DAVID MORRISON is the author of "Marketing to the Campus Crowd: Everything You Need to Capture the $200 Billion College Market" and founder of Philadelphia-based TWENTYSOMETHING Inc. He consults Fortune 500 corporations such as General Motors, Apple, Coca-Cola and Sony. We asked him a few questions.

WHO IS GEN Y? Gen Y is a very demanding generation as a whole. Where Generation X was very scrappy and very resourceful, Gen Y has largely had the world handed to them on a silver platter.

WHO'S GOT GEN Y MARKETING DOWN? It's going back to old school, which I think shows that TV is by no means dead, but Apple's TV campaign has been absolutely state of the art in terms of hitting Gen Y right on target. The Mac/PC commercials use the younger actor who is Gen Y-ish against another actor who is more of a Boomer representing the IBM-compatible computers.

CAN A COMPANY MAKE MONEY WITH YOUTUBE AND MYSPACE? It's hard to tell right now. One big issue is just simply the metrics of measuring viral. For most marketers, they're not really sure whether they're getting a positive return on the investment or not right now because it is a new media, and lots of folks are still kind of struggling with what types of metrics should be used to truly evaluate positive effects.

SO GENERATING A BUZZ DOESN'T ALWAYS MEAN MAKING MONEY? That's correct. To get them to talk about you, to dial that all the way down to making a sale, a lot of dominoes need to drop. The buzz might be real loud, but the sales may be low or, in fact, there may be no sales because the buzz is loud but it's negative buzz.

WHAT ARE THREE BASIC GEN Y MARKETING POINTS? Don't make assumptions about your market. Gen Y is radically different than other generations preceding it, and companies need to understand Gen Y on its own terms and devise marketing strategies and promotional plans accordingly.

Secondly, recognize that Gen Y is by no means homogeneous. It's one of the most diverse generations in American history, and it would behoove marketers and organizations to better segment whom they really want to be going after with Gen Y.