Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect those of the ANA or its members. On today's episode of On Scope, Trendhunters Armita Ascano breaks down the macro opportunities around engaging micro generations. And on marketing news you might have missed, AI has a problem with ROI. All that next, On Scope. Sharpen your pencils and polish your apples because this is On Scope: The Marketing Podcast brought to you by the ANA. I am your host, Mike Berberich, and with me as always the creator, the producer of On Scope, Ryan Dinger, School's
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Back,
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Baby.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
School is back in session. Marketing school that is. Although I have to ask, were you polishing a lot of apples during your academic career?
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I wanted to start the second half of season two right off the bat by showing how old I am.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Fair enough.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah,
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah. Well, I would say mission accomplished then.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Thank you. Efficiency. Efficiency.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
But it's good to be back. We're back here. Another great set of episodes, more learnings. And I mean, today's just going to be chock-full of great information for our listeners.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yeah, absolutely. But before we get ahead of ourselves, we've got a classic that I've been missing for months. That is marketing news you might have missed.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
That's right, Mike. It is marketing news you might have missed. Let's kick the dust off and get back into this segment. This week we're starting with a story from Fast Company that is about a topic that we've been discussing a lot this year. Here's the headline for you. Your AI strategy has an employee problem.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Oh no.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
That's right. Companies continue to invest billions in their AI transformations while their workers struggle to use AI effectively. Gartner forecasts AI spending to grow to $2.59 trillion this year, an increase of 47% from 2025. As AI adoption increases, employees have grown more comfortable using the tools to take over their administrative responsibilities so they have more time to do higher impact work in theory. That's my interjection the right article did not say in theory. But even as AI is being used more, the actual business results are questionable. A recent study by Domino Data Lab found that the share of enterprises whose ROI fails to outpace their investment has held at 57% since 2025. While organizations understand the importance of equipping their workforces with AI tools, most still fail to manage and support their employees as they use them to generate real business outcomes like growing revenue, lowering operating costs and enhancing their own productivity.
(03:01):
I'm going to stop there, Mike. $2.59 trillion this year. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Up 47%
Speaker 2 (03:10):
From
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Last
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Year. Up 47% from 2025. That is an insane number. And then for more than half of businesses who are investing in this technology, 57%, I remind you, are saying that ROI is failing to outpace that investment. Mike, give me your thoughts.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
I mean, 57% is not just more than half. We're getting darn close to calling that the majority of organizations that use AI are not only not seeing the things that they wanted to happen happen, they are not even getting the cost of the technology back from what it provides. Can we just, and I know the answer, but I'd like to make the plea anyway. Listeners, can this be the last time when a new innovation or technology comes along and we all fall for the, "Oh, we have to dive in. You're going to be left behind." I know somebody listening to this podcast was talking like that about the metaverse in 2021 and you were wrong. And I'll just be honest, when Chad and all of these LLMs really started to have their moment in the sun in what, 22, 23,
(04:23):
I definitely am guilty of saying, "Well, the metaverse was a little bit of a boom and a bust, but I think this is going to be different." And while yes, obviously it's different, no, I was getting to up my own whatever. I was getting too into the hype cycle. This is technology like any other technology. And I understand why it all happened, but the rollout of generative AI implied that it was magic, that it was something beyond computation, that it was something that worked differently than any other program you've worked with in the past. Incorrect.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Incorrect. It's just another piece of
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Technology. I mean, let me ask you this. If you take the term artificial intelligence and strip it away from this conversation we're having and just let's say new technology, and I'm telling you that there's a new technology that businesses are collectively spending more than $2 trillion on annually and more than half of them, 57% are not even seeing an ROI on that spend, you would be like, stop investing in that technology immediately. There's no way with all the economic pressure that's going on that somebody would justify that type of expenditure with results that are not even close to paying off on the investment. So I think that that's one thing, and your point is well taken. I don't think that AI, and I think you would agree, it's not quite as bust as the metaverse was. They're obviously useful applications. Absolutely. But surely, and this is something we have hinted at on the show for a little while, the promise is not being met.
(06:03):
It's not even coming close to what was predicted in terms of productivity enhancements, in terms of creative output, in terms of all these things. It's not living up to the hype at all.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
No. And one of the points that you brought up, people aren't unconfident in using it. It's not that they don't know how to use it. It's just there is that old, I forget, I think it was a South Park joke where it was like, step one, do this. Step two, question park, question mark, question mark. Step three, profit. Yeah. I really think that much like in the earliest days of digital marketing, too many people were enticed to set it and forget it. And that got us down this road that we're on now.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Well, it's interesting you make that point because the story does go into this as well.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Please.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
The story goes on to say, "There's a gap between employees' confidence in using AI and an organization's desired business outcome. Walkme's third installment of the AI at work pulse survey, which has tracked US workers' use of AI since 2024, found that while 90% of employees feel confident using AI, has said they've spent more time trying to get AI to do a task than the task itself would have taken manually." Insane right there. Insane. Absolutely. But let's go on. The new expectations around work are largely driven by managers who expect AI to create more efficiency. More than half of employees surveyed reported that their manager expects more output in the same amount of time, and 33% say they have pretended to be more skilled at using AI than they are. In fact, the entire job market is being driven by AI, which means those employees who have AI skills and can deliver on them will have better employment prospects.
(07:48):
Dice found that AI skills are now listed in 73% of tech job postings and KPMG discovered that nearly half of companies are willing to pay an 11 to 15% salary premium for AI skills. Even more dropping is that a PWC survey of 1000 financial services executives found that 86% believe AI skills training is more important than an MBA for many new hires.
(08:15):
Let's back up here. Oh my Lord. We have employees who are 90% are saying they're confident using AI, but they're finding in many instances that they're spending more time trying to get AI to do a task than the task itself would have taken manually. You know what that sounds like to me, Mike? That sounds like a solution in search of a problem.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Amen, brother. Amen. It's theater. It's crazy. And it's one of those things where it's like if you're a leader, it's really incumbent upon you to step up. Everybody below you in the food chain, survival. They're in survival mode.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah. My boss is telling me I need to do this. What are you going to do but do it?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yeah. That's it. And really, truly, if you are in a leadership position, is that what you want? Do you want the emperor's new clothes or do you want to actually get efficiency, productivity and this magical world where people are finally able to do strategy stuff that just doesn't seem to actually be appearing in any office anywhere in the US?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah. I mean, to your point, just telling employees they need to use AI, it's not enough anymore. We've done that. That was sort of first phase, let's figure this out, get in and experiment. But now if you don't have real world use cases for why this technology needs to be implemented and how, and also rules about how it should not be used, which I think is an important part of the conversation as well. Extraordinarily important part. As it turns out, the data says you're just wasting money.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
And I've actually heard once or twice that you brought up it's a management problem that some of these, let's call them kinks in communications might be from cross-generational misunderstandings. And I think we can do a little bit of something to help our listeners wrap their heads around the different generations on a level that they might be even not expected to go this deep.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Shirley, you're talking about today's guest.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
I am because our guest today is Armita Ascano, the chief insights officer at Trendhunter, the world's number one largest, most popular trend platform and innovation accelerator. Through a combination of AI, crowdsourcing and proprietary research, her team helps more than a thousand organizations, billionaires, CEOs, heck, even NASA make smarter decisions faster.
(10:40):
Today, she joins the show to discuss Trendhunter's study on micro generations and the power of nuance in advertising. My conversation with Armita is up next. For the entirety of my career, marketers have looked at generations and really have tailored messages according to these big cohorts. And it makes a lot of sense because spending your formative years with a different backdrop of technology, social morays and historical events is going to change the way you interact with the world and ultimately the way you consume. But for an industry so obsessed with personalization and granular targeting, generations like baby boomers, Gen X and millennials seems pretty general to get anything meaningful done. But don't worry because my guest today is diving into where we can get real relevancy, connection, dare I say personalization with micro generations. It is such a pleasure to welcome to the show Armita Ascano, the chief insights officer at Trendhunter.
(12:06):
Armie, thank you so, so much for joining us today.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
So like I said, Trendhunter did some really, really cool research into micro generations and what they are defined by. But before we get into that, I would love to know what was the inspiration that led you to explore these micro generations?
