Millennial Marketing

A new research report today confirmed what we already knew. When it comes to influence, Gen Y women have plenty of clout. 

According to Mediapost, the report, “Why Y Women,” (click here for pdf) is a two-tier study of 1,018 women ages 18-49 conducted by Radar Research for PopSugar Media . The sample was divided into Gen Y (18-34) and Gen X (35-49).  The questions covered how they see themselves and others in terms of style, trends and social media. Here are some highlights:

• 92 percent of Gen Y women consider themselves to be the trend leaders.
• 67 percent of Gen X women identified Gen Y as trend leaders, too. In the survey, Gen X women cited reasons such as, “This age group tends to discover things first,” “They spend more time in venues where they are more likely to be seen” and “They’re more creative in terms of selection in fashion, pop culture, cuisine, etc.”
• Gen Y women are twice as likely to use online social networking sites to share their recommendations than Gen X women (28 percent vs. 15 percent).
• Twice as many Gen Y women than Gen X women reported they discovered a new brand or product from a friend’s status update on a social networking site (42 percent vs. 22 percent)

More proof of Gen Y women’s disproportionate influence comes from Forrester’s Josh Bernoff, author of Groundswell. A very cool interactive graph reveals that U.S. women 18-24 are the most likely to fall into the category ‘Creators’ – those who create new content on the web. Relative to the average, they index an impressive 200, or twice the average.  Similar findings are reported by MRI, who says the heaviest activity among blog browsers and writers occurs in the 18-24 and 25-34 age brackets.

In a conversation today with Edward Boches, Chief Creative Officer at Mullen and the blogger behind CreativityUnbound, we agreed that while there are dozens of reports about Millennials, but it can sometimes be hard for marketers to hear Millennials talk about themselves. He is working on a solution. (More on that in an upcoming post).

 Meanwhile, here are ten women writers under 30 that inspire and influence me.  (Click their names to follow them on Twitter):

1. Adrienne Waldo: Adrienne is a New York based financial marketer with a design background. She writes and blogs frequently for Ad Age and mantains the blog, AskAMillennial.com

2. Blake Sunshine: Blake works in social media and media relations in Austin. She blogs as ‘The Perennial Millennial at BlakeSunshine.com and is a frequent contributor to the Brazen Careerist.

3. Sasha Halima Muradali: Sasha lives in Miami and is a recent college graduate looking for a job ij PR. She maintains the blog, ‘Little PinkPRBook’ at SashaHalima.com. She was recently profiled in Business Week.

4. Jenny Blake: Jenny lives in San Francisco and manages a career development program at Google. She blogs at LifeAfterCollege.org (No one said it was easy)

5. Leah Hennessey: Leah also lives in the Bay area and has her own social media and wine consulting business. She blogs at ‘Millennier+Wine.

6. Ines Schinazi: Ines is a recent graduate Brandeis University. She lives in Sao Paolo and writes freelance for TalkingAboutGenerations and Brazen Careerist.

7. Cody Clearwater: Cody is a financial analyst in Miami. She blogs about healthy foods for Millennial lifestyles at GourmetAnalyst.com.

8. Shana Ray: Shana is a social media consultant to the wine industry, based in Sonoma. She blogs at ShanaRay.com. She also writes about Millennials and wine at ProjectYine.com

9. Rebecca Thorman: Rebecca lives in Madison and works in PR. She maintains the popular blog, Modite. She also appears regularly in Brazen Careerist.

10. Rosetta Thurman: I’m not completely sure if Rosetta is a Millennial but she thinks like one (rosettathurman.com) and is the founder of the new alliance for non-profit bloggers.

Yesterday, while preparing for a plane trip, I grabbed a book off my shelf called “Brand Building: New Dimensions“.  Someone (who?) sent me this book over a year ago but I had never read it. 

The title of the first chapter, “Insightful? Or Just Interesting? How to Identify a Brand-Building Home Run” sounded vaguely familiar. It should have – it was based on a whitepaper I wrote in 2007!   The editor, A. V. Bala Krishna, sought permission to use it and sent me a copy of the book as a thank you, but I had completely forgotten both the paper and the book! 

After re-reading the chapter (and deciding I used to be a better writer!) I gave some thought to how it relates to finding insights for reaching Millennials.  What makes a fact or idea worthy of building a brand or campaign around? Big ideas rarely announce themselves.  Most of the ‘facts’ about Millennials are such common knowledge they no longer sound meaningful or important.  How do you discern between powerful ideas and platitudes?

