They are right to be concerned. Pew data also shows that in 2010, only 41% of all 18-29 year olds have full-time jobs compared to half in 2006.

By contrast, the proportion of older adults employed full-time stayed about the same.  10% of Millenials report losing their jobs recently, compared to just 6% of older adults.

The cost of a college education (amount families pay after adjusting for financial aid) according to Money magazine has skyrocketed 439 percent since 1982“. Increasingly, students are funding the cost of their education via student loans. College debt constrains their post-college options and places a drag on their income for a decade or more.

With high paying jobs in shorter supply, students, grads and parents are questioning what is the true value of a college degree?

ROI as well as depth of majors and the college experience are considered when it comes to selecting a college.  A MarketWatch article reported the results of a survey among 2010 high school seniors. About two-thirds reported that their families’ economic concerns “greatly” or “somewhat” influenced where they were applying to college.  The decision about where to attend is also being influenced by other practical considerations such as graduation rates and percent of students employed after graduation.

Harvard has been tracking attitudes toward college among undergraduates 18-24 years old for over a decade. Over the years the study has expanded to include non-college students and 25-29 year olds. Their most recent report is based on responses from 3,000 18- to 29-year-olds from late January through late February, 2010. They found that concern about finding and keeping a job is high across college students and non-college students alike.

“The biggest thing that [college] students share with their [non-college] peers is an intense anxiety about the economy. Sixty-percent of Millennials are concerned about their ability to meet their current bills and financial obligations and 59% are worried about being able to afford a place to live. Almost half of those who are currently in the workplace are afraid that they’ll lose their job, and this fear is echoed in college students’ anxiety about their future after graduation – 84% indicated that finding a job will be ‘very difficult.’ Students are also worried about their ability to keep paying for college, with 45% of 4-year college students and 64% of community colleges expressing concern about staying in school.”

Wednesday night, Josip Petrusa and Chanelle Schneider moderated an hour-long Twitter chat using the hastage, #GenYchat (transcript here). Their topic? The “Experience Catch 22″ – how to get a job or job experience without having any. The 34 contributors vented their frustrations and shared some practical advice. Most agreed that internships help bridge the gap between college and job, but often are not valued by employers.  Blogger Jenny Blake of “LifeAfterCollege.com” (who just landed a book deal, congrats Jenny!), has this to say about an internship eased her transition:

“During the first quarter of my junior year at UCLA I got the opportunity of a lifetime. My political science professor and mentor suggested a possible internship opportunity for me at astartup company in Palo Alto. I grew up there and was ahead in school, so I told her and the founder I would move home to work full time if it meant I could help start the company. I anticipated filing papers…I was wrong. I had tremendous opportunities and responsibilities, but I hadn’t anticipated what it would be like to be in the real world – to work full time, to save money, to spend so much money, to be so far from my friends. As much as I loved the confidence I got from working so hard and learning so much every day, at times I felt incredibly lonely and confused.”

We were curious to see if other Gen Y had similar feelings, so we posted the question to our Super Consumer Community of Gen Y marketers. “Did your education prepare you for what your are doing? Should it have?”  Here’s what they had to say:

Kyle: I feel like I come from a unique background having partaken in a specialized program at my Alma Mater called the BDIC (Bachelor’s Degree in Individualized Concentration). Essentially, what it allowed me to do was really narrow down the focus of my studies at college to the topics I KNEW I was interested in pursuing in the professional world. I had the incredible opportunity to work closely with 3 professors from 3 of the colleges within my University to design a classroom and experiential curriculum around my BDIC in Sports Marketing. My BDIC experience allowed me to handpick the courses I took and pair them with internships that allowed me to really get a hands-on feel for the subject matter. Had I not had been given the reins and allowed to work in the experiential learning aspect of my curriculum, i feel like I would have left college under prepared for the challenges that one encounters on the job. While I gained a great deal of knowledge and insight from my internships, it also didn’t hurt that it helped build my resume – I feel like I finished college with a leg up on the competition for jobs in the narrow industry of sport since I had 4 internships as opposed to 1-2.