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Yeah, I mean it's a great question. So I've been with Trendhunter for quite a while and I am a kind of tried and true classic millennial stereotype in a lot of ways. And when I was tasked with growing our futures team, which is our team of speakers, workshop facilitators, we were sitting around and looking at all of the key topics that we knew we needed to bring a fresh approach to. And the thing that kept popping into my mind is that whenever we talked to marketers or people in the innovation space, basically anybody who's doing anything with segmentation, I as a millennial felt this urge to tell them that the 30-year age range specifically for millennials, I think this was 10 years ago, so back in 2015, 2016, was not representative of everyone in that group. I mean, it's a huge age range, right? And at the time you were looking at folks who were 22, but you were also looking at folks who were 37.
(13:30):
And it didn't feel accurate. And the original reasoning for that was for one, breaking some of those stereotypes. At the time, a lot of the millennial discourse was around that whole idea that this is a generation that can't afford homes because they're buying a lot of avocado toast. Right. Yeah, you remember those? That was
Speaker 1 (13:54):
A
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Bummer.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
I've had to give up avocados completely.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
We're still
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Working on that home part though.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
I can't even talk about avocados. I've gotten cold turkey on them, so please. But yeah, that whole thing was sort of, it felt so unrepresentative to me of folks who were 37, 36 at the time. Sure, maybe a 22-year-old could take it easy on the expensive lunches, but what 22-year-old couldn't that didn't feel generational, that felt age specific. And then in addition to that, at the time, we were kind of just reaching the peak of the Instagram era and this idea of Instagram representing this sort of highlight reel of how people are living their lives and how specific that was to a certain type of millennial. But that also meant that we were getting a whiff of all of the different types of human experiences even within one particular generation. So it started with the millennials also being the largest generation at the time, Gen Z has usurped us.
(14:52):
So it was sort of, if this is a 30-year age range and an enormous group of people who are representative of all of these different experiences, then surely micro-segmentation is a better approach to understanding what it means to age now. And then over time it just became more and more prescient. At the time I'm talking about Instagram as this portal for reflection of different experiences. Now we have TikTok and it's so funny looking back and how much that's been validated over time. And then we started taking that micro-segmented lens across all of the generations because we were getting this taste of different experiences. And Gen Z, as I said, did end up usurping millennials as the largest generation. So today we've gone from three micro generations among the millennials, which was the original, to now 10 micro generations across all four of those big generations I'm most are familiar with.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
And it's just such a fascinating experiment and just kind of looking at it, it just makes so much sense. And I love that you mentioned the avocado toast home buying thing because actually the very first time I personally came into contact with the concept of micro generations is when somebody explained my own micro generation back to me. I am part of, and if you were on, well now I guess Meta, Facebook, whatever you want to call it, if you're on Facebook at a certain point, you probably saw the post about the Oregon trail generation if you were in my age range. And what marked that was the rapid evolution of technology that just so happened to line up with our formative years. And when you take it all in toto, yeah, of course. Not only is it just that I am 15 years older than a 22-year-old, but I've burnt a CD.
(16:57):
They don't know what that term means. I take it from a music fan because that is one of my passions in life.
(17:06):
Over something like a seven-year stint, there were CDs that you could only buy and then there were CDs that you could custom make and burn. And then there were iPods and other MP3 players and then everything was on your phone. And that felt like probably a little longer than this, but that felt like five years that you just kept going through these massive format changes. Whereas you look at something like the 8-track player and it was around for a decade and a half, as crazy as that is. Sorry, this is really an area that I get very passionate in and I'm an easily excitable person. I want to go back to this avocado toast home thing because that is an example of a big misconception or stereotype that was thrown at a huge cohort of people. I would love to go generation by generation of the big ones out there in the world right now.
(18:04):
Could you give me one misconception that has defined each of the big generations? Let's start with baby boomers.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
So I mean, one misconception is I could give you an alphabetized list for each of we don't have that much time. I also, starting with the baby boomers, I want to kind of borrow from what you were saying about the methods of listening to music and the rapid pace of change there and specifically technology as the first kind of stereotype I want to address specifically for the baby boomers. So technology tends to be the great equalizer across all generations. We've recently undergone this huge kind of change and this shift that shuffles the board for all of the generations. Maybe before I answer that question, I should say the way that a generation is typically seen is you take a group of people born within the same age range, you think of their shared experiences and you hold that up against the stage of life they're currently in, and that will tell you a little bit about how they'll behave, right?
(19:10):
Yeah. Technology, especially huge technological changes like social media when we first created this framework back in 2015, AI where we are today, those are new shared experiences that impact every single generation. And so that's why technology becomes this sort of great equalizer. So coming back around to your question about these misconceptions per generation, my first, and the one I've been talking about most recently is the misconception that baby boomers are not open to technology. They're not open specifically to artificial intelligence.
(19:46):
I think that that is a misconception founded in this idea that they don't understand it. But my question to the audiences and to you and to anybody really is how much of AI do you understand despite the fact that you're using it, right? That's a great question. How much do we all understand about social media? I mean, we're talking to people who are in the space with advertising marketing and all of that, but still the average person who's using these technologies doesn't require an understanding of it. And if there's one thing baby boomers like, it's technology that's easy to use that increases their sense of independence. And so this is a generation that'll be amenable to AI if the AI is implemented well.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
That's such a great point. And that actually reminds me, I think two, maybe three years ago, I got my parents a brand new laptop and at first they were just kind of like, "I don't know. Do we need to, do I really need this?" The second they learned that the screen was a touch screen, they were off to the races because it was like their phone, which they had already adapted fully. They were super comfortable with it. When I say in one second of realization, the second my mom touched the screen and knew she could make it go up and down, she was getting into her email and making a bookmark for Amazon. She was literally immediately a super user. Oh yeah, let's go. So that is such a great point. That is such a, such a, such a great point. And I love the button that you ended that on.
(21:21):
If things are designed for the things that each generation is seeking, that is the difference maker, not just what's your age? Oh, you're not going to like this solution. So I really, I love how you wrapped that up. This next one I'm very interested in because this generation, the generation that came before mine, Gen X, I feel like they are one of the biggest recipients. I feel like Gen X has been boiled down to a single person sometimes. It's so stereotypical, so monolithical. So I'd love to hear your thoughts about misconceptions, like the big misconceptions around Gen X. Yeah. So
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Misconceptions around Gen X, I think we have to start by acknowledging their status as the sort of middle child of the generations. They are much, much smaller than baby boomers, much, much smaller than millennials. They often get shafted in these conversations, which is ironic because they tend to comprise the majority of the audience when I go and do a keynote about generations, when I go and run a workshop about this kind of information. So I've got extra love for Gen X. I love an underdog. Oh, heck yeah.
(22:34):
I would say that one of the biggest misconceptions about Gen X is that they are workaholics. And I think that that's something that's recently disrupted, sorry to drop the P word, but post-pandemic. So that's another, aside from AI, we have another enormous kind of mega trend, so to speak, that just shuffle the kind of deck and that's the pandemic. And the results of that is that you had every generation kind of facing down what their actual values were and what was truly important to them. And Gen X tends to be a generation that's defined by their work ethic. And even when we talk about the big kind of shared experience they have, we talk about their success in the tech boom and then the tech bubble bursting, and that's kind of what keeps them in these jobs and makes them think I have to pursue a sense of stability even though I am latently a pretty creative person, I'm just going to do this job so I never have to go through that again.
(23:35):
However - Survival mode. Survival mode, exactly. During the pandemic, this is a generation who kind of leaned into the flexibility, this idea of being able to do the office job from home, spend more time with family. And this isn't necessarily the generation who is leading the pack when it comes to we need everybody back in office five days a week. That was mostly the baby boomers. So this generation has kind of refound their way back to work-life balance. And it's funny because they were the original generation for whom work-life balance was invented because they needed it really badly. But now they're the generation that's kind of leading the redefinition. Work-life balance can be 40 / 60, maybe 30 / 70. So yeah, the misconception there is that Gen X are workaholics.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
That is so great. And that just reminds me, there's a very entertaining LinkedIn content creator that does kind of work experiences through the generations, and that is always what Gen X gets pegged at as everybody else is kind of figuring out a way to avoid it and they're just good. They want to get the next thing done. But yeah, the pandemic as much of an absolute objective global tragedy that was, it also did really allow a lot of people who may have been kind of nonstop since they entered adulthood a chance to stop, reflect, and really take a look inside and think about what was important to them. So that's really, really cool. And I think that might go really overlooked when people talk about the pandemic. We all like to get the logistical stuff down and everything, but there was a moment of silence in there for folks who were fortunate enough to get through it that I could say personally was a big turning point in my life.