History provides some guide. In fact, many of the insights that launched great campaigns sound banal in retrospect. Consider these examples:

• Master Card”Priceless“: “Buying things allows you to get some other place in your life that makes you feel good.” (Excuse me, but isn’t that good feeling generic to all credit cards?)
• Dove “Real Beauty“: Only 2% of all women consider themselves beautiful, and only 5% consider themselves pretty”. (This is news?)
• California Milk “Got Milk“: “Things just don’t feel the same without milk”. (Yawn!)

Yet each of these insights led to breakthrough marketing and advertising efforts.  Here the are five guidelines I suggested two years ago for judging insights. They still apply to Millennial marketing:

1. Insights apply more to the target, than the product or service.

Example: National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign “Above the Influence”

Insight: Teens are sensitive to influence, positive and negative from peers and the media.

Solution: Position influence itself rather than drugs as the enemy that gets in the way of what you want to do.

2. Insights are more about the category, than the brand.

Example: Jenny Craig

Insight:  Dieters truly want to believe that there is a diet that will succeed this time. They are hopeful and willing to believe if a plan has worked for others, it will work for them.

Solution: Speak to the category driver, ‘optimism’. There are few brands quite as optimistic as Jenny Craig. The strategy was brought to life brilliantly as dieters everywhere watched Kirstie Allie, America’s favorite fat actress, shed 75 pounds and return to glamour. Many strong brands are based on category insights.

3. Insights reveal more about how people want to feel, than what they think.

Examples: Brands built on insights about desired lifestyle include Nike, Starbucks, Apple, BMW, Martha Stewart, Oprah and more.

Insight: People buy brands that fit the life they want to lead. 

Solution: Make users love how they feel about themselves when using or wearing the brand – loved, secure, indulged, athletic, healthy, smart or productive.

4. Insights focus more on what is enduring, than what is new.

Example: Abercrombie

Insight: While pre-teen adolescents teens say they want to be trendy, they actually are the antithesis – they want fashion that is ‘lasting’ so they will fit in.

Solution: Clothing that is a clever blend of classic styles of jeans, t-shirts and sweats with fashion following not trendsetting details.

5. Insights inspire new ideas, not the same old stuff.

Example: Payless Shoes

Insight: Men are not just women with bigger feet, they mean something different when they say they want ‘casual shoes’, something they can wear everyday with everything. .

Solution: Give men  a mix of classic and fashionable shoe styles and treat them differently when they come in the store.

There are two morals to this story. First, don’t overlook the obvious in an effort to be ‘insightful’. The answer may be hiding in plain sight. Second, if someone sends you a book, read it! You may like the author.

There are so many ways to describe Millennials – creative, technology-adept, generous, collaborative. Yet the word that has stuck is ‘entitled‘.  The basic idea that Millennials expect to be treated with unearned respect in the workplace refuses to go away and may even be worsening.

In August 2009, York College of Pennsylvania conducted a nationwide study of 520  Human Resource managers  and business leaders to determine their perceptions of the ‘professionalism’ of recent college graduates.  The study asked if a sense of entitlement among first year college educated employees has increased, stayed the same or gotten worse. Ninety-three percent said it had either increased (61%) or stayed the same (32%).  More evidence of worsening comes from Kit Yarrow and Jayne McConnell in their book, Gen BuY: “In our research we did not find (entitlement) to be a hallmark of this generation, but we did see higher expectation in general and confidence that might appear to be arrogance. Nevertheless, the continuum that ranges from “hope” to “expectation” to “entitlement” is shifting twoard entitlement, particularly for the youngest members of Gen Y.”

In November, I suggested that the word ‘entitlement’ has different meanings in different contexts. One person’s entitled is another’s ‘over-’confident’.  Is overconfidence such a terrible thing?   Here is my daughter’s defense of the charge:

“Since our generation thinks confidently and differently, this has given us the ability to be different, and to act upon these ideas and truly create a change in the world. Our sense of entitlement and confidence can be construed as arrogant, or as unearned, but our generation just desperately wants to be given the chance to prove ourselves and create a better world around us.” – Ariella Phillips, 18

Perhaps the best defense is no defense at all.  What if Gen Y truly is deserving of more responsibility at an earlier age than previous generations?  This is the position of Ian David Moss,  who posted a “Manifesto” on the American Arts blog last week, and also on his own blog, CreateEquity.com.