Josip:  I think education we’re getting is great and it would prepare you for that field your being educated in. The problem doesn’t so much lie in education, i think the issues lie in what happens after education. Also, sometimes education doesn’t prepare you for actual real world use. Being a philosopher, historian and many other programs that get a lot of students quite frankly don’t have real jobs associated with them. For instance my political science major does not dictate I join the government or politics. I also find that thousands of students graduate with degrees that quite useless unless you plan on being a teacher or something. Although, there are jobs for every field, the ones I mentioned at the end of the first paragraph have the most real world jobs waiting for them. My university has thousands of students graduating with political science degrees every year but I hardly see any political scientists in the real world.

Rob: This is the kind of question schools should be challenging themselves with at least once a year. I think an opportunity exists to bring more real world cases into the classroom. I know case competitions often give students the chance to sink their teeth in to real projects, but those are often some of the more challenging ones employees take on (read: looking for free consulting/ideas from students) and likely not typical enough tasks to get a solid sense of what an entry level marketing or finance person really might do at company X on a day to day basis.

Micah: Funny you should as this is a topic I have been wondering about myself very recently. I am in the midst of a Masters in Library and Information Studies and I am starting to get very worried about if I will actually have any practical skills when I graduate. Most of the coursework I have done thus far has been theoretical-based and while understanding information needs of groups and database structures seems useful, I still have no idea what it actually means to work in a library day to day. My former Master’s degree (I love college) was in American Studies, and while I learned a great deal about the culture and history of our country, I graduated with no practical work experience and went back to school after a summer working as a temp for a medical supply company. In conversations with friends recently I have started to think that if anything vocational training needs to become a more active part of our educational system. Internships are great, but since I have always had to work full time, I never had the opportunity to pursue one outside of my coursework. So basically, I have greatly enjoyed my education but I am not sure it has prepared me for active citizenry or professional life. Any steps I have made in those directions have been of my own interests and initiative.

Derek: Education itself is a wonderful thing. However, education in America today is something that is too broad. General education in college is the same things one learns in high school and middle school and even elementary school before that. This focus on general education prepares us for nothing but provides jobs for professors in the subjects. If we were to have those classes as options as opposed to being forced into them, perhaps we can begin the process of specialization. Internships further specialize but are a catch-22 in themselves. Requiring an internship as part of graduation (like Chapman University does) is an excellent idea because it helps build the résumé. The problem with requiring an internship is that not all students can afford to work for free or take time off from their paying jobs.

Tony Szymczak: Since I am in a totally different field not related to my degree my Education did not totally prepare me for what I am doing. I cannot count the number of classes that I was required to take that I had absolutely no interest in. When picking classes becomes a process of, what will count towards my degree so I can graduate on time, the education process fails. When you take a class that you really have no interest in it really destroys focus. Students face so many appeals for their attention it is hard enough to get them focused on education. The time they do spend on education should not be in classes they are forced to take because a college mandates it.

A chapter that begins on page 335 of 427 (paperback version not including Appendices and Sources), is titled “Millennial Generation”.

What makes this chapter on Millennials so fascinating twenty years after it was written is how uncannily it matches what we know to be true of how Gen Y is different from preceding generations.

Part of the reason for its accuracy is that the demographics of this generation were fairly predictable, even in 1991, and demographics are one of the forces that shapes generations. Strauss and Howe were able to accurately project the likely size (76 million) and make up (12% immigrant) based on fertility and immigration trends, even though only 33 million of them were alive when the book was published.

The authors were also tuned-in to the major shift in parenting and education as a cultural priority that was already underway by the early 90′s. This shift would prove to have  a remarkable impact on Millennial self-perceptions, aspirations and values. Nearly twenty years ago they noted that “this new generation of children is being treated as precious” and “Boom parents and teachers have also been slowing down the childhood development clock — unlike the Silent, who sped it up.”

“First-wave Millennials are riding a powerful crest of protective concern, dating back to he early 1980s, over the American childhood environment. In 1981, the year before the “Class of 2000″ was born, a volley of books assaulted adult mistreatment of children through the 13er (Gen X) birth years. Within the next couple of years, other authors began reconsidering the human consequences of divorce, latchkey households, and value neutral education.

In 1984, two kids as devils movies flopped at the box office, marketing the end of a dying genre and the start of a more positive film depiction of children.

From 1986 to 1988, polls reported a tripling in the popularity of ‘staying home with family’….In general, Boomer parents are determined to set an unerringly wholesome environment for their Millennial tots.

Where Silent parents had brought 13erkids along to see $-rated movies made about them, Boomers take the Millennials to see G-rated movies made for them.”"

