Has the world finally woken up to Millennials?
Judging by the media attention focused on Gen Y yesterday, it seems we may finally have arrived at the tipping point. On Feb 24 alone, there were articles and segments that appeared around the country, sparked by the new Pew Report on Millennials:
Chicago Tribune: “Millennials Dubbed ‘Always Connected’ in Pew Report”
Washington Post: “Under 30 Americans: The Next New Dealers?”
Washington Post: “Story Lab: Quiz: How Millennial Are You?”
PBS News Hour: “Demographic Profile of a Generation”
Christian Science Monitor: “Great Recession Hits Millennials Hardest”
Huffington Post: “Our Generation: More Confident, Less Employed”
A quick Google search returned 56 ‘related articles’ for a search on “Pew Millennials“. I certainly welcome the attention on this remarkable demographic group, and I applaud Pew for its indepth coverage. But where are the marketing articles? The Pew data so far is mostly attended to by social scientists, political scientists, journalists and academics.
The marketing world, aside from youth-focused marketing firms, as yet are still fairly tone deaf about the coming shifts.
If you are interested in understanding how more mainstream marketers are reaching out successfully to Millennials, you have to dig a little deeper. MobileYouth’s profile of Ten Brands that connect with Gen Y is a good start for profiles of Ford Fiesta, Monster Energy drink and others. But once you get beyond these high profile stories the cases get a little harder to come by. Here are three less publicized, inspiring exceptions:
Houlihan’s: (Fast Company, March 1, 2010)
“Last summer, it created its own social-networking site, HQ, an invite-only “brand community” of 10,500 “Houlifans” to serve as a virtual comment card. Customers appended that a-little-too-cute prefix to all things Houli-, and they’ve helped the formerly stodgy Irish pub rebrand itself as a contemporary suburban lounge-style hangout.”
StarkSilverCreek Web Publication: (PR Web, February 17, 2010)
All Things West Coast, the company’s flagship brand, is one of the fastest growing digital media properties. Readers value inspired and thoughtful coverage of the west coast including arts (film, stage), wine country, travel, and technology. Alexa Internet, Inc. ranks starksilvercreek.com 93,401 in the US and 285,000 globally. According to Quantcast, readers are affluent (28% earn $100K+), highly educated (67% college/grad school). Generation X and Y (Millennials) account for 68% of visitors.
Herbal Essence: (Business Week, July 2008)
“The shampoo and conditioner bottles are curved so that they literally fit together on the shelf. The nesting shape not only helped Herbal Essences stand out from others on the shelf but also encouraged more young women to buy both products, driving up conditioner sales. To appeal to Millennials, the team also updated the language on the packaging. The ho-hum “dandruff” reference gave way to “no flaking away.” Names for different hair styles were changed to more youthful phrases such as “totally twisted” or “drama clean.” “We totally reframed the proposition,” says Lafley. ….soon after the shampoo was relaunched the brand was growing again, with sales growth rates in the high single digits.”
A lot is known now about how to build a more appealing brand that connects more directly with Millennials. It requires a different approach, because as anyone who reads this blog or the Pew Report knows, it’s a different kind of audience. Getting results like these requires a more collaborative approach to research and a more engaging approach to marketing.
Marketers will be wise to begin now. The rewards for early movers in categories like banking, wine, leisure travel, retailing, and media will be great, both in immediate sales lifts (like Houlihans) as well as in better positioning for future consumers. Gen Y trends have a way of migrating up the generations.
Soon it will be more than just the wine industry that is experiencing ‘classic market disruption’, it will be most industries as this 75-million strong demographic recovers from the Recession, and gets about the business of creating homes and careers. Will your brand be ready?
Meanwhile, we are launching a new page on our MillennialMarketing.wikispaces.com wiki to aggregate successful Gen Y marketing case studies. Check it out and feel free to contribute your stories.
Frances Schwartz, 98
One of my best friends, Frances Schwartz, is 98 years young.
Until last year, Frances lived in her own apartment on Walnut Street near Laurel Village in San Francisco. Now she lives in the Jewish Home. We have been friends now for over 10 years. I feel closer to Frances than to many people my own age, even though I moved away to Michigan in 2001. She is still ’sharp’, mentally and verbally. When I lived in San Francisco, Frances loved to take me to lunch at her favorite Chinese restaurant downtown. We would have the lunch special — three courses and a glass of wine, for $20, including white tablecloths, fresh flowers and deep carpet. She loves a good joke and See’s Candies. She hates George Bush with a passion. She always wants to know what I’m up to. I want to know how she likes the food at the Home (it’s great).
Q: What does Frances have to do with Millennials?
A: Neither group feels their age.
Frances has confided to me that she doesn’t feel 98, in fact she feels like the same person she was at 19. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t look or act her age?
“The person behind my eyes is still the same girl I was in 1920. I don’t feel 98 years old. I can hardly believe it’s true.“
Blake Sunshine, wrote last month in her blog, “Do Millennials Feel Young?” Drawing on Pew Research data, she concluded Millennials are the ONLY group that feels its actual age. (Other age groups all feel younger, like Frances). Today, Blake continued this line of thought with a thoughtful essay titled, “Millennials Are Having a Hard Time Growing Up“. (Note how much Blake sounds like Frances!);
“I do not feel like an adult. I support myself, have a job and live 818 miles away from my Mom and Dad, but I still feel like a child most every day. And I know I’m not the only one. Millennials everywhere are having a hard time growing up.”