The secret power of Generation Y is not that we’re smarter: it is that we are MORE …

• More numerous: the population of the world is 6.7 billion, 81% higher than it was in 1970.
• More highly educated: 29% of Americans age 25 and older have bachelor’s degrees now, compared to 11% in 1970.
• More professional: Nearly one-third of employed Americans work in the so-called “creative class” (i.e., white-collar professions), compared to about a fifth in 1970.
• More egalitarian: the percentage of women in the workplace has shot up both domestically (from 43% to 59% between 1970 and 2006) and internationally, and racial barriers to employment have lessened significantly.
• More ambitious: The number of high-quality colleges that offer meaningful financial aid has exploded; many more scholarships exist for talented low-income individuals.
• More international: Enrollment by foreign residents in US colleges and universities is up significantly in recent decades.
• More technologically able: More about the technology than the people; the Internet has completely revolutionized the way we communicate and think about opportunity.

The implication, Moss contends, is “the best candidates for entry-level jobs (who are the ones who get them) are smarter, on average, than the best candidates for entry-level jobs in a previous era (who are the ones now leading organizations).”  He concludes that the sense of entitlement comes from having the ‘best of the best’ in your office, the ones who are accustomed to being the ‘cream of the crop’, and this is a fact that managers should take some comfort in rather be dismayed.

“Generation Y is not smarter than anyone else. But the specific members of Generation Y populating your office probably are. And if they are, that’s a testament to your hiring skills! Nice work! Not only that, they probably have their eyes on bigger things than mail merges—because, in fact, they are capable of bigger things. Which is good!  Wouldn’t you rather have talented, multifaceted people on your team than folks who are satisfied doing one thing sort-of well?

This logic appeals to me. It also fits my experience teaching Millennial students at The University of Notre Dame. It’s hard not to notice the tremendous skills students bring to discussions and assignments. I am frequently astonished by their insight and professionalism. It also helps to shed some light on Millennials’ expectation that they will be judged fairly based on results, not on who they are or their prior experience. 

A study of 1000 Canadian Gen Y members 18-29 years old by Career Edge, found that Millennials reject the entitlement label, but do feel strongly they are prepared to compete effectively in entry level jobs and internships — and for their efforts to be appreciated.

“Contrary to the notion of entitlement, this generation has realistic goals when planning and building their careers. Nearly half (47%) of the respondents believe they are adequately equipped to start their career upon completion of their education. …

Seventy-six percent agree that fair compensation and promotion are clear ways for employers to demonstrate their loyalty. Sixty-six per cent agree that they would express their loyalty to their employers by going above and beyond their job description. This clearly defined sense of fairness and recognition distinguishes the work attitude of this generation. They are tasks and results driven. They believe career advancement should be based on merit (93%) and not tenure. They would readily perform administrative duties (91%) but many would not accept other people taking credit for their work (57%). They want to be evaluated by their performance, such as problem solving and communication skills, and not necessarily by other attributes such as respect for authority.”

Whether their self-esteem is warranted or unwarranted, young people all deserve a chance to show what they can do. Perhaps they are more capable in their own minds than in reality, but given a chance they may surprise. The Wall Street Journal describes a new trend in ’two-way mentoring’, with Gen Y sharing their skills in social media with older generations in exchange for more career help.  If the trend continues, their talents will be discovered sooner rather than later.

Coca-Cola is sending 3 ambassadors to 206 countries in search of happiness stories.

Ford’s social media success with its Ford Fiesta launch was bound to inspire other big brands. 

I first blogged about the Fiesta effort last February. One hundred agents (hand selected from 4000 applicants) performed monthly ‘missions’ and reported on them to their friends and to Ford for six months via social media. (See Ford Fiesta Movement site for more info on the program.)  The missions involved interesting combinations of adventure, technology and at the time, I didn’t know if it would work, but admired the strategy and felt the investment was worth the risk at just $10,000 a car. The program was wildly successful and made Scott Monty an SM hero.  No Ford is planning a similar effort for the Fusion, ‘with eight teams of people competing in a sort of relay race’. 

This week, Coca-Cola, often noted as the world’s most valuable brand, is announcing a year long effort involving a team of three young adults traveling to over 206 countries on a ‘happiness mission’ called ‘Expedition 206′. I was contacted yesterday by the PR firm handling the event in the hope that I would tell their story, so I have some knowledge of what they are planning. Here is what I know:

Auditions resulted in 9 candidates grouped into three teams. The final team will be selected by online vote at www.expedition206.com.

The team will travel more than 150,000 miles (6 times the globe’s circumference).  As they visit each destination, the team members are ‘charged with finding happy young people and sharing their stories with the rest of the world.’

