Defining generational cohorts for marketing in Mexico

The generational cohort theory states that groups of individuals who experienced the same social, economic, political, and cultural events during early adulthood (17-23 years) would share similar values throughout their lives. Moreover, they would act similarly when making decisions in different aspects of life, particularly when making decisions as consumers. Thus, these groups define market segments, which is relevant in the design of marketing strategies. In Mexico, marketing researchers commonly use U.S. generational cohorts to define market segments, despite sufficient evidence that the generational cohorts in the two countries are not identical because of differences in national historic events. This paper proposes a methodology based on change-point analysis and ordinal logistic regressions to obtain a new classification of generational cohorts for Mexican urban consumers, using data from a 2010 nationwide survey on the values of individuals across age groups.