Carolyn Torres, a Brand Amplitude moderator
1) How do we find them?
2) How do we engage them?
Stalking the Elusive Gen Y Respondent
To find study participants, Gen Y Research firm, Outlaw Consulting, sends ambassadors to recruit at the places where Millennials like to hang out – clubs, schools, malls. This is effective but can be very costly. Another firm, Agent Wildfire, has conducted a dozen research projects on Facebook over the past two years, by ‘looking for people who have self-identified their interests by the groups they join.’ Anderson Research uses a software robot to ‘scrape’ online forums for the sentiment members express about products and issues. The firm then matches the findings to publicly available information about the speakers. Other firms use networking – literally bring a friend – to identify communities of interest. At Brand Amplitude, we like to tap client’s customer databases Gen Y research, a ready-made opt-in community of brand enthusiasts.
Talking to Gen Y: Fun and Games
Engaging Millennials in qualitative research also requires imagination. If we are doing real-time online focus groups, we vary the activities and stimuli frequently to hold their attention (and keep them from playing Halo or checking email in the background). When we designed focus groups for Vogue last Fall, we used dozens of word games and visual exercises to understand how they related to different kinds of articles, their feelings about fashion, and their aspirations. Tapping into emotions, imagery, culture and language were essential to uncovering their true relationship with the brand.
Software designed to engage Gen Y in market research communities (MROC’s) over time, such as that provided by Revelation Global, asks members to blog about their activities, upload photos and read and respond to the stories provided by their peers. Steve August, principal at Revelation puts it this way: “You have to figure out ways to engage them at an emotional level, if you ask for cut-and-dried answers, you won’t get rich information.
Software innovations are extending qualitative research in new directions. For example, a new research app for the iPhone, called Everyday Lives, shows great promise for making ethnographic research convenient for on the go researchers and study participants. Peanut Labs uses virtual worlds to stimulate participation. Through a partnership with MyYearbook.com, respondents can earn ‘virtual lunch money’ to share with friends or unlock hidden features on the site.
Millennial research experts agree on one thing, however. It’s best to have a Gen Y moderator involved in each project.
Under 20 moderators often think to ask questions older moderators might never consider. When we conducted research on our own behalf in 2008 about Gen Y’s workplace expectations, Carolyn Torres, a recent Notre Dame MBA grad working at Whirlpool, was tapped to draft the guide and lead the discussion. Her question, “If you could tell your boss one thing, what would it be?” lead to a surprising exchange which ended up being featured in our report and ultimately in an article in Advertising Age, (“The Inside Scoop on Millennial Hires“, 9.22.08).
Younger moderators also have the advantage of ‘speaking the language’, so to speak. Shalli Bhatt, 28, is an independent moderator based in Chicago. Bhatt had this to say in a recent article in QRCA Views: “Gen Y consumers appreciate that someone is listening to them and can recognize and embrace the subtleties of their own personal stories and experiences over time.” Outlaw’s Holly Brickley, 29, thinks her age gives her credibility with the target, but she also believes people of any age can draw out Gen Y consumers as long as they are ‘real and not disingenuous’. Some things just can’t be faked. On the Internet, no one may know you are a dog, but they certainly can tell if you aren’t in touch with their culture.
Yesterday, we announced the launch of the Millennial Marketing Wiki, a resource for those interested in learning more about Generation Y. It is our hope that, in the spirit of Web 2.0 sharing and community building, it will become a go to resource for the great free survey data that is being published everyday.
Why a Wiki? Because it will make it easier to keep track of and share the new material becoming available every day. The velocity of Millennial survey research has accelerated. Last month, Pew Research announced a new initiative focused on Millennials. The Girl Scouts and Junior Achievement have both published longitudinal studies of young adult values. Fidelity, Microsoft, and AOL have created generational profiles, along with many others. With the help of the Wikispace, we can work together to stay on top of all this great material.
All this activity is evidence that, as I have long predicted, marketers are waking up to two realities:
1) Millennials represent a ‘blue ocean’ for brands wishing to acquire new customers. According to AOL, 14-24 year olds spend $2,200 a year of their parents and their own money on fashion, music, cell phones and other discretionary purchases. 25-29 year olds are purchasing their first everything – first portfolio, first new car, first home, first home appliances, first baby supplies, and more. They love new experiences, to eat out, travel and cook new things.
2) Millennials do not respond the same to marketers’ programs as young adults of the past. They are on the go, split their media time across ‘three screens’, and want immediate results, when, where and how they want it. They are smart shoppers who research, reuse, review and resist purchases more often and more effectively than older consumers.
If you doubt either of these ‘facts’, stop reading now. If you are a brand, school, non-profit or other organization with an interest in Millennial marketing, you have no doubt realized that surveys and free research only take you so far. Often a proprietary study is required to really investigate your issue or category.
Millennials are not only different in their consumer behavior, they are a challenge to traditional research methods. On the one hand, online research is tailor made for Gen Y. After all, they are accustomed to exchanging opinions semi-anonymously in an online setting. But they are also highly skeptical of marketing. And this can make research a challenge.
