This morning I watched a 1970′s NASA video that envisioned a 10,000-person space city more than a mile in diameter called ‘Taurus’. I expected a good laugh, but what I found instead was a nearly plausible story of how a space city could be built and sustained. Food would be grown using abundant sunlight and optimal conditions (no storms or floods) in just 100 acres of farmland. Supplies for building would come from the moon, as it is closer than earth, the difference in gravity and abundance of ‘good material’. The images of life in the space city, were surprising modern, not retro or ‘sci-fi’. Yet for all its plausibility, the prediction that Taurus would be achieved by the year 2000 is laughably off target.
Everything Is Obvious* Once You Know the Answer
Envisioning any future event, even the weather, is fraught with traps. In his book, Everything Is Obvious *Once You Know the Answer”, Duncan Watts tells of a management scientist name Steven Schnaars who tried to…
“…. quantify the accuracy of technology-trend predictions by combing through a large collection of books, magazines, and industry reports, and recording hundreds of predicitons that had been made during the 1970s. He concluded that roughly 80 percent of all predictions were wrong, whether they were made by experts or not.”
Watts’ book is dedicated to helping his readers understand why predictions are so difficult. He concludes that the difficulty with prediction is knowing what we should be predicting. Generally we get it wrong because it’s hard to tell what is most relevant. In the chapter titled, “The Dream of Prediction”, he writes:
“When I was young, many people believed that the future would be filled with flying cars, orbiting space cities, and endless free time. Instead, we drive internal combustion cars on crumbling, congested freeways; endure endless cuts in airplane service, and work more hours than ever. Meanwhile, Web search, mobile phones, and online shopping — the technologies that have, in fact, affected our lives — came and more or less out of nowhere.”
The key to prediction is understanding what is relevant. It turns out that knowing what is right or wrong is less important than knowing what matters.
Many outcomes seem obvious in retrospect. The difficulty with prediction is in knowing what predictions really matter. So many things ‘could’ happen that identifying the important outcomes from the irrelevant is nearly impossible. How would anyone know that terrorists would use boxcutters to hijack a plane, that a 1990′s start up called Google would make it’s investors a fortune?
Knowing what matters is the fundamental insight behind Taleb’s idea of ‘Black Swans’ – rare events that carry great import when they do happen. There are many unusual events, but not all are very important. According to Watts, it is this fundamental distinction of ‘importance’ that makes future prediction so difficult. In his words, “The apparent obviousness of past events tempt us into thinking that we ought to be able to anticipate which events will be important in the future.’
As marketers, we are routinely asked to predict the future. Our skill in making those predictions does not lie in the ability to say what unlikely events will happen in the future. Rather it relies on our ability to discern what matters to consumers. Knowing what matters helps us make better predictions because it is a market’s likely response to events that is significant, not the event itself. Many events themselves are fairly obvious and even likely.
Yet predicting the the future precisely is difficult because relevance can be even more difficult to predict than events themselves. After all, it was fairly obvious (in retrospect anyway) that Apple would have introduced another device. But it’s relevance and transformative effect are much more difficult to predict.
The future of Millennial trends and predictions
Making predictions about Millennials is not that difficult. They will grow older, have more income, start families, pay down their debt, take vacations, buy life insurance and worry about sending their children to college. The question is not whether these events will happen, but what will be relevant to them as they make decisions and respond to the inevitable ‘black swan’ events of their lifetimes.
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Cee-Lo's Grammy Performance
Millennials are influencing our tastes in many subtle and not so subtle ways. I am keenly aware of the influence my Millennial age kids and students have on my tastes and purchases, in everything from cars, to clothes, to foods and entertainment.
Grammy Obsessed
To illustrate just how far I’ve come, Sunday night I was riveted by the Grammy Awards. I have never watched it before, and I actually watched it alone as everyone else in my family seemed to have more important things to do.
How could I miss Cee-Lo, Rhianna, Drake, Eminem, Gaga, Bruno and Katy do amazing performances of songs I that have become stuck in my head day in and day out? (Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” seems to be remarkably sticky.) I loved seeing Glee’s Lea Michele and Matt Morrisey in the limelight. In contrast to all that energy, Barbra and Kris seemed boring, though Mick Jagger still has the ability to energize a room the size of the Staples Center.
