Millennial Marketing

One of the questions I hear a lot is ‘What exactly is a Millennial‘?

I have addressed this a few times, before in this blog (see “What’s a Millennial? Why Do Marketers Need a Label?”).  Just like the question ‘what is a brand‘ there is no easy agreed upon answer, although I generally answer that I subscribe to the definition used by Pew Research that a Millennial is someone currently age 18-29, born after 1980.

Just for fun, I decided to answer the question as definitively as I know how. Using Census data and Pew Research definitions, I created a chart that shows the number of people there are of each age, from 0-100 years, based on 2008 projections for 2010. (I also laid the actual birth years below so you can double check your identity.) No doubt this data will be updated when the new Census data becomes available, but for now, this may be as good as it gets.

Here are a few observations:

First it confirms that the big three are Millennials (including teens), Gen X’ers and Boomers. Millennials are 73 million strong. Boomers are still the largest cohort by a 3 million person margin and Gen X the smallest.  The bars become shorter and shorter past age 63 (yikes that’s a steep decline!) so we can reasonably project Boomers will shrink each year while Millennials and Gen X will be large for some years to come.

Another observation is that the Millennial population currently peaks at age 19-20. This explains the ultra competitiveness of college admissions the last few years with record applications, selectivity and enrollment. This peak is good news for the age groups that follow, those currently 18 or under, but bad news for those ahead them who are already struggling to find good jobs without the added stress of a peak number of new college grads hitting the market.

A final observation is that while teens are currently separated out, they should probably be considered part of the Millennial generation once they turn 18. Most generations span a period of more than 12 years, and this one will most likely be no exception.

My biggest take away from this chart is a caution. A group of 73 million people (current teens and Millennials) should not be thought of as a single ‘market’ any more than Boomers can be thought of as a ‘market’.

The concept of the ‘Millennial market’ for marketers should probably represent more of a psychographic or starting point for segmentation. Millennial, like Boomer, will most likely come to represent a set of values and way of looking at the world. I have long maintained that when marketing to Gen Y, values and behaviors are most defining and useful than age.

Pew seems to agree with me.  For the last month or so, Pew has offered a How Millennial Are You? online quiz. If you haven’t taken it, I urge you to try it.  The questions are scored 1-100 with anyone scoring 73 or higher rated a “millennial”. The scoring mechanism seems to be pretty accurate based on the results of the quiz. Most Millennials in fact do score pretty high.   I scored an 81, well into Millennial territory, a fact I am proud of.

The actual answers from the 2010 Pew Millennials survey on which the quiz is based can be seen here.  Even among true age-defined Millennials, the answers are a matter of degree, not black and white.

Sorry for all the numbers, but I think they provide a useful caution for marketers: It’s less about your age,  than about young you feel and act.