(25:29):
So it makes a lot of sense if that was really your first opportunity to catch your breath, that that could be a revolutionary moment for you. So very, very cool. We are moving on to millennials. Army, what are they saying about us?
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Everybody's a least favorite but most discussed generation.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Lots of -
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Hate us because they hate us.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Yeah, honestly. So many misconceptions with a millennial. So many that it is genuinely hard to choose just one. You know what? I think that, and this is a bit of a hot take, I will say. It's a bit of a hot take alert. We love it. I think that one of the things that millennials did that was most surprising to everybody is become normal adults. And when I say that, what I mean is with the millennial came this wave of this revolutionary hyper convenience and this kind of cheeky branding and this use of slang and humor in communication toward them and all this attention paid to design. And that's how you get companies that are the millennial version of insert any random thing. I've seen the millennial version of deodorant, the millennial version of cereal. You know what I mean? The uberization almost where suddenly everything needs to be branded in a very specific way for the millennial demographic.
(27:07):
And it's always something that's kind of cheeky and cute and to a degree a little bit infantilizing.
(27:14):
I think that the biggest misconception is that that's still something that generation is looking for. What I found, and this is reflected both in the research that we're doing with our trend intelligence engine, everything that we use at Trendhunter, but also just anecdotally as someone who's chronically online, what I found is that the millennial brand du jour is Costco, right? Yeah. Now that millennials are actual adults, they're no longer as impressed by this pretty, flashy, clever, cheeky branding as they used to be. They don't need some sort of millennial specific approach to pet food or whatever. What they're looking for is value because they're actual adults now, a pleasant shopping experience, something that's frictionless. And yeah, I think the biggest misconception about millennials is that they're not just normal adults.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yeah. Yeah. Here we are 43 years old, just living and dying by memes.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Not
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Quite, not quite.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Exactly. Whether or not the latest internet slang is used in copy for an ad is not going to move the needle for me anymore. Millennials are older now. They are much more, I think, sensible than they're given credit for.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
I love it. Couldn't agree with you more, and I'm going to let my mom know right after this podcast is over. Well, speaking of slang and internet and misconceptions and stereotypes, let's talk about the biggest current generation. Gen Z, I just listed off a half a dozen rather ignorantly. What are people saying about, and I was about to call them the kids, which is another
Speaker 3 (29:06):
Misnomer.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
I'm going to shut up and let you talk about Gen Z.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Yeah. I mean, Gen Z, this might be a bit of a cop out, but I think one of the misconceptions of Gen Z, and this is sort of the point of the entire approach of micro generations, is that they are a monolith represented by what's online, right?
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
Gen Z, one thing that I think people need to understand about Gen Z is more than any other generation, Gen Z does not have a dominant aesthetic. They don't have a dominant way of dressing or a set of slang that they use. They don't have a dominant kind of approach to politics even, which is a huge misconception I think there is around Gen Z. And we saw that in recent results for the election there, but quite a few Gen Zs voting in ways that I'm sure some found surprising. The thing with the sort of algorithmic AI-driven TikTok world that we live in. So when we were young, Mike, back in my day, you didn't call yourself emo. You didn't call yourself anything. And I'm using aesthetics to illustrate a larger point here. I think for all generations when they were younger, you behaved a certain way and then you became interested in the aesthetics of that particular movement.
(30:33):
Gen Z, because of how much social media they're using, is starting aesthetic first. And what that means is that there isn't necessarily a lasting set of behavior that dictates the way that they look, the way that they speak, the things that they consume. That means that they're much harder to pin down into one particular category of any kind. So again, it feels a bit like a cop out because it is the point of the whole framework, but more than any other generation, I think the misconception with Gen Z is that they are a monolith.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
I think you're a hundred percent correct. I think that their youth plays into that a bit. I think there's probably a hint of ageism in there. And I think that a lot of us, unless you are parents or unless you've got family members in that generation, maybe the largest representation you're seeing is from social media, from online, from the screen grabs of tweets or TikToks that are being sent to you by your millennial friends because we do still occasionally do that. But no, but you really are. And I think today in 2026, I think that they are the most considered to be a monolith of everybody. I think that there has been a little more nuanced conversation around all of the other generations. Even Gen X, the idea that they need more love and that they've kind of got the short shrift, that's entered into the conversation around them, which allows at least a little bit of a deeper appreciation.
(32:08):
But I couldn't help myself before I even said Gen Z. I put the entire generation into three different corners before I could even get to their name. So I'm glad you put me in my place and I'm sure our listeners are appreciative as well. Speaking of listeners, stick around because when we come back, we're going to talk about the sentiment toward AI among younger generations in particular and what we can do about it as an industry. Stick around, you're not going to want to miss it.
(32:44):
Ryan, I've had an idea and it's pretty good if I do say so myself.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Great. I always love supporting you and your ideas, what you got for me.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
All right. Picture this. A very, very special episode of On Scope where we invite every guest we've ever had all at once.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Okay. Just
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Picture it, just brilliant marketing mind after brilliant marketing mind. It'd be kind of a convening of sorts. Just get everybody together and all kinds of different insights from different companies and different perspectives. Can you picture this, Ryan? I mean, it'd be kind of cramped in here. We probably need to get space. Ooh, why don't we just go for a resort? And if we're going to do a resort, might as well be somewhere nice, right? Sure. So we're going to convene all of these incredible marketing leaders somewhere nice at a resort, might as well get a stage. You know what I mean? We could all kind of fix our attention there. And if we're buying and renting out all of this stuff, I think there'd be space to invite other people, have a proper audience.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yeah, like a live audience.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Yeah. So pretty good, right?
Speaker 2 (33:59):
I've
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Come onto something. I'm an inventor now.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
I think you might be onto something, Mike, except the problem is that idea already exists. What
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Do you mean?
Speaker 2 (34:08):
It sounds like what you're describing is an ANA national industry conference.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Oh yeah. Huh.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
That's right, Mike. The ANA's national industry conferences are where the industry's sharpest minds come together to compare notes, set standards, and pressure test what's next. And you know what's next, Mike, or what's coming up very soon?
Speaker 1 (34:26):
I do, Ryan. It is the crown jewel of our national industry conferences. The Masters of Marketing is back.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
That's right, Mike. Presented by Havas, the ANA's Masters of Marketing Conference is taking place October 20th through the 23rd in Orlando, Florida, or if you can't be there in person, which I highly recommend, you can attend virtually. You want to take a guess at which brands are presenting this year?
Speaker 1 (34:49):
It feels like all of
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Them, Ryan. It does feel like all of them. In fact, if you attend, you'll hear from CMOs and marketing leaders from Coca-Cola, Lego, P&G, Geico, Harley Davidson, Manscaped, Applebee's, AT&T, Colgate, Palm Olive, Disney World, GM, Hilton, J&J, Mars, Microsoft, Shell, Walmart, and Wyndham.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Excuse my language, Ryan, but goodness gracious. That's like an entire season of On Scope over the course of one event.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Yeah, Mike, you know what the great thing is about an ANA National Industry Conference like Masters of Marketing?
