I was born in 2004, which makes me a member of the centennial generation. I still remember the time when I was six years old, and always came home crying because “I wanted to buy the whole toy store” every time I visited the market with my parents.
My parents then changed their parenting strategy and I was asked to decide what I wanted before going to the market. When I turned ten, I noticed a shift in the shopping trend. My older sister was scrolling at the laptop all the time, ordering things online and then receiving parcels of her choice right at our door step. I was always fascinated but was not empowered to shop online.
Finally, after a wait of three years, I was allowed to go online to shop from my mother’s phone. I decided to change my phone cover, which was a transparent one and was getting ‘wishy-washy’ with every passing day. My sister recommended a website to me which she had used before and had rated it as good.
When I logged in to the site, I was amazed because the graphics and the services offered were superb. I received an auto-generated message, which made me feel like a dignitary and left me a satisfied customer. I scrolled down and went through multiple covers.
I liked each one of them, and my childhood nature made me “want to order all of them”, but I vowed to not cry since I was a teenager now. I eventually had to make the toughest decision so I ended up ordering a cover which had the Pakistan Army’s uniform with my name printed on it.
The images shown on the site were also worth Rs. 1000, so I ordered one. The delivery time was three days, which I spent dreaming about my delivery. Every day, I would check the phone multiple times and scrolled through the call lists in the fear that I would miss the delivery staff’s call.
Desperate for the cover to arrive, I had already made an image of how my phone would look with that cover. Finally, the day arrived when I received the cover, and with immense curiosity, I opened the box and unpacked it.
Unfortunately, I was depressed because the cover was like a black and white uniform printed on the back of a plastic cover. After this experience, I will think twice before ordering something online. I will also check the reviews of the site from where I am ordering online.
A focus group by the Omnicom-owned consumer consultancy C Space revealed that centennials only care about brands that fit perfectly into their lives and connect them with things they care most about. This means that there is an urgent need for brands to dispel old forms of marketing.
The writer is a student at the Lahore Grammar School, Phase V Campus