 My impression of the effort based on the web site and press materials is that it is very BIG. It feels like a ‘campaign’ that has been very carefully crafted to appeal to a Millennial target.  The team videos feel like they were written by a PR firm rather than the candidates themselves. The intro video feels more like an ad than a viral communication.

More fundamentally, the task of finding ‘happiness’ feels contrived. Are stories of happiness something you find? You can find stories of humanity, of adventure, of optimism, of social action, of making a difference, of family, of heartwarming gestures of humanity. But happiness?  (It reminds of a line in the play I saw last night, A Funny thing Happened on the Way to the Forum’:  Hero: For us there will never be happiness. Philia: We must learn to be happy without it.)

Most important, I am not sure why I am supposed to care about these three teams. It’s not clear who they are, where they came from, or how were they selected. I couldn’t decide which one I liked most, or even if I liked any of them enough to vote for one.  Why would I want to follow them around the world for a whole year? In the Fiesta campaign, I wanted to know about the car, would they like it? Ford was taking a risk, that made it inherently interesting. This campaign seems to be missing something essential in the way of dramatic tension or storyline. What is ‘at stake’ here other than three people on a cool adventure? What is their motitivation and most important, what is my motivation fo following them? 

In contrast, the new Ford Fusion effort has created  multiple reasons for me to care.  The team leaders, all owners of the 2010 Fusion,  will win gas for a year. They are selected based on their fit with the the Fusion mindset. Fans can direct their activities. Here is what Marketing Daily says about it:

“It’s not so much a demographic as a mindset,” he says. “What we are really looking for — particularly from the captain — is a person who fits the Fusion target mindset: ready for anything, loves a challenge, doesn’t just have their own beliefs but wants to prove to others that their beliefs are right.” Each of the eight Fusion owners will choose four people to join their team and each team will be given a 2010 Ford Fusion or Fusion Hybrid to drive in the relay, wherein each team member must do an assigned task within 41 hours while logging miles driven, stops made or the number of passengers picked up before handing the car to the next team member. The winning team will be chosen based on its ability to complete the activities and provide proof by uploading photos and videos to various social media sites, including Facebook. The Fusion owner of the winning team will be given the vehicle, and team members will get free gas for one year. He says that Ford will ask people following the teams on Facebook, etc. to submit ideas on which activities it should layer on top of all the others the teams are doing.

 I hope I am wrong about Expedition 206. I’d like to see Coke and other big brands get involved more deeply in social media. Coke is billing this effort as ‘ an unprecedented global expedition’ and ‘one of the world’s biggest social media experiments’. I fear that in their desire to create something ‘big’, they may have missed the point of social media, which is to be personal. Creating ‘fans’ requires facilitating a relationship, a lesson I expect Coca-Cola to have mastered.

ASU Undie Run 2009

Perhaps we have Madonna to blame?

In episode three of this seasons’ ABC Family college drama, Greek, heroine Casey Cartwright took a moral stand. She campaigned to uphold a campus tradition in danger of being eliminated by the feminist-leaning sorority President: The Annual Undies Run. To her credit, Casey suffers d0ubt – is this really the issue she wants to stake her reputation on? In the end, Casey concludes the Undies run is just harmless fun and shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Besides, her sorority sisters have some great new bras and panties they have been saving just for the occasion.

A quick Google search reveals that there are undies runs traditions at ASU, ULCA and Austin, although the UCLA tradition appears to have ended in July.  Apparently ‘art’ does imitate life.

The trend of wearing what used to be ‘unmentionables’ as fashion appears to be a growth driver for the women’s underwear industry. According to Mintel, “The U.S. women’s underwear market is worth more than $14 billion in 2008, a gain of 14.8% from 2006, and looks to continue growing … in the foreseeable future.” Mintel notes the trend toward using ‘innerwear as outerwear’ as a major factor in category growth.  Bras and panties account for three-fourths of the category. Victoria’s Secret and Hanes are the brand leaders, with more than a third of teens saying they prefer VS.

VS Pink Models Show Innerwear as Outerwear

A quick glance at the VS Pink web site provides a good example of what Mintel calls the ‘innerwear as outerwear trend’ – bras and panties designed to be part of an overall fashion look.  