Speaker 1 (35:22):
What's the great thing
Speaker 2 (35:23):
About it? It's not just about the amazing insights, the fantastic marketers who you're going to see on stage. There are also opportunities to connect with your fellow marketers through networking opportunities like happy hours, dinners, coffee breaks at Masters. There's a little bit of entertainment. It's a great time.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Oh yeah. And if you've been there before, you know those little moments in between, those little coffee breaks, those little happy hours, that's where the real magic happens.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Yeah, that's exactly what I was just going to say. You took the words right out of my mouth.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
That's what happened. That's what sharing one brain does for you.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
That's right. So if you want to learn more about the A&A's Masters of Marketing Conference or any of the great events coming up later this year or in 2027, all you have to do is visit us at ana.net/conferences.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
That's right. That is www.ana.net/conferences. And now back to our show.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
I like that you're thinking about ideas.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Yeah, putting all of that together was going to be a lot. Kind of glad it's already a thing. Listeners, we are back. This is On Scope: The Marketing Podcast. My guest today, Armita Ascano, the chief insights officer at Trendhunter. As I mentioned before we went to break, I want to really look at this creeping anti-AI sentiment among younger consumers. Earlier this year, there were numerous graduation speeches where the keynote speaker brought up AI and got a different reaction than I think that they were expecting, and that's just kind of one signifier out there. What would you say is the right approach here for brands who want to gain the efficiencies AI offers without alienating an audience that seems to have this growing, if not skepticism, then outright resentment toward it?
Speaker 3 (37:24):
So I think to answer that question, we first have to talk about the source of this sort of dissatisfaction with AI, but also the places where this generation tends to look the other way with AI, right?
(37:39):
I will say anti-AI sentiment isn't necessarily the same as swearing off of AI because at this point, if you use social media, you're interacting with AI on a regular basis. If you shop online, you're interacting with AI on a regular basis. I think that with this generation and those who are very vocal about their displeasure with AI, it's a question of what the internet is for them. And for this generation, it's a tool to stay connected with other people. It's a tool to understand humanity and culture and gather more creative references and just basically learn about the world around you and yes, fine, gain some entertainment along the way. And so this anti-AI attitude is seen as more of a pro-human attitude, right? AI sure is a way to gain a lot more entertainment quickly, high quantity of something faster, but it isn't always used in the context that's human loving, so to speak, or in a way that's authentic to people and the way people connect with each other.
(38:53):
The reason why I start answering your question this way is because I still believe there are ways to be able to use that technology and still retain the parts that need to be human. I think that's a great way to make use of AI while ensuring that you're not alienating this particular group that's hesitant around it or skeptical around it, is to just use it more strategically.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
I think a big part of this was that there's definitely some expectation management blame to be put on the people who are developing these platforms. I saw somewhere the other day that if we could just talk about this like it's a quote unquote normal technology, I think that we could have a lot more of a productive conversation about what it's good for, what it's not good for, how to think about it, where the guard lines should be put up. I think it being sold as the magical bean to people who their BS detectors are the best honed in any generation, micro or macro.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
Such a good way to put it.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
I think that we didn't help ourselves while we were rolling this out and integrating it, and it's our bad habits that we could barely help. Speaking of bad habits, I wanted to talk about a little bit of a intergenerational play here. A lot of us at our organizations, offices, despite industry or vertical, are being told by the C-suite, largely boomers, so our Gen Z, millennial, Gen X workforce is being told by boomers who are kind of bringing this down to Gen X to execute to "use more AI." What as a person on the ground, you got into this about the strategies that one might be able to use. What advice would you give to anybody who got this mandate to just use more AI in that general of a sense?
Speaker 3 (41:06):
So at Trendhunter, we run AI masterclasses that are focused on how to view AI as a business problem, not a technology problem, because I think that's where we're at now, right? And this sort of relates to what you were saying earlier about us not being able to be normal about this technology. 2024, 2025, maybe a bit of 2023 if you were an early adopter, when generative AI became something accessible to everyone, there was this idea that everything should be automated and we were, to your point, not being normal about the technology. It was very exciting. Again, we had just come out of a pandemic and it was like, "Oh my God, something new to think about and do and whatever." And so there was gratuitous automation, and I will say that clients who came to us for the AI masterclass during that time were sort of like, "We want to automate as much as we can.
(42:00):
We want to use this thing wherever possible." I'm happy to say that the tide has turned. We're seeing a more intentional approach to help us to use AI. And my advice for this, and typically the first piece of advice we start with for those AI masterclasses, automate what you hate. That is my favorite piece of advice when it comes to rolling out some sort of AI strategy. And the good news about automating what you hate, which is essentially just think of the parts of your role that you like the least, the stuff that you wish you could fast-forward through, you can fast-forward through if you're using AI for it. So that's first piece of advice, automate what you hate, and it enables you to then keep what you love human, which speaks to your previous question of how do you roll out more AI without alienating an AI skeptical group?
(42:55):
Keep the parts that need to be human, and the way you're able to do that is if you automate what you hate, you win time back and you're able to spend more actual human time on the parts that are more creative, the parts that are more interesting.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Automate what you hate. It's hard to distill incredible advice down more than that. We have a history here of killer one-liners, and you have just entered our hall of greatness, Armita. I am not surprised, but I am grateful. That's something I'm going to take to heart and to my team.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
The rhyming helps a lot. Yeah. It really
Speaker 1 (43:32):
Does. It really does. That's how I'm going to be able to remember it tomorrow when 10,000 things have happened between now and then. Armi, I honestly could talk to you about micro generations until I enter a brand new one, but now is a very, very special part of our show where we turn marketers into masters. We're going to leave our listeners something to really act on when this fair program comes to an end, and we do that in a little segment we like to call the CTA. Armita Ascano, chief insights officer at Trendhunter. Are you ready?
Speaker 3 (44:24):
I'm ready.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
How can marketers develop campaigns that balance universal truths with micro-generational personalization?
Speaker 3 (44:36):
Wow. Okay. You're up to
Speaker 1 (44:38):
The talent. You're up to the task. I know this.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
I am. How philosophical are we getting with the universal truths? You know what I will say? I think that my answer to this question is acknowledging that what's at the core of each of the micro generations is some form of universal truth to begin with. But what I mean by that, there are 10 micro generations, so I'm not going to go through each one individually to be fair, but the key motivators across each of these micro generations are things that are true to all people and important to all people. It's just that they'll manifest among a particular group in a specific way, again, because of their shared experiences, the stage of life that they're in, and will be more important to a particular group because of those factors as well. So the answer isn't either or, it's in a deeper understanding of this individual micro generation.
(45:42):
And once that deeper understanding is achieved, then it becomes clear that there are universal truths at the core of targeting this particular group.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
I love that. So it's almost like they're all different parts of a prism where the same light shines through, but based on their personal context, that's going to mean something or show up a little bit differently. Am I completely off base or am I somewhere near in the airport there?
Speaker 3 (46:08):
No, you got it. You got it.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Oh, that's super, super cool because it allows marketers to use that foundational emotional toolkit and add their curiosity and their exploration and their experimentation with these micro generations on top of it. That I have to imagine can result in some pretty exciting work.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
That's right. Yeah. And I mean, it's sort of like using an actual case study, right? Talking about the misconception around millennials and this idea that they've transformed from a group that needs to be spoken to in a really specific way to capture their attention into a group of people who value things like value, who value things like value. The mistake that was made with millennials in the past was overthinking what exactly it is they want and over-delivering for something that is too niche and does treat that generation like a monolith. So that is essentially what I'm saying here is that it's not an either or with universal truth versus microgenerational personalization. It's rather what is it about this microgeneration that speaks to what all people fundamentally want?
Speaker 1 (47:28):
I couldn't put it better myself. Armita, this has been such an absolute pleasure. We are so grateful to have you as a guest on Scope.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
Listeners, it feels so good to be back. Here we are at the end of another episode of On Scope: The Marketing Podcast. I want to extend a huge thank you to trend hunters Armita Ascano for breaking down the fascinating topic of micro generations. I think we landed at a really good place in the conversation where this isn't a change to the foundations of marketing. We are still using those emotional triggers to inspire and influence behavior. I would just consider this an extra layer on top. These micro generations are a way to provide added contextual relevance to that classic marketing that we know really works. And this is the opportunity to connect on things that your consumers identify with. As a reminder, that's not always or only age. Now, if you have a topic or guest you'd like to hear on a future episode of On Scope, go ahead and shoot us a note.
(48:48):
We would love to hear from you. That email onscope@ana.net. Now, as always, we leave you with a moment of marketing meditation. Take a nice deep breath, relax those shoulders, and consider the following from author Lawrence Lessig. Every generation welcomes the pirates from the last. Think on that and we'll see you next week.
Speaker 3 (49:30):
This has been a presentation of ANA Studios.
