Abstract:
The political values and the attitudes toward politics of today’s young Americans are challenges
to groups and organizations who market conservative ideas, principles, and values. Not only are
the younger generations moving to the left, but they are also disengaging from the political
process altogether. With this knowledge in mind, how are these organizations supposed to
respond? How can they use the political attitudes and values of today’s young Americans to
engage them in a way that encourages them to adopt conservative values? These are the
questions that I attempt to answer. In this paper, I analyze the attitudes of today’s young
Americans toward government and politics and use multiple recent polls to determine how
conservative today’s young Americans are. I then examine the activities of three current
conservative student groups and analyze them through a marketing lens. Finally, I use these
findings and the recommendations of Lawless and Fox (2015) to provide my own suggestions for
how these groups can improve their marketing of conservatism toward young people.