As the trend to incorporate innerwear as everyday clothing articles continues, the definition of intimate apparel has widened to the degree that pants are now made from terrycloth material, much like bathrobes and nightgowns, camisoles are now considered tops instead of innerwear, and negligees are the new evening dress. The idea of scalloped-top panties peeking above jeans’ waistlines and matching bra straps with halters and dresses appears to be going strong, but there are still new ideas afoot. … Much of the new looks are inspired by fashion designers such as Max Mara and Marc Jacobs, who have utilized innerwear in their upcoming designs for 2009. Victoria’s Secret’s “Pink” label appears to help define the current innerwear styles: boyshorts, sweats, and pajamas with the Pink logo emblazoned across the rear all fall into the casual “hanging out” category, in which girls and young women spend parts or all of their days in the gear, attending classes, going to the store, shopping, and so on.”

For some Millennial teens, underwear is more than a necessity, it is a a passion. In their terrific book on Gen Y shopping motivations, Gen BuY, Yarrow and McDonnell quote a young Chicago-area shopper, Eleanor, saying “I spend more on underwear than I do on my regular clothes. I just really like underwear.” Eleanor may be extreme but she is not alone. In fact, Mintel shows that younger women spend much more than older women on undergarments.

As brands like Abercrombie & Fitch’s Gilly Hicks and VS’s Pink respond to girls’ passion for ‘lingerie’,  new categories of clothing are being created, that have little to do with comfort or support and everything to do with self-expression. Here’s how Heidi, 22, a Boston college student who owns sixty-plus bras and ‘countless panties’ puts it: “But I also felt it was my way of expressing myself and my sexual identity. I felt very sexy when my bra and underwear matched.”

Well, at least we can be happy Heidi still wears underwear. According to the New York Post, Kelly Bensimon of Gossip Girls was spotted last night with no panty lines, because she wasn’t wearing any panties.   We can only hope that trend doesn’t catch on.

Are The Transformers a Key to Gen Y's Culture Code?

One of the challenges and fascinations of understanding Millennials is mapping the connection between who they are – their identities and values — and pop culture.

As with earlier generations, Millennials both reflect and shape pop culture.  Tweens and teens are in the process of discovering their identities, trying on and discarding different personnas. They find inspiration within pop culture, and in the process contribute to it.

For example, it is fruitless to debate whether the current trend of portraying successful teen mothers in movies (Juno), TV (Secret life of the American Teenager) and now magazines (current cover of Teen Vogue) is a reflection or a driver of the trend. It is both. The advent of technology enabled social networks has sped up the transmission and sharing of culture, but it is nothing new.

Millennials are both products of their culture as well as influencers. The complexities of this dynamic are critical for brands, which are themselves part of pop culture, to understand.

Tim Stock, Managing Director, of Scenario DNA has been studying the intersection of youth and culture for many years and teaches courses in analyzing trends at the Parsons School of Design in New York. I first learned of Tim from a slideshare presentation he posted titled “Culture Networks” that discusses how social networks (of all kinds, not just social media) influence and shape trends.

According to Stock, “the nature of the network imprints how we form our identity.” In Stocks view, ‘culture trumps demographics’ as a definer of generations and segments within generations. He points out the importance of “childhood and rites of passage” in creating “generational code” and suggests the roots of each generation can be traced to their shared experiences of movies, books, cartoons, etc. 

Culture defines the ‘code’ or set of shared meanings and values that was shaped during the maturation process. This code is important for marketers to understand because the image of products is shaped by this imprinting and set of shared values. Networks are the mechanism by which the meaning of products and brands evolves. This evolution of meanings is the source of trends. To understand trends, you have to crack the code and study the networks. (Serious implications for research here, but that is the subject of another post).

Stock provides several concrete examples of cultural imprints for each generation. Another slideshare presentation, The Transformer Generation, shows how culture can be used to understand the “Gen Y Narrative”.  The Gen Y code includes such factors as fame, privacy, surveillance, ambiguity, and consumption as part of identity. Gen Y’s many iconic models include Sex and the City super-shoppers, Metrosexuals, American Idol stars, and EBay. The overriding theme is one of ‘empowerment’ and ‘self-expression’. This generational code is quite different from the Boomer code which stressed ‘individuality’ with icons that included the Easy Rider, the ‘road culture’ of the car, the fear and disillusionment of the Vietnam war and the struggle for civil rights.