The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect those of the ANA or its members. On today's episode of On Scope, Trendhunters Armita Ascano breaks down the macro opportunities around engaging micro generations. And on marketing news you might have missed, AI has a problem with ROI. All that next, On Scope. Sharpen your pencils and polish your apples because this is On Scope: The Marketing Podcast brought to you by the ANA. I am your host, Mike Berberich, and with me as always the creator, the producer of On Scope, Ryan Dinger, School's
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Back,
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Baby.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
School is back in session. Marketing school that is. Although I have to ask, were you polishing a lot of apples during your academic career?
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I wanted to start the second half of season two right off the bat by showing how old I am.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Fair enough.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah,
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah. Well, I would say mission accomplished then.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Thank you. Efficiency. Efficiency.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
But it's good to be back. We're back here. Another great set of episodes, more learnings. And I mean, today's just going to be chock-full of great information for our listeners.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yeah, absolutely. But before we get ahead of ourselves, we've got a classic that I've been missing for months. That is marketing news you might have missed.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
That's right, Mike. It is marketing news you might have missed. Let's kick the dust off and get back into this segment. This week we're starting with a story from Fast Company that is about a topic that we've been discussing a lot this year. Here's the headline for you. Your AI strategy has an employee problem.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Oh no.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
That's right. Companies continue to invest billions in their AI transformations while their workers struggle to use AI effectively. Gartner forecasts AI spending to grow to $2.59 trillion this year, an increase of 47% from 2025. As AI adoption increases, employees have grown more comfortable using the tools to take over their administrative responsibilities so they have more time to do higher impact work in theory. That's my interjection the right article did not say in theory. But even as AI is being used more, the actual business results are questionable. A recent study by Domino Data Lab found that the share of enterprises whose ROI fails to outpace their investment has held at 57% since 2025. While organizations understand the importance of equipping their workforces with AI tools, most still fail to manage and support their employees as they use them to generate real business outcomes like growing revenue, lowering operating costs and enhancing their own productivity.
(03:01):
I'm going to stop there, Mike. $2.59 trillion this year. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Up 47%
Speaker 2 (03:10):
From
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Last
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Year. Up 47% from 2025. That is an insane number. And then for more than half of businesses who are investing in this technology, 57%, I remind you, are saying that ROI is failing to outpace that investment. Mike, give me your thoughts.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
I mean, 57% is not just more than half. We're getting darn close to calling that the majority of organizations that use AI are not only not seeing the things that they wanted to happen happen, they are not even getting the cost of the technology back from what it provides. Can we just, and I know the answer, but I'd like to make the plea anyway. Listeners, can this be the last time when a new innovation or technology comes along and we all fall for the, "Oh, we have to dive in. You're going to be left behind." I know somebody listening to this podcast was talking like that about the metaverse in 2021 and you were wrong. And I'll just be honest, when Chad and all of these LLMs really started to have their moment in the sun in what, 22, 23,
(04:23):
I definitely am guilty of saying, "Well, the metaverse was a little bit of a boom and a bust, but I think this is going to be different." And while yes, obviously it's different, no, I was getting to up my own whatever. I was getting too into the hype cycle. This is technology like any other technology. And I understand why it all happened, but the rollout of generative AI implied that it was magic, that it was something beyond computation, that it was something that worked differently than any other program you've worked with in the past. Incorrect.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Incorrect. It's just another piece of
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Technology. I mean, let me ask you this. If you take the term artificial intelligence and strip it away from this conversation we're having and just let's say new technology, and I'm telling you that there's a new technology that businesses are collectively spending more than $2 trillion on annually and more than half of them, 57% are not even seeing an ROI on that spend, you would be like, stop investing in that technology immediately. There's no way with all the economic pressure that's going on that somebody would justify that type of expenditure with results that are not even close to paying off on the investment. So I think that that's one thing, and your point is well taken. I don't think that AI, and I think you would agree, it's not quite as bust as the metaverse was. They're obviously useful applications. Absolutely. But surely, and this is something we have hinted at on the show for a little while, the promise is not being met.
(06:03):
It's not even coming close to what was predicted in terms of productivity enhancements, in terms of creative output, in terms of all these things. It's not living up to the hype at all.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
No. And one of the points that you brought up, people aren't unconfident in using it. It's not that they don't know how to use it. It's just there is that old, I forget, I think it was a South Park joke where it was like, step one, do this. Step two, question park, question mark, question mark. Step three, profit. Yeah. I really think that much like in the earliest days of digital marketing, too many people were enticed to set it and forget it. And that got us down this road that we're on now.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Well, it's interesting you make that point because the story does go into this as well.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Please.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
The story goes on to say, "There's a gap between employees' confidence in using AI and an organization's desired business outcome. Walkme's third installment of the AI at work pulse survey, which has tracked US workers' use of AI since 2024, found that while 90% of employees feel confident using AI, has said they've spent more time trying to get AI to do a task than the task itself would have taken manually." Insane right there. Insane. Absolutely. But let's go on. The new expectations around work are largely driven by managers who expect AI to create more efficiency. More than half of employees surveyed reported that their manager expects more output in the same amount of time, and 33% say they have pretended to be more skilled at using AI than they are. In fact, the entire job market is being driven by AI, which means those employees who have AI skills and can deliver on them will have better employment prospects.
(07:48):
Dice found that AI skills are now listed in 73% of tech job postings and KPMG discovered that nearly half of companies are willing to pay an 11 to 15% salary premium for AI skills. Even more dropping is that a PWC survey of 1000 financial services executives found that 86% believe AI skills training is more important than an MBA for many new hires.
(08:15):
Let's back up here. Oh my Lord. We have employees who are 90% are saying they're confident using AI, but they're finding in many instances that they're spending more time trying to get AI to do a task than the task itself would have taken manually. You know what that sounds like to me, Mike? That sounds like a solution in search of a problem.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Amen, brother. Amen. It's theater. It's crazy. And it's one of those things where it's like if you're a leader, it's really incumbent upon you to step up. Everybody below you in the food chain, survival. They're in survival mode.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah. My boss is telling me I need to do this. What are you going to do but do it?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Yeah. That's it. And really, truly, if you are in a leadership position, is that what you want? Do you want the emperor's new clothes or do you want to actually get efficiency, productivity and this magical world where people are finally able to do strategy stuff that just doesn't seem to actually be appearing in any office anywhere in the US?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah. I mean, to your point, just telling employees they need to use AI, it's not enough anymore. We've done that. That was sort of first phase, let's figure this out, get in and experiment. But now if you don't have real world use cases for why this technology needs to be implemented and how, and also rules about how it should not be used, which I think is an important part of the conversation as well. Extraordinarily important part. As it turns out, the data says you're just wasting money.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
And I've actually heard once or twice that you brought up it's a management problem that some of these, let's call them kinks in communications might be from cross-generational misunderstandings. And I think we can do a little bit of something to help our listeners wrap their heads around the different generations on a level that they might be even not expected to go this deep.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Shirley, you're talking about today's guest.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
I am because our guest today is Armita Ascano, the chief insights officer at Trendhunter, the world's number one largest, most popular trend platform and innovation accelerator. Through a combination of AI, crowdsourcing and proprietary research, her team helps more than a thousand organizations, billionaires, CEOs, heck, even NASA make smarter decisions faster.
(10:40):
Today, she joins the show to discuss Trendhunter's study on micro generations and the power of nuance in advertising. My conversation with Armita is up next. For the entirety of my career, marketers have looked at generations and really have tailored messages according to these big cohorts. And it makes a lot of sense because spending your formative years with a different backdrop of technology, social morays and historical events is going to change the way you interact with the world and ultimately the way you consume. But for an industry so obsessed with personalization and granular targeting, generations like baby boomers, Gen X and millennials seems pretty general to get anything meaningful done. But don't worry because my guest today is diving into where we can get real relevancy, connection, dare I say personalization with micro generations. It is such a pleasure to welcome to the show Armita Ascano, the chief insights officer at Trendhunter.
(12:06):
Armie, thank you so, so much for joining us today.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
So like I said, Trendhunter did some really, really cool research into micro generations and what they are defined by. But before we get into that, I would love to know what was the inspiration that led you to explore these micro generations?
