Chapter 4: The Gen Y Dilemma

Who buys UD Cosmetics? And Why? Teens, 20-somethings, Soccer-moms? To go to school, the club or the office? All of the above. Urban Decay reaches a wide demographic of consumers, and why you may ask? Because they need to. If you wanted to block their general demographic into one large ambiguous group, it would be "Generation Y" those born between 1979-1994, which is those currently ages 32-17. A pretty huge demographic to tackle, and even more challenging due to the fact that consumers of all ages and backgrounds now have a wider range of interests and tastes, which is an expanding problem for marketers, not to mention the numerous other factors that influence the market such as technology, competition and maybe the biggest of them all, the economy.
UD has attempted to bridge the age gap by marketing to the broad demographic in a way somewhat different than other cosmetics companies. They do not advertise "super fun colors" or "age defying" which are both statements targeted to specific age groups, rather they use words that women of all ages can relate to:"dangerous","edgy", "individuality" and "feminine".
Another big issue that has risen for UD and other luxury cosmetics, is the economic downturn and how to keep sales up when the amount women are willing to spend, goes down. One way they have tackled this problem is by boasting how long the product will last over the course of the day, thus leading you to reapply it less and the product ultimately lasting you longer than the competitor, justifying the price. Now this makes the product feasible for both the teenager investing her allowance, as well as the saavy business woman treating herself on the weekends.