In a follow up conversation with Tim Stock last week, I learned ScenarioDNA has conducted extensive research on culture networks all over the world. The research confirms connecting ‘instantly to like-minded friends and social networks is a priority in the lives of young people everywhere’. Connections help move them closer toward ‘finding’ their identity.’  The research identified four global archetypes (What Unites Global Youth, 2006, WARC). The are:

• The In Crowd
• Networked Intelligentsia
• Thrill Renegade
• Pop Mavericks

Individuals may exhibit qualities of each archetype at once and shift over time as they try on different identities or personnas. The archetypes also play off one another.  My read of the research is that marketers have a tendency to focus on the “In Crowd”, which value achievement, tradition and status to a greater degree than the other three.  Innovation is more likely to come from “Pop Mavericks”, which are described in terms of passion, individuality and instant gratification. Networked Intelligentsia are often the ‘hubs of social networks’, highly influential, while “Thrill Renegades” are more about anarchy and revolution. The paper describes brands successfull with each type. Marketers would do well to at least consider the roles of all four archetypes when targeting products and programs.

If you have time, I highly recommend viewing the two slide share presentations referenced above – very thought provoking.

Transformer Generation

Culture Networks

“My friends and I talk all the time about where we got the best deals and if somebody bought something new. It’s just fun; it’s interesting. And if you meet somebody new it’s a good way to start a conversation, and if you like something they’re wearing then there is a better chance you’ll get a long.” Annie, 21-year old college student in Denver (Gen Buy, p. 48)

 This week, Best Buy announced it is opening a Union Square location that will be open nearly twenty-four hours a day to serve the NYU students and others in the neighborhood.  Can Apple stores, known for being a favorite place for teens and twenty something’s to congregate be far behind?  Indeed, is it too much of a stretch to consider book and electronics stores becoming less like stores and more like nightclubs?  Is someone at Apple thinking about what an Apple bar would look like?

Best Buy’s move would come as no surprise to the authors of Gen Buy, Kit Yarrow and Jayne O’Donnell. They make a convincing argument that for Millennials, shopping is a social activity. It is  ‘the glue, the tie that binds for many member of Gen Y’.

“Whether by shopping in packs at the mall, connecting with each other through what they purchase, or shopping online while IMing friends who are looking at the same site from across town, Gen Years demonstrate their love of teams, groups and real or created families by shopping together.  For girls, the mall is a place to hang out with friends and sort things through. Guys hang out at Best Buy or Apple – or as the more clued in ones say- near girls.”

According to Yarrow and O’Donnell, one of the most universal ways that Gen Y connects is through its passion for shopping and saving.  In our own research, we have seen evidence of young women who have never met before, bonding over cute shoes, sales strategies and the evils of shipping charges. Gen Y’ers in particular seem to be attuned to the language and strategies of shopping. They tell you they ‘LOVE LOVE LOVE’ shopping and then go on to prove it.  Here is some of the evidence provided in Gen Buy that Millennials think of shopping differently, as a way to connect with friends, parents and spouses:  

• “Sixty-eight percent of teens and twenty-something shop with other people at least half the time; only 44 percent of older consumers can say the same, according to our research” (p. 37)
• “Almost 65percent of women age thirteen to twenty-four polled by Cosmo Girl magazine in 2007 agreed with the statement “stores are like friends”. (p. 94)
• “Sixty percent of Gen Yers use advice from their friends when deciding what to buy, and 41 percent say they are influenced by their parents, spouses or sweethearts” (p 45)
• “As teens, Gen Y shoppers spend five times more than their parents did at the same age.”

These statistics suggest an important generational shift.  In one telling incident recounted in the book, a Gen Y employee explained the difference this way: “My boss had to tell me, ‘when I say I’m going to Starbucks that means, what can I bring you?’ but to me, when I say I’m going to Starbucks that means that I’m looking for a group of people to go with me.”

The social shopping phenomenon isn’t limited to in-person shopping, but extends across time and space by the Internet and mobile technology. Gen Y uses technology to research purchases, sometimes on the spot, and to share photos of things they are considering to friends to get their opinions.

Thinking of shopping and purchasing as primarily social activities makes an enormous amount of sense. The ability to provide social currency and facilitate social interaction is driving Millennial trends in everything from social media use to food and wine consumption, so it is reasonable to think of shopping as susceptible to the same forces. 

Thinking of shopping as a social activity provides retailers and other marketers with strong clues about how to engage Gen Y more deeply in their brand experiences. One obvious strategy is to make stores a more attractive place to hangout. Indeed many stores are already responding by providing larger fitting rooms with girlfriend chairs (or increasingly boyfriend’ chairs), better light and music videos. Beyond the stores themselves, retailers should be looking for ways to create a stickier ‘glue’, with ample ways for customers to share and compare their experiences with friends and thereby bind customers more tightly to their brands.

