business environment, which is placing more emphasis on creativity, imaginative/youthful thinking and giving people the opportunity to seize control of the balance between life and work. They can also do this because popular culture continues to place a premium on being youthful. This is a trend that looks set to continue.
The problem is that despite these changes, we are still using old fashioned marketing thinking where age still rules, it's how media is purchased and it goes on from there.
Clearly, we need better tools that can help us to examine the psychographics of an audience and to buy and measure performance this way.
With a rapidly ageing demographic, you would have thought media owners would be scrambling for new ways to sell their wares.
Any media owner care to share their GRPs (grup rating points) with us?
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I read the nymag's article months ago and found very interesting. What surprises me - always I must say - is how good ideas, articles, ads or whatsoever, spread around the web/world. And the "grups" is a very good idea. Still I find that US or UK grups differ from Italy grups. They are more in control with good positions. We are the "mille euro" generation and it makes a big difference in terms of free will and power.