“From 1976 through 1988 the proportion of students held back in elementary school jumped by one-third.”

One of the central tenets of the book is that the fourth generation in each cycle, the “Fourth Turning”, tends to be more civically minded and engaged.  They look for signs that yesterday’s fourth graders might be more evolved as citizens and found it in Anna Quindlen’s observations that kids seemed to be “assimiliating society’s ‘shalt nots’ about crime, drugs, polution and education with disquieting energy and unanimity.” (page 341) Twenty years later, we know from the research that today’s young adults are much more ‘upright’ than earlier generations in terms of their overall optimism, attitudes toward the environment and social action and behavior regarding drug and alcohol use, teen pregnancy, and crime.

What Howe and Strauss could not have known in 1991 was the remarkable impact that technology and the most severe economic recession in over 60 years would play in shaping this generation.

Beyond demographics, two of the forces that are shaping up to be the most influential are easy access to information of all kinds and a realization that America’s high flying lifestyle is most likely unsustainable.  They have already resulted in a more empowered, yet sobered, generation that is exhibiting very different consumer and media behavior as they move into their prime earning years.

BrandAmplitude‘s latest ebook (“How Millennials Are Different“) is focused on spotlighting the ways that Millennials are different from generations that came before at the same age. The book, which zeroes in specifically on longitudinal data from Pew Research and other sources, shows Gen Y is different in many significant ways, only some of which were predictable in 1991.

Nevertheless, what Strauss and Howe foresaw about how Millennials would be different from preceding generations based simply on cultural and demographic trends, they got remarkably right.

One of the questions I hear a lot is ‘W

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.

One of the biggest changes is the sheer amount of information available to marketers about Gen Y.  Two years ago, there was little to draw on, so we did our primary research studies – on the workplace and on social media. No longer. There are mountains of free published information, and a lot of is is very good. Any marketer who needs to understand Gen Y (and who doesn’t?) should start with what is already published.  True much of it will not be exactly what you need. A syndicated study doesn’t ask that specific question about your category or brand. But for context, many of these studies are better than what any one firm could do on its own. 

Earlier this year we started keeping track of the best studies we ran across in a wiki, called Millennialmarketing.wikispaces.com. (Bookmark it!) Each study has been classified into one of a dozen categories. There are usually dozens of studies within each category, and new ones are being added nearly every day. (If you register, you can add your own finds as well.)

Millennial Consumer & Shopping Behavior

Millennial Health

Millennial Lifestyle, Attitudes & Values

Millennials & Financial Services

Millennials & Media

Millennials & Politics

Millennials & Religion

Millennial Demographics & Economics

Millennials in the Workplace

Presentations & Ebooks on Millennials

Millennials & EducationVideos

Millennial Marketing Cases

Generational marketing skeptics (yes, there are many) usually have two main objections.

The first objection is that Gen Y is really just like other generations at the same age. Any differences are due to stage of life – students and young adults naturally are different in their outlook, values and spending patterns. As they mature, marry, take on real jobs, have kids, etc. they will naturally lose some of their ‘distinctive’ qualities. 

The second objection is based on the concern that sweeping generalizations about any age group can obscure important individual differences and be misleading.

Of course, there is a grain of truth to both claims. Lifestage is part of the puzzle and an important marketing variable — young people are different from older consumers. That’s why age is one of the first bases of most segmentation schemes, along with gender and ethnicity.  BUT! It is a mistake to assume young people of your generation are the same as young people today. They grew up in a different time and were shaped by different cultural forces, not to mention different technology and prevailing parenting views.  Do you think your parents were the same as you at the same age?

If this logic isn’t compelling enough, longitudinal research studies provide evidence of generational shifts. Here are several studies worth checking out. They compare young adults of today with people the same age at different points in time.

As for stereotypes I have addressed this before. Stereotypes and ‘profiling’ are problematic in most areas of life, but they are essential for marketers. Until we have tools that can target people individually (and that day is coming faster than you might think), marketers must aggregate people based on characteristics into segments and create profiles (or if you prefer, ‘persona’s') to keep their products, messages relevant.

Which brings me back to the value and limitations of secondary research.  It provides an excellent starting point, but should be considered just that, a beginning. Marketers need specific information about how Gen Y thinks about their category, brand or marketing program. For that, there is no substitute for primary research. 