The highly respected journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, just published two thought provoking articles urging educators to resist generational stereotyping. The first article, “The Millennial Muddle“, points out the contradictory positions of various Millennial ‘experts’ and invites college marketers and admissions officer to carefully scrutinize conclusions or prescriptions before acting on them.  Subtitled, “How Stereotyping Students Became a Thriving Industry and a Bundle of Contradictions“, this article is well worth reading,  as an overview of the lack of consensus about Gen Y traits.

The second is a commentary titled, “More than Millennials”, by Mano Singham of Case Western Reserve. Singham argues that cutting ‘earlier generations into ever more finely grained slices that encompass smaller age cohorts’ based on character traits and world view (‘generational balkanization’) not only has questionable validity, it has little value for professors in the classroom because it invites interactions based on stereotypes.

“But generational stereotypes are of no value for professors—and not because they are entirely false. After all, stereotypes are usually based on some reality. But even if different populations exhibit, on average, their own distinct traits, large populations like nations and generations include so many deviations from the norm that stereotypes are of little use in predicting the traits that any given person is likely to display.

It would be silly to argue that student behavior hasn’t changed over time. But what we are observing may not be a result of new traits emerging, but rather old traits manifesting themselves in novel forms because of changes in external conditions.

….The trouble with generational stereotyping is that it sucks the individuality out of our students, the very thing that generates those feelings of warm affection. It makes them into generic types, whose personalities and motivations we think we can discern without having to go to all the bother of actually getting to know them.”

Singham draws a parallel between this type of stereotyping and more odious stereotyping. He points out that we find this kind of simplication objectionable when applied to races or cultures, but not when applied to generations.

“The willingness of such professors to accept generational stereotypes stands in stark contrast to their sensitivity when it comes to gender and ethnic stereotypes. During one session on identifying and dealing with classroom incivilities, a couple of professors ventured the suggestion that what students considered incivil may depend on their culture: that Korean students may unwittingly commit plagiarism because they believe that citing sources is an insult to their professor; that Saudi Arabian students like to negotiate grades with their professors because they come from a bargaining culture; that Latin American students think that something is cheating only if you get caught. There was immediate pushback from other professors that such generalizations are not valid—and are in fact harmful, because they prevent us from seeing the individuality in students. Generalizations about the Millennials, however, went unchallenged.”

As a professor, I agree completely with Singham. Students are diverse and deserve to be regarded as individuals, not members of a tribe or cohort. My understanding of Millennials informs my teaching, but application is limited to the way that I structure the course, assignments,  and class time. It does not affect the way that I think about students or interact with them.

I am less scrupulous when it comes to marketing. In fact, the entire premise of this blog is that generalizing about generational differences is useful, even essential, for marketers who want to engage young audiences with their product or service. Even in the era of 1:1, personalized marketing, it is not efficient or cost effective to market individually. Some degree of aggregation is required. ‘Stereotypes’ distill essential truths about a target that can be useful for thinking about needs and desires and for prioritizing messages. Marketers prefer calling stereotypes ‘segments’ or ‘persona’s', but it amounts to the same thing — a shorthand way to focus on commonalities and ignore idiosyncracies.

Ironically, my students have a hard time with multi-cultural marketing because to them it seems like stereotyping based on cultural or ethnic differences. They find sweeping generalizations about Hispanic, Asian or Black consumers objectionable. Yet the success of many ethnically targeted products, such as Gain Detergent, are based on just such sweeping insights.  Similarly, they object to any effort to make generalizations about their own age group. Yet, when I share Millennial profiles, as I did last week at University of Missouri – Kansas City, students see themselves reflected in those generalizations. They also like it when marketers single them out and speak directly to their needs.

The key to effective segmentation profiles, for Millennials or any group, is to ensure they are ‘values neutral’. Disparaging labels such as ‘lazy’, ‘entitled’, and ‘spoiled’ are not useful for purposes of marketing.  Far more useful are descriptions that emphasize positive qualities such as creativity, family orientation, self-expression, confidence, optimism, altruism, and comfort with technology. These generalizations are more likely to lead to products and services that will resonate with the target.

My final defense of stereotyping in marketing is based on the belief that it is more powerful to focus on what a target has in common than on differences. Segmentation can be taken too far. Millennials have a lot in common, and this provides a more efficient and powerful platform for marketers than efforts based on ‘balkanized’ differences between finely cut cohorts.  This is the basis of an earlier blog post, “Commonalities More Important than Differences” (Oct 14, 2008). Here is an excerpt:

“Segmentation has its limits as a marketing tool. As marketers we are trained to look to focus on the differences, but unless the differences are meaningful, overreliance on segmentation can lead to a lot of wasted effort. It may not be as sexy, but searching for the universal, common ground can lead to even more profound insights, and more impactful and efficient marketing…Millennials share a set of common values that has enabled a few brands to deeply connect with a broad range of young consumers: Google, Apple, Heroes, and Teach for America come immediately to mind. These connections are based more on similarities among Millennials than differences.”