Tom Anderson, Managing Partner at Anderson Research had this to say about researching Millennials in a recent article in QRCA Views (Qualitative Research Consultants Association):
… (Anderson) remembers one online quantiative survey effort that was foiled when a few students on a discussion board pointed to it as a way to pick up a few dollars in incentive payments. “A lot of them had stopped caring about surveys because the quesitons were repetitive and boring. They felt it was okay to cheat, ” he says. “One person had calculated that he could make $40 to $60 an hour just by taking surveys.” Anderson’s advice to researchers it to make engagement tactics stimulating and fun, talking to Millennials in their own language.
At Brand Amplitude, we draw heavily on free, secondary research surveys. But we have learned the really useful insights about Millennials come from qualitative “deep dive” research. Studies of Gen Y attitudes and behavior for Vogue, Notre Dame, Purdue North Central, Corona, and many others have shown us young adults and teens are uninhibited, collaborative and authentic in research studies, just as they are in other areas of their lives. You just have to know when and how to ask the right questions. By far the best way to meet them is online. This is a group that barely remembers a time before Google, and who communicate almost entirely electronically (telephone calls are a last resort, something you do with your parents when all else fails).
Barbara Bylenga of Outlaw Consulting, a firm that specializes in understanding trendsetters, says ‘Generation Y consumer are comfortable expressing opinions online. “They’re motivated to be seen as individuals and less inclined to be judged by society’s expectations. They will answer questions about topics that are sensitive to Boomers, such as diversity or sexuality.” They also tend to express themselves more completely than older consumers. Our focus group transcripts for Gen Y can be twice as long as the same group with older adults.
Tomorrow – what we’ve learned about conducting qualitative research among Gen Y.
I was reading Josh Bernoff’s book, Groundswell, last night as part of my effort to spend more time with analog media. The book challenged me to think about to do more to bring together the community of Millennial Marketers. Voila, an idea! A wiki!
Twelve hours later, here it is, a one-stop resource for research reports and data Millennial marketers can access FREE, all neatly categorized.
Home Page: http://millennialmarketing.wikispaces.com
Millennial Consumer & Shopping Behavior
Millennial Lifestyle, Attitudes & Values
Millennials & Financial Services
Millennial Demographics & Economics
Millennial Political & Civic Engagement
Bookmark it! Use it! But most of all, please Join it!
There are about 40 links already, but it is my hope that readers will contribute their own links. The goal is participation, so please feel free to add your finds to the lists.
As Josh Bernoff puts it, “...amazingly, people are willing to spend lots of time helping each other if you just get out of the way.”
Source: Ad Age
As the new decade opens, marketers are reflecting about what changes it will bring for advertising and media. (For a good example, see Mullen’s Edward Boches‘, “10 Predictions for Advertising in 2010“).
Forecasting is a tricky business at any time, but it is especially so right now. Consider that as the last decade opened, there was no ipod, Google was just getting started and Facebook founder Mark Zukerberg didn’t have his driver’s license yet. In 1999, there were no DVR’s and a cell phone was only good for phone calls; online social media meant chat rooms and discussion forums.
The proliferation of ‘digital media’ seems to have outrun our available words to describe it. Coining a new name for ‘new media’ that captures its interactivity has proven difficult. Somehow ‘Dynamic Media’ , ‘Shareable Media’ , and ‘User-generated Media’ fall short of describing what is happening.
One of the more curious aspects of the digital explosion is that marketers seem to be lagging consumers in embracing ‘digital media’. Josh Bernoff of Forrester who writes the blog, Groundswell, points out that consumers spent 34% of their total media time online in 2009, yet digital media amounts to just 12% of all media spending. This means most marketer’s energy is still spent developing advertising programs for newspapers, magazines and television, much as it was in 2000.
It should also be noted that while digital media has been growing, the total advertising and media industry have been shrinking, at least in terms of jobs (see chart). According to Ad Age, employment in the advertising and marketing services industry is down 10% from its 2007 all-time high, a loss of approximately 76,300 jobs. Media jobs fared even worse, down 112,500 since the recession began, which translates to one of every eight jobs. Although things are stabilizing they are unlikely to ever return to the levels of 2000 — when employment was 19% higher than it is today. This is a sobering reality, and one that is unlikely to turn around anytime soon.
Meanwhile a cottage industry is springing up to service the growing demand for social media programs. Individuals and small firms are filling a vacuum created by larger agencies who are finding it difficult to produce social media programs profitably — or that clients are not confident they can produce at all, I am not quite sure which. This cottage industry has little overhead and offers enthusiastic and creative practitioners who understand the new tools and platforms and are willing to try new things. Many are Millennials who unable to find a traditional PR or advertising job are innovating their way into an entirely new kind of marketing career, leveraging their knowledge of the target and of digital media.
Will these groups be the agencies of the future? Or will traditional agencies figure out how to absorb these renegade providers into their model? It could conceivably go either way. Regardless, I am in agreement with Denuo’s Rishad Tobaccowala that we are about to enter an exciting new age in marketing, where strategy and execution are more closely aligned than ever before. In the past, strategic capability was strong, the tools for executing communications and marketing programs were often clumsy and blunt. Insightful psychographic segmentation schemes were often reduced to the target ‘women 18-44′. Now, the opposite seems to be true: the tools are sharp, but strategy often lags.
My prediction for 2010 and beyond, is that digital will continue to grow at the expense of traditional media in the race to attract consumers’ attention. The marketers who will thrive in the coming decade will be those who know how to bring the tools and the strategies together.
