Advertising in modern America is a tricky business. On the one hand, you have the cutting edge: Generation Y, the 3.0-empowered youth who grew up around computers, the kids who often understand these machines, this internet, this Information Age, better than the old men who created all of it. On the other hand, you have these old men, the Baby Boomer generation, born into a world that revolved around capitalist America and its unquestionable, unstoppable progress into the Jet Age.

We would like to believe the Baby Boomers are out of place in our world, that they stumble through 2011 helpless and confused, but they have one asset that makes them much more desirable to marketers: to them, money is a value, not a desire. Generation Y came into being during the past decade, and it has been nothing but one economic crash after another. We have learned to spend efficiently, to cut out the middleman, distrust corporate propaganda, and rely on home-made innovations at every turn. We have learned, in essence, to become the means of production. The Baby Boomers lived in a world where the system worked, where working hard meant becoming wealthy, where success was measured in dollars, Cadillacs, and mansions. Money was not seen as a barrier between rich and poor, but as a sign that the poor were becoming rich; spending money was an American’s way of showing that he was a hard-working citizen and supported the common man. Baby Boomers saw Corporate America as an essential part of that system, not some sort of parasite.

At the heart of 3.0 is an innate distrust of corporations. We are very tough costumers compared to Baby Boomers because we see money as a resource, not a process. We don’t spend as quickly, or as much. In America, marketers must choose–do they appeal to the Baby Boomers, who are crucial to the early success of a product, or to Generation Y, which is crucial to its long-term success? This division makes it difficult for 3.0 to become mainstream as quickly, because the demographic with the most money and the greatest willingness to spend it prefers outdated marketing techniques.

Here, in Europe, the postwar generations knew none of that material gain; the horrors of two World Wars were still fresh in their minds, and simply being alive was much more important than how many cars they owned or how much horsepower they produced. It is much easier for modern European marketers to appeal to both the postwar and modern European generations with the same 3.0-style marketing than it is for their American counterparts to find a middle ground between the Baby Boomers and Generation Y. As such, 3.0 marketing in Europe has the potential to outpace American efforts. There is no room for hesitation: the Baby Boomers are getting old, and they will only dominate the American market for another decade or so. Europe has this decade to seize the advantage; what happens must happen here, and now.