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Yeah, I mean it's a great question. So I've been with Trendhunter for quite a while and I am a kind of tried and true classic millennial stereotype in a lot of ways. And when I was tasked with growing our futures team, which is our team of speakers, workshop facilitators, we were sitting around and looking at all of the key topics that we knew we needed to bring a fresh approach to. And the thing that kept popping into my mind is that whenever we talked to marketers or people in the innovation space, basically anybody who's doing anything with segmentation, I as a millennial felt this urge to tell them that the 30-year age range specifically for millennials, I think this was 10 years ago, so back in 2015, 2016, was not representative of everyone in that group. I mean, it's a huge age range, right? And at the time you were looking at folks who were 22, but you were also looking at folks who were 37.
(13:30):
And it didn't feel accurate. And the original reasoning for that was for one, breaking some of those stereotypes. At the time, a lot of the millennial discourse was around that whole idea that this is a generation that can't afford homes because they're buying a lot of avocado toast. Right. Yeah, you remember those? That was
Speaker 1 (13:54):
A
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Bummer.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
I've had to give up avocados completely.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
We're still
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Working on that home part though.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
I can't even talk about avocados. I've gotten cold turkey on them, so please. But yeah, that whole thing was sort of, it felt so unrepresentative to me of folks who were 37, 36 at the time. Sure, maybe a 22-year-old could take it easy on the expensive lunches, but what 22-year-old couldn't that didn't feel generational, that felt age specific. And then in addition to that, at the time, we were kind of just reaching the peak of the Instagram era and this idea of Instagram representing this sort of highlight reel of how people are living their lives and how specific that was to a certain type of millennial. But that also meant that we were getting a whiff of all of the different types of human experiences even within one particular generation. So it started with the millennials also being the largest generation at the time, Gen Z has usurped us.
(14:52):
So it was sort of, if this is a 30-year age range and an enormous group of people who are representative of all of these different experiences, then surely micro-segmentation is a better approach to understanding what it means to age now. And then over time it just became more and more prescient. At the time I'm talking about Instagram as this portal for reflection of different experiences. Now we have TikTok and it's so funny looking back and how much that's been validated over time. And then we started taking that micro-segmented lens across all of the generations because we were getting this taste of different experiences. And Gen Z, as I said, did end up usurping millennials as the largest generation. So today we've gone from three micro generations among the millennials, which was the original, to now 10 micro generations across all four of those big generations I'm most are familiar with.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
And it's just such a fascinating experiment and just kind of looking at it, it just makes so much sense. And I love that you mentioned the avocado toast home buying thing because actually the very first time I personally came into contact with the concept of micro generations is when somebody explained my own micro generation back to me. I am part of, and if you were on, well now I guess Meta, Facebook, whatever you want to call it, if you're on Facebook at a certain point, you probably saw the post about the Oregon trail generation if you were in my age range. And what marked that was the rapid evolution of technology that just so happened to line up with our formative years. And when you take it all in toto, yeah, of course. Not only is it just that I am 15 years older than a 22-year-old, but I've burnt a CD.
(16:57):
They don't know what that term means. I take it from a music fan because that is one of my passions in life.
(17:06):
Over something like a seven-year stint, there were CDs that you could only buy and then there were CDs that you could custom make and burn. And then there were iPods and other MP3 players and then everything was on your phone. And that felt like probably a little longer than this, but that felt like five years that you just kept going through these massive format changes. Whereas you look at something like the 8-track player and it was around for a decade and a half, as crazy as that is. Sorry, this is really an area that I get very passionate in and I'm an easily excitable person. I want to go back to this avocado toast home thing because that is an example of a big misconception or stereotype that was thrown at a huge cohort of people. I would love to go generation by generation of the big ones out there in the world right now.
(18:04):
Could you give me one misconception that has defined each of the big generations? Let's start with baby boomers.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
So I mean, one misconception is I could give you an alphabetized list for each of we don't have that much time. I also, starting with the baby boomers, I want to kind of borrow from what you were saying about the methods of listening to music and the rapid pace of change there and specifically technology as the first kind of stereotype I want to address specifically for the baby boomers. So technology tends to be the great equalizer across all generations. We've recently undergone this huge kind of change and this shift that shuffles the board for all of the generations. Maybe before I answer that question, I should say the way that a generation is typically seen is you take a group of people born within the same age range, you think of their shared experiences and you hold that up against the stage of life they're currently in, and that will tell you a little bit about how they'll behave, right?
(19:10):
Yeah. Technology, especially huge technological changes like social media when we first created this framework back in 2015, AI where we are today, those are new shared experiences that impact every single generation. And so that's why technology becomes this sort of great equalizer. So coming back around to your question about these misconceptions per generation, my first, and the one I've been talking about most recently is the misconception that baby boomers are not open to technology. They're not open specifically to artificial intelligence.
(19:46):
I think that that is a misconception founded in this idea that they don't understand it. But my question to the audiences and to you and to anybody really is how much of AI do you understand despite the fact that you're using it, right? That's a great question. How much do we all understand about social media? I mean, we're talking to people who are in the space with advertising marketing and all of that, but still the average person who's using these technologies doesn't require an understanding of it. And if there's one thing baby boomers like, it's technology that's easy to use that increases their sense of independence. And so this is a generation that'll be amenable to AI if the AI is implemented well.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
That's such a great point. And that actually reminds me, I think two, maybe three years ago, I got my parents a brand new laptop and at first they were just kind of like, "I don't know. Do we need to, do I really need this?" The second they learned that the screen was a touch screen, they were off to the races because it was like their phone, which they had already adapted fully. They were super comfortable with it. When I say in one second of realization, the second my mom touched the screen and knew she could make it go up and down, she was getting into her email and making a bookmark for Amazon. She was literally immediately a super user. Oh yeah, let's go. So that is such a great point. That is such a, such a, such a great point. And I love the button that you ended that on.
(21:21):
If things are designed for the things that each generation is seeking, that is the difference maker, not just what's your age? Oh, you're not going to like this solution. So I really, I love how you wrapped that up. This next one I'm very interested in because this generation, the generation that came before mine, Gen X, I feel like they are one of the biggest recipients. I feel like Gen X has been boiled down to a single person sometimes. It's so stereotypical, so monolithical. So I'd love to hear your thoughts about misconceptions, like the big misconceptions around Gen X. Yeah. So
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Misconceptions around Gen X, I think we have to start by acknowledging their status as the sort of middle child of the generations. They are much, much smaller than baby boomers, much, much smaller than millennials. They often get shafted in these conversations, which is ironic because they tend to comprise the majority of the audience when I go and do a keynote about generations, when I go and run a workshop about this kind of information. So I've got extra love for Gen X. I love an underdog. Oh, heck yeah.
(22:34):
I would say that one of the biggest misconceptions about Gen X is that they are workaholics. And I think that that's something that's recently disrupted, sorry to drop the P word, but post-pandemic. So that's another, aside from AI, we have another enormous kind of mega trend, so to speak, that just shuffle the kind of deck and that's the pandemic. And the results of that is that you had every generation kind of facing down what their actual values were and what was truly important to them. And Gen X tends to be a generation that's defined by their work ethic. And even when we talk about the big kind of shared experience they have, we talk about their success in the tech boom and then the tech bubble bursting, and that's kind of what keeps them in these jobs and makes them think I have to pursue a sense of stability even though I am latently a pretty creative person, I'm just going to do this job so I never have to go through that again.
(23:35):
However - Survival mode. Survival mode, exactly. During the pandemic, this is a generation who kind of leaned into the flexibility, this idea of being able to do the office job from home, spend more time with family. And this isn't necessarily the generation who is leading the pack when it comes to we need everybody back in office five days a week. That was mostly the baby boomers. So this generation has kind of refound their way back to work-life balance. And it's funny because they were the original generation for whom work-life balance was invented because they needed it really badly. But now they're the generation that's kind of leading the redefinition. Work-life balance can be 40 / 60, maybe 30 / 70. So yeah, the misconception there is that Gen X are workaholics.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
That is so great. And that just reminds me, there's a very entertaining LinkedIn content creator that does kind of work experiences through the generations, and that is always what Gen X gets pegged at as everybody else is kind of figuring out a way to avoid it and they're just good. They want to get the next thing done. But yeah, the pandemic as much of an absolute objective global tragedy that was, it also did really allow a lot of people who may have been kind of nonstop since they entered adulthood a chance to stop, reflect, and really take a look inside and think about what was important to them. So that's really, really cool. And I think that might go really overlooked when people talk about the pandemic. We all like to get the logistical stuff down and everything, but there was a moment of silence in there for folks who were fortunate enough to get through it that I could say personally was a big turning point in my life.