As with so many things, it’s about balance. Gen Y rightly resents any effort to reduce its marvelous diversity to a lowest common denominator (see “Gen Y to Marketers, All Millennials Are Not the Same” March 24, 2009). But ignoring the unique characteristics of this most unusual generation would be a detriment to marketers, and to Millennials themselves. 

Eighties Nerd or Contemporary Hipster?

In the book, “Next:  A vision of our lives in the future,” the authors express a paradox about this generation, characterizing them as individuals who are nostalgic for a past they haven’t lived.  This is seen through the ways they cling to old music idols like Mick Jagger and Madonna, or even Michael Jackson.  The authors argue that a paradox lies in the way this generation values some things from the past, while completely rejecting other things.  Do you also see this generational paradox?  If so, how does one go about marketing to this ambiguity, thus having to reconcile the past and the future?  - Ines Schinazi, Interviewer for Talking About Generations blog

 This thoughtful question caught my attention because speaks to both the paradox of Gen Y and the debate as to whether generational marketing is really just another spin on youth marketing. I’d like to try to answer it.

It’s true there’s a paradox, and it lies in the contrast between Gen Y’s apparent unique characteristics and their traditional values and brand choices. In many ways, Gen Y represents something totally new:

• Millennials are confident (at times to the point of arrogance) about their ability to contribute and make a difference in the world.
• They work hard, but they also work smart and have no time for busy work, which sometimes is misread as laziness.
• They are technology-enabled in every aspect of their life from where they shop to what they buy, what they read, cook, eat, and watch.
• They like and respect their parents and actually don’t mind spending time with them. Many are living under the same roof well into their twenties for financial reasons that make sense to both parties.
• They demand a higher level of customized service, low price and performance. This is well-documented in Kit Yarrow and Jayne McConnell’s compelling new book, Gen Buy.

Despite their differences, Gen Y’s values and brand choices are remarkably traditional. One recent blog hilariously suggested that ”Eighties Nerds are Contemporary Hipsters“. More telling for marketers is the puzzle of why does this generation keeps migrating to the same old iconic brands? Where are the new choices for a new generation? Is Coke is still the real thing? Is Pepsi is still for a new generation? Ask a Millennial about their ‘favorite’ brand’s and you mostly hear big name brands that transcend generational categories.

I think the answer to the paradox lies in Gen Y’s traditional core values. Core values are individual’s guiding principles that inform the choices they make and express who they really are. Psychologists make a distinction between values and attitudes, which are more malleable. Millennials social attitudes are in fact, considerably more liberal than any previous generation according to Pew. (see earlier posts: “Gen Y Sees Things Differently” and “The Generation Gap, It’s Back“) 

In contrast, what are widely proclaimed as Gen Y values are pretty traditional. These values sound an awful lot like those of their grandparents and great grandparents.

• Authenticity
• Caring
• Family
• Balance
• Giving Back
• Self-expression
• Creativity
• Meaning

The point is Millennials are reinterpreting traditional values for their times and are committed to living by them.Talk to young people as I do on campus, in focus groups, on social media and on their blogs and you will be struck by their earnestness and idealism, their belief in heros and their desire to make a difference. This is the ‘optimism’ that Obama’s campaign of ‘hope’ captured so well.  They have given thought to their values and are determined to live by them.  

Millennials don’t see these values as traditional, they see them as their own.Where Boomer rejected their parents culture in order to proclaim they were something new, Millennials are not compelled to make a break. They happily embrace music, movies and books of quality that line up with their own values. They see no contradiction in embracing Michael Jackson, the Beatles and U2 and do not consider this ‘nostalgia for a past they never lived’; it is not ‘their parents music’, it’s just great music with a relevant message.  

Marketers who miss this essential ‘traditionalism’ of Gen Y are missing the paradox that makes them so fascinating. It’s easy to see only the gadgets, the multi-tasking, the profanity, the open sexuality and apparent lack of urgency to get out of mom’s basement and on with their lives and miss the core values that drive them.

The secret to understanding Gen Y lies in their values and their commitment to living up to them. While Gen Y would not articulated it quite this way, I believe they aspire to be the ‘Greatest Generation’, technology enabled. Who knows, they may just do it.