I am sure Blake is not the only Millennial struggling to take her place in adult society. The economy has thrown Gen Y a curve ball, causing many to delay the usual markers of adult life: job, marriage, mortgage, children. Living at home, ot doubt, undermines one’s sense of independence.
Yet Blake Sunshine seems to be getting at something deeper and more fundamental. Growing up requires letting go of options, narrowing those infinite dreams and choices to just a few. For Millennials, this may be harder than for other generations, since they have been told from an early age that the sky is the limit. She also places some of the blame on parents.
“We still want to be astronauts- We don’t really all want to be astronauts, but we still do want to believe that we can do whatever it is we want to do with our lives. Millennials do not want to settle, and if you aren’t a grown up then you don’t have to settle. Which is why it’s hard for Millennials to grow up and try to discover what they really want to do with their lives. … I hate to blame our parents entirely for why we aren’t growing up, but they definitely aren’t helping us either. A lot of Millennial parents (not all!) are used to hovering over their children, and they only want them to be happy. And if that means not settling for a job that they don’t want, then many Millennials parents are happy to support their children for as long as they can. But this is a terrible thing, because we need the push from our parents to force us to grow up.”
I have a different hypothesis. Perhaps the real reason Millennials don’t ‘feel’ grown up is that no one ever really feels completely grown up.
For marketers of ’grown up’ products such as investment services, insurance, furniture, automobiles and travel, this insight may prove more helpful than it appears. If Millennials aren’t feeling like grown ups – and don’t really want to feel that way– then positioning these products and services as part of an adult lifestyle would miss the market entirely. They would feel like ‘posers’.
A better approach might be to position them as responsible steps for anyone to take, whatever their age.
Unemployment is the story of year, and by now we all know young adults are suffering most. Several new studies show just how much pain they are enduring.
The Lumin Collaborative, an association of PR firms just released a study of 1,000 Millennials, ages 18-27, focused on understanding their changing expectations of the workplace. The study shows nearly all have been either directly or indirectly affected by unemployment.
- Over half (55 percent) have experienced a layoff or loss of work in their family within the past year.
- Nearly three-fourths (72 percent) feel threatened by a possible layoff or loss of work in the coming months.
- Two-thirds (66%) say they have lowered their expectations of being promoted. This compares to 51% among other workers.
Given the deep reach of the recession, it’s not surprising that economic worries are top of mind with Gen Y. A mobile survey of over three hundred 18-24 year olds reported this week by Engage Gen Y revealed the overwhelming concern is “The Future. College. Jobs. The Economy“’. One 24-year-old male said: “Jobs and our future are a big concern. We are a really talented bunch that just happens to be at the height of our ambition at the exact time the economy is hurting.” This finding was confirmed by a recent Harvard poll (reported by Don Tapscott’s blog).
“The economy is unquestionably the top national issue of concern for young people today. Almost half of 18-29-year olds today (48%) say economic issues are their foremost concern, more than double the second highest issue (health care: 21%) and nearly five times the third highest (War: 10%).”
With sentiment this strong, it won’t be long before Millennials start to direct some of their influence, clout and energy toward Washington.
Obama came into office on a wave of Millennial optimism and good feeling. While Gen Y so far as remained fairly silent about his performance, the Harvard poll suggests they are losing confidence in the government’s ability to resuscitate the economy: “More young Americans now believe that the government’s efforts will hurt (30%) rather than help (26%) their financial situation. The majority, 41 percent, say these efforts will have no impact.” John Della Volpe, the Director of Polling for the Institute of Politics at Harvard, says the numbers show that “If nothing else, this generation is fiercely independent and should not be taken for granted. Young people are no longer outliers — their opinions of Obama fall in line with rest of USA.”
For many Millennials, who in addition to unemployment are suffering from crushing college debt, jobs alone will not be enough to right their financial ships any time soon.
The average debt for a graduate is now $23,000. Many also have credit card debt exceeding $3,000. Without relief from the burden of hundreds or thousands of dollars a month in loan repayments, it will be difficult to get their lives moving forward again. Little wonder a Vanguard blog recently christened Gen Y, ‘Gen D for ‘Debt’. The impact of the double whammy of no job and high debt is millions of lives set on hold. According to a study by Alliance Bernstein, 34% of those who graduated with college debt have had to sell personal possessions to make ends meet. More significantly for our collective economic recovery, they are deferring the usual life events that trigger spending and economic growth: 18% have delayed getting married, 44% have delayed purchasing a house, and 28% have delayed having children (see chart). Other deferments include medical procedures, home repairs, car repairs and more.
Source: Alliance Bernstein
Coincidentally, According to the U.S. Department of Education , the total outstanding federal student loan debt exceeds $500 billion.
That number sounds a lot like the kind of numbers we hear when Washington talks about the economic stimulus. I recently posed a question to Paul Solman, the financial journalist for NPR’s NewsHour via Twitter and their web site:
“Question: Why isn’t some of the stimulus money being earmarked for college debt forgiveness, which would put money in the pockets of those most likely to spend it?”
He replied that it had been considered and shouldn’t be ruled out, but the idea currently has no momentum. That tells me it may not be such a dumb idea after all….
I am a marketer, not an economist or politician. But it seems to me that a transfer of funds from the government to loan programswould be less complicated and surer to work than costly ’jobs creation’ programs.
The impact of this action on Millennials would be immediate. Once released from the increasingly desperate burden of finding a job and paying down debt, this creative generation could set about generating new businesses, jobs and and economic activity. Unlike the rest of us who would be likely to save a windfall, Gen Y would spend it — smartly — for the benefit of all.
That’s my big idea. Gen Y, what do you think? Are you ready to mobilize?