(25:29):
So it makes a lot of sense if that was really your first opportunity to catch your breath, that that could be a revolutionary moment for you. So very, very cool. We are moving on to millennials. Army, what are they saying about us?
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Everybody's a least favorite but most discussed generation.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Lots of -
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Hate us because they hate us.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Yeah, honestly. So many misconceptions with a millennial. So many that it is genuinely hard to choose just one. You know what? I think that, and this is a bit of a hot take, I will say. It's a bit of a hot take alert. We love it. I think that one of the things that millennials did that was most surprising to everybody is become normal adults. And when I say that, what I mean is with the millennial came this wave of this revolutionary hyper convenience and this kind of cheeky branding and this use of slang and humor in communication toward them and all this attention paid to design. And that's how you get companies that are the millennial version of insert any random thing. I've seen the millennial version of deodorant, the millennial version of cereal. You know what I mean? The uberization almost where suddenly everything needs to be branded in a very specific way for the millennial demographic.
(27:07):
And it's always something that's kind of cheeky and cute and to a degree a little bit infantilizing.
(27:14):
I think that the biggest misconception is that that's still something that generation is looking for. What I found, and this is reflected both in the research that we're doing with our trend intelligence engine, everything that we use at Trendhunter, but also just anecdotally as someone who's chronically online, what I found is that the millennial brand du jour is Costco, right? Yeah. Now that millennials are actual adults, they're no longer as impressed by this pretty, flashy, clever, cheeky branding as they used to be. They don't need some sort of millennial specific approach to pet food or whatever. What they're looking for is value because they're actual adults now, a pleasant shopping experience, something that's frictionless. And yeah, I think the biggest misconception about millennials is that they're not just normal adults.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yeah. Yeah. Here we are 43 years old, just living and dying by memes.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Not
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Quite, not quite.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Exactly. Whether or not the latest internet slang is used in copy for an ad is not going to move the needle for me anymore. Millennials are older now. They are much more, I think, sensible than they're given credit for.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
I love it. Couldn't agree with you more, and I'm going to let my mom know right after this podcast is over. Well, speaking of slang and internet and misconceptions and stereotypes, let's talk about the biggest current generation. Gen Z, I just listed off a half a dozen rather ignorantly. What are people saying about, and I was about to call them the kids, which is another
Speaker 3 (29:06):
Misnomer.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
I'm going to shut up and let you talk about Gen Z.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Yeah. I mean, Gen Z, this might be a bit of a cop out, but I think one of the misconceptions of Gen Z, and this is sort of the point of the entire approach of micro generations, is that they are a monolith represented by what's online, right?
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
Gen Z, one thing that I think people need to understand about Gen Z is more than any other generation, Gen Z does not have a dominant aesthetic. They don't have a dominant way of dressing or a set of slang that they use. They don't have a dominant kind of approach to politics even, which is a huge misconception I think there is around Gen Z. And we saw that in recent results for the election there, but quite a few Gen Zs voting in ways that I'm sure some found surprising. The thing with the sort of algorithmic AI-driven TikTok world that we live in. So when we were young, Mike, back in my day, you didn't call yourself emo. You didn't call yourself anything. And I'm using aesthetics to illustrate a larger point here. I think for all generations when they were younger, you behaved a certain way and then you became interested in the aesthetics of that particular movement.
(30:33):
Gen Z, because of how much social media they're using, is starting aesthetic first. And what that means is that there isn't necessarily a lasting set of behavior that dictates the way that they look, the way that they speak, the things that they consume. That means that they're much harder to pin down into one particular category of any kind. So again, it feels a bit like a cop out because it is the point of the whole framework, but more than any other generation, I think the misconception with Gen Z is that they are a monolith.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
I think you're a hundred percent correct. I think that their youth plays into that a bit. I think there's probably a hint of ageism in there. And I think that a lot of us, unless you are parents or unless you've got family members in that generation, maybe the largest representation you're seeing is from social media, from online, from the screen grabs of tweets or TikToks that are being sent to you by your millennial friends because we do still occasionally do that. But no, but you really are. And I think today in 2026, I think that they are the most considered to be a monolith of everybody. I think that there has been a little more nuanced conversation around all of the other generations. Even Gen X, the idea that they need more love and that they've kind of got the short shrift, that's entered into the conversation around them, which allows at least a little bit of a deeper appreciation.
(32:08):
But I couldn't help myself before I even said Gen Z. I put the entire generation into three different corners before I could even get to their name. So I'm glad you put me in my place and I'm sure our listeners are appreciative as well. Speaking of listeners, stick around because when we come back, we're going to talk about the sentiment toward AI among younger generations in particular and what we can do about it as an industry. Stick around, you're not going to want to miss it.
(32:44):
Ryan, I've had an idea and it's pretty good if I do say so myself.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Great. I always love supporting you and your ideas, what you got for me.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
All right. Picture this. A very, very special episode of On Scope where we invite every guest we've ever had all at once.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Okay. Just
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Picture it, just brilliant marketing mind after brilliant marketing mind. It'd be kind of a convening of sorts. Just get everybody together and all kinds of different insights from different companies and different perspectives. Can you picture this, Ryan? I mean, it'd be kind of cramped in here. We probably need to get space. Ooh, why don't we just go for a resort? And if we're going to do a resort, might as well be somewhere nice, right? Sure. So we're going to convene all of these incredible marketing leaders somewhere nice at a resort, might as well get a stage. You know what I mean? We could all kind of fix our attention there. And if we're buying and renting out all of this stuff, I think there'd be space to invite other people, have a proper audience.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yeah, like a live audience.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Yeah. So pretty good, right?
Speaker 2 (33:59):
I've
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Come onto something. I'm an inventor now.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
I think you might be onto something, Mike, except the problem is that idea already exists. What
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Do you mean?
Speaker 2 (34:08):
It sounds like what you're describing is an ANA national industry conference.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Oh yeah. Huh.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
That's right, Mike. The ANA's national industry conferences are where the industry's sharpest minds come together to compare notes, set standards, and pressure test what's next. And you know what's next, Mike, or what's coming up very soon?
Speaker 1 (34:26):
I do, Ryan. It is the crown jewel of our national industry conferences. The Masters of Marketing is back.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
That's right, Mike. Presented by Havas, the ANA's Masters of Marketing Conference is taking place October 20th through the 23rd in Orlando, Florida, or if you can't be there in person, which I highly recommend, you can attend virtually. You want to take a guess at which brands are presenting this year?
Speaker 1 (34:49):
It feels like all of
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Them, Ryan. It does feel like all of them. In fact, if you attend, you'll hear from CMOs and marketing leaders from Coca-Cola, Lego, P&G, Geico, Harley Davidson, Manscaped, Applebee's, AT&T, Colgate, Palm Olive, Disney World, GM, Hilton, J&J, Mars, Microsoft, Shell, Walmart, and Wyndham.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Excuse my language, Ryan, but goodness gracious. That's like an entire season of On Scope over the course of one event.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Yeah, Mike, you know what the great thing is about an ANA National Industry Conference like Masters of Marketing?
