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There are days when I kind of wish that, rather than going into marketing, I’d gone into a beloved and ethical profession. Maybe should’ve been a lawyer, for example.

According to the November briefing at Trendwatching (which is a trend identification company– kind of a cool-finder), one of the new trends to watch is something they refer to as ‘Generation Z’.

Now, yours truly is Gen X. And the video-game playing web 2.0 billionaires slacking their way through high school as we speak are Gen Y. So what’s Gen Z?

It turns out… babies. We’re talking about pre-toddlers! Consider:

Consider this research nugget: a Swiss study has found that when sufficiently exposed to child-friendly brand jingles, tunes and spoken messages during pregnancy, up to 77% of all newborns not only recognize these brand markers, but develop a brand preference that could last until puberty, and probably into adulthood (final results are not yet available as the project only started two years ago). Furthermore, an astounding 23% of infant participants could indicate at least 9 out of 12 favorite brands using rudimentary hand signals.

I was reading through this thinking ‘how insightful’ and ‘how brilliant’. Then it hit me: how sick! I actually checked the article date to be sure I hadn’t inadvertently stumbled on an old April Fool’s Day post. Apparently not. They’re serious.

So get with it people, start targeting toddlers. Your customers of tomorrow. And here’s the best news: copywriting just got a whole lot easier, since your target consumer can’t read!