This article investigates marketers’ new media strategies targeting the millennial generation. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with industry professionals and an assortment of business discourses, I find that this consumer demographic is routinely conceptualized as “digital natives” who exhibit a “networked hypersociality” and a “participatory exhibitionism.” A variety of innovative promotional tactics are being used to solicit self-expression and cultivate community within branded spaces and flows online. This development could reshape the advertising industry as commercialization further blurs with social and cultural content, obfuscating branding’s persuasive purpose from audiences. It also raises concerns about commercialization hijacking the political potential of an often-cited “empowering” new media environment as well as diminishing opportunity for youth identity to exist autonomous from the consumer marketplace at a time of escalating personal debt.
AlanenL.2001. “Explorations in Generational Analysis.” In Conceptualizing Child-Adult Relations, edited by AlanenL.MayallB., 11–22. London: Routledge.
2.
BauerleinM.2008. The Dumbest Generation. New York: Penguin Group.
3.
BourdieuP.1993. Sociology in Question. London: SAGE.
4.
boydD.2008. “Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life.” In Youth, Identity, and Digital Media, edited by BuckinghamD., 119–42. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
5.
BrunsA.2008. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage. New York: Peter Lang.
6.
BuckinghamD.2006. “Is There a Digital Generation?” In Digital Generations, edited by BuckinghamD.WillettR., 1–13. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
7.
BuckinghamD.2008a. “Introducing Identity.” In Youth, Identity, and Digital Media, edited by BuckinghamD., 1–24. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
8.
BuckinghamD., ed. 2008b. Youth, Identity, and Digital Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
9.
DavilaA. M.2001. Latinos, Inc. Berkeley: University of California Press.
10.
DeuzeM.2007. Media Work. Cambridge, MA: Polity.
11.
DrautT.2007. Strapped. New York: Anchor.
12.
EdmundsJ.TurnerB. S.2002. Generations, Culture, and Society. Philadelphia: Open University Press.
13.
GoodsteinA.2007. Totally Wired. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
14.
GumpertG.CathcartR.1985. Media Grammars, Generations, and Media Gaps. Critical Studies in Mass Communication2:23–35.
15.
HavensT.LotzA. D.TinicS.2009. Critical Media Industry Studies: A Research Approach. Communication, Culture & Critique2 (2): 234–53.
16.
HerringS. C.2008. “Questioning the Generational Divide: Technological Exoticism and Adult Constructions of Online Youth Identity.” In Youth, Identity, and Digital Media, edited by BuckinghamD., 71–92. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
17.
HesmondhalghD.2007. The Cultural Industries. London: SAGE.
18.
HollanderS. C.GermainR.1992. Was There a Pepsi Generation before Pepsi Discovered It?Lincolnwood: NTC Business Books.
19.
HorkheimerM.AdornoT.1977. “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception.” In Mass Communication and Society, edited by CurranJ.GurevitchM.WoollacottJ., 349–83. Beverly Hills: SAGE.
20.
ItoM.2008. Living and Learning with New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
21.
ItoM., ed. 2010. Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
22.
JenkinsH.2006. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press.
23.
JohnsonL.2006. Mind Your X’s and Y’s. New York: Free Press.
MannheimK.1952. “The Problem of Generations.” In Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge, edited by KecskemetiP., 276–320. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
MontgomeryK. C.2007. Generation Digital. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
33.
MontgomeryK. C.ChesterJ.2009. “Interactive and Food Beverage Marketing: Targeting Adolescents in the Digital Age.” Journal of Adolescent Health45:S18–S29.
34.
NobleS. M.HaytkoD. M.PhillipsJ.2009. “What Drives College-Age Generation Y Consumers?”Journal of Business Research62:617–28.
35.
OsgerbyB.2004. Youth Media. London: Routledge.
36.
PalfreyJ.GasserU.2010. Born Digital. New York: Basic Books.
37.
PetersonR. A.AnandN.2004. “The Production of Culture Perspective.” Annual Review of Sociology30:311–34.
38.
PrenskyM.2001. “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants.” On the Horizon9 (5): 1–6.
39.
RosenbergJ.2000. “Agencies Pile on the Resources; Fickle Children Hard to Predict, Yet with Billions at Stake, Marketers Need Clues.” Advertising Age, 45, February.
SoarM.2000. “Encoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising Production.” Mass Communication and Society3 (4): 415–37.
47.
SternS.2008. “Producing Sites, Exploring Identities: Youth Online Authorship.” In Youth, Identity, and Digital Media, edited by BuckinghamD., 95–118. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
48.
StraussW.HoweN.1991. Generations. New York: William Morrow.
49.
TapscottD.2008. Grown Up Digital. New York: McGraw-Hill.
50.
TurowJ.2006. Niche Envy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
51.
WatkinsS. C.2009. The Young & the Digital. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
52.
WilliamsonJ.1978. Decoding Advertisements. London: Marion Boyars.
53.
YarrowK.O’DonnellJ.2009. Gen Buy. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