Speaker 1 (35:22):
What's the great thing
Speaker 2 (35:23):
About it? It's not just about the amazing insights, the fantastic marketers who you're going to see on stage. There are also opportunities to connect with your fellow marketers through networking opportunities like happy hours, dinners, coffee breaks at Masters. There's a little bit of entertainment. It's a great time.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Oh yeah. And if you've been there before, you know those little moments in between, those little coffee breaks, those little happy hours, that's where the real magic happens.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Yeah, that's exactly what I was just going to say. You took the words right out of my mouth.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
That's what happened. That's what sharing one brain does for you.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
That's right. So if you want to learn more about the A&A's Masters of Marketing Conference or any of the great events coming up later this year or in 2027, all you have to do is visit us at ana.net/conferences.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
That's right. That is www.ana.net/conferences. And now back to our show.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
I like that you're thinking about ideas.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Yeah, putting all of that together was going to be a lot. Kind of glad it's already a thing. Listeners, we are back. This is On Scope: The Marketing Podcast. My guest today, Armita Ascano, the chief insights officer at Trendhunter. As I mentioned before we went to break, I want to really look at this creeping anti-AI sentiment among younger consumers. Earlier this year, there were numerous graduation speeches where the keynote speaker brought up AI and got a different reaction than I think that they were expecting, and that's just kind of one signifier out there. What would you say is the right approach here for brands who want to gain the efficiencies AI offers without alienating an audience that seems to have this growing, if not skepticism, then outright resentment toward it?
Speaker 3 (37:24):
So I think to answer that question, we first have to talk about the source of this sort of dissatisfaction with AI, but also the places where this generation tends to look the other way with AI, right?
(37:39):
I will say anti-AI sentiment isn't necessarily the same as swearing off of AI because at this point, if you use social media, you're interacting with AI on a regular basis. If you shop online, you're interacting with AI on a regular basis. I think that with this generation and those who are very vocal about their displeasure with AI, it's a question of what the internet is for them. And for this generation, it's a tool to stay connected with other people. It's a tool to understand humanity and culture and gather more creative references and just basically learn about the world around you and yes, fine, gain some entertainment along the way. And so this anti-AI attitude is seen as more of a pro-human attitude, right? AI sure is a way to gain a lot more entertainment quickly, high quantity of something faster, but it isn't always used in the context that's human loving, so to speak, or in a way that's authentic to people and the way people connect with each other.
(38:53):
The reason why I start answering your question this way is because I still believe there are ways to be able to use that technology and still retain the parts that need to be human. I think that's a great way to make use of AI while ensuring that you're not alienating this particular group that's hesitant around it or skeptical around it, is to just use it more strategically.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
I think a big part of this was that there's definitely some expectation management blame to be put on the people who are developing these platforms. I saw somewhere the other day that if we could just talk about this like it's a quote unquote normal technology, I think that we could have a lot more of a productive conversation about what it's good for, what it's not good for, how to think about it, where the guard lines should be put up. I think it being sold as the magical bean to people who their BS detectors are the best honed in any generation, micro or macro.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
Such a good way to put it.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
I think that we didn't help ourselves while we were rolling this out and integrating it, and it's our bad habits that we could barely help. Speaking of bad habits, I wanted to talk about a little bit of a intergenerational play here. A lot of us at our organizations, offices, despite industry or vertical, are being told by the C-suite, largely boomers, so our Gen Z, millennial, Gen X workforce is being told by boomers who are kind of bringing this down to Gen X to execute to "use more AI." What as a person on the ground, you got into this about the strategies that one might be able to use. What advice would you give to anybody who got this mandate to just use more AI in that general of a sense?
Speaker 3 (41:06):
So at Trendhunter, we run AI masterclasses that are focused on how to view AI as a business problem, not a technology problem, because I think that's where we're at now, right? And this sort of relates to what you were saying earlier about us not being able to be normal about this technology. 2024, 2025, maybe a bit of 2023 if you were an early adopter, when generative AI became something accessible to everyone, there was this idea that everything should be automated and we were, to your point, not being normal about the technology. It was very exciting. Again, we had just come out of a pandemic and it was like, "Oh my God, something new to think about and do and whatever." And so there was gratuitous automation, and I will say that clients who came to us for the AI masterclass during that time were sort of like, "We want to automate as much as we can.
(42:00):
We want to use this thing wherever possible." I'm happy to say that the tide has turned. We're seeing a more intentional approach to help us to use AI. And my advice for this, and typically the first piece of advice we start with for those AI masterclasses, automate what you hate. That is my favorite piece of advice when it comes to rolling out some sort of AI strategy. And the good news about automating what you hate, which is essentially just think of the parts of your role that you like the least, the stuff that you wish you could fast-forward through, you can fast-forward through if you're using AI for it. So that's first piece of advice, automate what you hate, and it enables you to then keep what you love human, which speaks to your previous question of how do you roll out more AI without alienating an AI skeptical group?
(42:55):
Keep the parts that need to be human, and the way you're able to do that is if you automate what you hate, you win time back and you're able to spend more actual human time on the parts that are more creative, the parts that are more interesting.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Automate what you hate. It's hard to distill incredible advice down more than that. We have a history here of killer one-liners, and you have just entered our hall of greatness, Armita. I am not surprised, but I am grateful. That's something I'm going to take to heart and to my team.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
The rhyming helps a lot. Yeah. It really
Speaker 1 (43:32):
Does. It really does. That's how I'm going to be able to remember it tomorrow when 10,000 things have happened between now and then. Armi, I honestly could talk to you about micro generations until I enter a brand new one, but now is a very, very special part of our show where we turn marketers into masters. We're going to leave our listeners something to really act on when this fair program comes to an end, and we do that in a little segment we like to call the CTA. Armita Ascano, chief insights officer at Trendhunter. Are you ready?
Speaker 3 (44:24):
I'm ready.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
How can marketers develop campaigns that balance universal truths with micro-generational personalization?
Speaker 3 (44:36):
Wow. Okay. You're up to
Speaker 1 (44:38):
The talent. You're up to the task. I know this.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
I am. How philosophical are we getting with the universal truths? You know what I will say? I think that my answer to this question is acknowledging that what's at the core of each of the micro generations is some form of universal truth to begin with. But what I mean by that, there are 10 micro generations, so I'm not going to go through each one individually to be fair, but the key motivators across each of these micro generations are things that are true to all people and important to all people. It's just that they'll manifest among a particular group in a specific way, again, because of their shared experiences, the stage of life that they're in, and will be more important to a particular group because of those factors as well. So the answer isn't either or, it's in a deeper understanding of this individual micro generation.
(45:42):
And once that deeper understanding is achieved, then it becomes clear that there are universal truths at the core of targeting this particular group.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
I love that. So it's almost like they're all different parts of a prism where the same light shines through, but based on their personal context, that's going to mean something or show up a little bit differently. Am I completely off base or am I somewhere near in the airport there?
Speaker 3 (46:08):
No, you got it. You got it.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Oh, that's super, super cool because it allows marketers to use that foundational emotional toolkit and add their curiosity and their exploration and their experimentation with these micro generations on top of it. That I have to imagine can result in some pretty exciting work.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
That's right. Yeah. And I mean, it's sort of like using an actual case study, right? Talking about the misconception around millennials and this idea that they've transformed from a group that needs to be spoken to in a really specific way to capture their attention into a group of people who value things like value, who value things like value. The mistake that was made with millennials in the past was overthinking what exactly it is they want and over-delivering for something that is too niche and does treat that generation like a monolith. So that is essentially what I'm saying here is that it's not an either or with universal truth versus microgenerational personalization. It's rather what is it about this microgeneration that speaks to what all people fundamentally want?
Speaker 1 (47:28):
I couldn't put it better myself. Armita, this has been such an absolute pleasure. We are so grateful to have you as a guest on Scope.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
Listeners, it feels so good to be back. Here we are at the end of another episode of On Scope: The Marketing Podcast. I want to extend a huge thank you to trend hunters Armita Ascano for breaking down the fascinating topic of micro generations. I think we landed at a really good place in the conversation where this isn't a change to the foundations of marketing. We are still using those emotional triggers to inspire and influence behavior. I would just consider this an extra layer on top. These micro generations are a way to provide added contextual relevance to that classic marketing that we know really works. And this is the opportunity to connect on things that your consumers identify with. As a reminder, that's not always or only age. Now, if you have a topic or guest you'd like to hear on a future episode of On Scope, go ahead and shoot us a note.
(48:48):
We would love to hear from you. That email onscope@ana.net. Now, as always, we leave you with a moment of marketing meditation. Take a nice deep breath, relax those shoulders, and consider the following from author Lawrence Lessig. Every generation welcomes the pirates from the last. Think on that and we'll see you next week.
Speaker 3 (49:30):
This has been a presentation of ANA Studios.