Longitudinal Study of Young Adult Mental Health

Pew Research Reports: How Are Millennials Different than their Parents at the Same Age?

Girl Scouts USA Longitudinal Study of Values

College Board Student Poll of Incoming Freshman

DEMOS: Economic State of Young America

Happy 300th to me! Hope you enjoy the gifts.

By this definition, Millennials are a subculture.

While they share many of the myths, customs and rituals of the larger culture, they have language, preferences and customs that are distinct to their generation.  They have a unique set of reference groups and opinion leaders.  These cultural factors exert enormous influence over Gen Y buying decisions, and are crucial for establishing relevance.

Learning about Millennial culture can be a tricky business if you are not a Millennial yourself. Even within the Millennial subculture, there is diversity. In fact, this generation is notable for it’s multi-culturalism.

Two of the best Millennial culture sleuths I have discovered are Tim Stock, Head of Planning at scenarioDNA, and Kevin Walker of Culture Labs Creative.

I found both Stock and Walker on Twitter and have spoken with each of them ‘live’ (proof Twitter works!). They are both passionate about understanding cultural influences on consumer behavior among youth.

ScenarioDNA describes itself as a ‘consumer insights think tank.’ Stock, who is also adjunct faculty at Parson’s School of Design, urges marketers to think in terms of ‘culture networks’ and ‘culture codes’. This philosophy is based on the idea that “values are shaped at critical points of the maturation process”, and that “our image of what products mean is dictated by this imprinting“. In other words, generations are shaped by common experiences peculiar to that point in time.

Stock has developed a strategic methodology for segmenting consumers based on their ‘culture code’ and for  ’mapping’ the corresponding networks. He offers a fabulous lecture on culture networks (via slideshare), and another look at one particular network, the ‘Transformer Generation”. Both are well worth viewing.

Culture Labs Creative is a research-focused digital agency with special expertise in urban youth culture. Walker, who comes from a marketing communications and research background, emphasizes immersion techniques. 15-20 members of the target audience are invited to share their experience and ideas in a live workshop that is part event, part research.  Sample output from a Global Trends event is provided on the Culture Labs site.

To identify the ‘Top 10 Trends, Culture Labs ‘monitored social media chatter during the last quarter of 2009′ and conducted in-market explorations in Houston, Atlanta, Los Angeles and New York as well as a ‘Trend Summit’ in Dallas in December. Among the 10 Trends were these observational ‘gems’ I haven’t seen anywhere else:

Vans Sneakers

“Take note of the Classic Americana fashion trend developing. We also predict that Vans sneakers will be the hot brand of 2010. Vans are classic, inexpensive and are offered in many colors and styles….  As times remain challenged and serious, people are going to dress up more in 2010. The era of sloppiness in dress and casual Fridays is so ’00’s. Young people are rediscovering “dressing up” and it is driven by a new pragmatic sense that to make progress, get a job, and be taken seriously you have to look the part. As one of our speakers at the Trend Summit, Michael Hastings-Black, mentioned, it is the “grown ass man” syndrome that is inspiring people to dress up more.”

New data released this week from Pew Research on Millennials and religion quoted in USA Today, Denver Post and elsewhere, says one in four Millennials (25%) do not identify with any one faith, instead describing their religion as “atheist,” “agnostic” or “nothing in particular.”  This level of non-affiliation is much than was seen for other generations at the same age.

At the same time, the Pew study reveals that spirituality among young adults is undiminished. “Members of today’s Millennial generation, ages 18 to 29, are as likely to pray and believe in God as their elders were when they were young.” This leads them to conclude in their headline: “Young Adults ‘Less Religious,’ Not Necessarily ‘More Secular‘.”

There is other evidence to support the conclusion that the issue is more one of lack of affiliation than a lack of faith in God. A survey of Millennials reported in New Yorker magazine last year found that 43% of Gen Y believes they are ‘as religious’ or ‘more religious’ than their parents.  A Marist Institute poll shows over three in ten Millennials define their primary long-term life goal in religious terms (“To be spiritual and close to God”). That figure was higher than for any other age group.

What makes this lack of affiliation especially intriguing to me is that in many other areas of their lives, Millennials are inclined to go along with their parents’ choices.

Within the 25% who are unaffiliated, nearly three quarters were raised in a religious faith tradition and dropped away. This makes faith the outlier as far as decisions that break with their parents.  Recall that this is the first generation that as a rule likes their parents and even thinks of their parents as their ‘best friend’.

• 86% say they share their parents political views.
• Every single student in my Principles of Marketing class raised their hand last week when I asked who banks where their parents bank.
• According to an AARP survey, 41% of Millennials with cars drive the same brand of car their parents drive or have driven.
• The American Savings Council found 71% of Gen X’ers and Gen Y’ers turn to their parents for financial advice.

So why make the break here, over something as important as faith?

I think has to do with the strength of the Millennial subculture and its strong, shared ethical values than a fundamental change in their belief in God.

The Gen Y subculture is astonishingly ethical, both in values and in practice. ’Bad behavior’ on a variety of  social dimensions from pregnancy to crime to drugs are all down among young adults.  Socially, Millennials prize tolerance as a result of their inherent diversity. They are significantly more socially liberal than their parents on issues of marriage, abortion, interracial dating.  Millennials are less inclined to believe that church affiliation is necessary to be a ‘good person’. According to a Marist Institute poll, 56% have donated money to a charity in the past six months and 67% have volunteered their time.

I’ll go out on a limb here and speculate that some of the lack of affiliation is due to a desire for ‘authenticity.’  The Gen Y subculture is unusually sensitive to phoniness. It’s unlikely they will go through the motions of attending church just because it is ‘the thing to do’  if they have questions about their own sincerity.

In the final analysis, reaching Millennials and getting them to re-affiliate with any one ‘religion’ may be unrealistic as a ‘marketing objective’.

Gen Y is accustomed to choices, and there is some evidence they may feel confined by a denominational label.  In December I noted that Millennials are ‘auditioning’ faiths the same way they would look for a college, a spouse or other major decision (“For Millennials Belief Is A Choice“). This represents a huge generational shift and as with so many other Gen Y trends, may start to migrate into  the thinking of other age groups. The Pew research shows that like Millennials, most Americans are embracing ‘multiple faiths’, with beliefs that do not ‘ fit conventional categories’.

According to a new report by the industry blog, WineandSpiritsDaily, Millennials are now the recommended prime target for wine marketers:

“The wine industry can take comfort in the fact that consumption continues to grow in the United States, said John Gillespie, president of the Wine Market Council, at the Council’s 5th Annual Presentation of US Wine Consumer Trends in Dallas. Not only are older generations drinking wine, but the industry has a big champion in the millennial generation. By process of being younger, millennials were not as hurt by the economy and feel more comfortable spending money on wine as an affordable luxury. They don’t view wine as elitist and enjoy, rather than feel intimidated by, all the choices that wine presents.” (“Millennials Drive Growth, Core Consumers Trade Down”, Wine and Spirits Daily, Jan 26, 2010).

2. MILLENNIALS ARE TRADING BEER AND SPIRITS FOR WINE.  32% of millennials traded over to wine, which means young people are increasingly favoring wine over beer and spirits.  This compares to 9% who are trading off among the drinking population as a whole.

3. MILLENNIALS ARE MORE ADVENTUROUS. They consume more imports than other generations, are more likely to belong to a wine club, and dine out more often.

4. MILLENNIALS VIEW WINE AS AN AFFORDABLE LUXURY. Millennials view wine as an affordable luxury. They don’t see wine as elitist or unattainable but believe it denotes maturity and sophistication not given by beer or spirits. This age group is also the first truly gender neutral generation when it comes to drinking wine.

Wine producers have no time to waste. Many Millennials do not feel that marketers have spoken to their generation.

Megan Leap, a Millennial living in South Florida, says she loves wine, but has no particular brand affinity: “No specific wine brands. I’m budget conscious. I don’t think wine marketing is geared toward millennials. More 30+.”

While it’s true that Millennials are price sensitive, they also care about brands. According to Mintel, the % of 21-24 year olds who say they decide based on brand (55%) is higher than the number who say they decide by price (48%).

Reaching Millennials now could shape their wine preferences for a lifetime. So wine producers, what are you waiting for?

Photo from Daniel Prager, http://danielprager.posterous.com/dove-bars-and-wine-is-the-new-going-out-on-we

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.

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.

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 Health

Millennial Lifestyle, Attitudes & Values

Millennials & Financial Services

Millennials & Media

Millennial Demographics & Economics

Millennials in the Workplace

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.”