I truly cared whether the rap and dance artists would come out on top for Record and Album of the Year. They didn’t, and I went on line to share my woes and see if anyone else was as disappointed (here’s a great recap from a Millennial). My point? If someone had told me a few years ago that I would like rap, dance and pop music, much less care about these stars I would have sniffed and said I only listen to NPR.
Is Your Brand Culturally Aware?
Culture has always been a big part of youth marketing, and now it seems to be increasingly important to all marketing, thanks to Millennials. It wasn’t just his connections to Detroit that made Eminem a brilliant choice for Chrysler’s two minute SuperBowl spot. After all, they could have opted for Kid Rock.
A recent article by the PR firm, Edelman, titled “Why Millennials Matter to Every Brand” argues that Millennial’s influence is a strong argument for making them a key target now, even if your stated target is 25-54 or even 35-54. Edelman puts it this way:
“All of the chatter from Millennials, all of the sharing and noise, it makes an impact on the generations before them. They are listening. They are influenced by what their children and grandchildren are saying because they can say it loudly, with confidence and knowledge that only their Smartphones could give them. Millennials will continue to dominate influence and pop culture. That is, until the next generation, Generation Z, quickly changes the world once again.”
Edelman offers these reasons for even brands like diapers and home alerts to consider Millennials a key target, now:
1. Size: “By 2015, almost half (47%) of the world population will be under the age of 25.”
2. Influence: “Two-thirds of Millennials are now over the age of 21, and many have established careers, families and an incredible amount of influence.”
3. Digital Prowess: “They were raised digital. This fact alone makes Millennials unlike anything the world has seen.”
4. Global Reach: “Technology knocks down borders. Multiculturalism is the norm and new trends and opinions spread quickly.”
5. Brand-Happy: “Brand preference was the #1 personal identifier that Millennials were willing to share about themselves online.”
6. See Themselves as Influencers: “76 percent of Millennials think they are highly depended on for their opinions.
7. Active Advocates (and Detractors): ”Millennials are taking action on behalf of brands, both online and offline, every week. And, those actions aren’t just for high profile lifestyle brands.”
These arguments will be familiar to reader of this blog. But they serve as a great reminder that if Millennials are not part of your target now, you may wake up and find you are still listening to NPR – and your competition is listening to B96.
Millennials are the first generation to be educated at a time when knowledge is both plentiful and accessible.
Educators are struggling to make the shift from a model that was intent on helping students acquire knowledge through a prescribed path (a path that had been tried and tested over centuries), to one where it’s not necessary to know the answers, only how to find them. Indeed, the key skills today are knowing how to discern credible sources from those that are less trustworthy.
The benefits of information democratization are undeniable. One only has to look at the DIY’ing of “elite” professional services (legal, health care, finance, academic etc.), to understand that free flowing information is a terrific thing.
At The London School of Business Finance, you can now get an MBA via Facebook. Over 30,000 students have already registered and 500,000 are expected to. Courses in accounting, corporate finance, ethics, marketing, and strategic planning are free, students only pay when they take a test. The total cost of the online MBA degree? About $23,000, an incredible value when measured against $80,000 or more for a traditional MBA degree.
In looking at the world in terms of knowing what one doesn’t have to know, something is also lost. We seem to be losing an appreciation for complexity and nuance.
Everything is Not a Data Point
Douglas Rushkoff observes in his book Program or Be Programmed, that “not everything is a data point.“ Rushkoff warns that “net research is more about engaging with data in order to dismiss it and move on – like a magazine one flips through not to read but to make sure there’s nothing has has to be read. Reading becomes a process of elimination rather than deep engagement. Life becomes about knowing how not to know what one doesn’t have to know.”
A Generation of Information Hunter Gatherers
We are becoming adept at scanning, looking for the nugget rather than context. But are we losing an appreciation for the deep understanding that comes from immersion in one discipline? Rushkoff believes this ‘surfer’ experience that substitutes impressions with real knowledge is especially true of Millennials:
“Young people, in particular, are developing the ability to get the gist of an entire area of study with just a moment of interaction with it. With a channel surfer’s skill, they are able to experience a book, movie, or even a scientific process almost intuitively. For them, hearing a few lines of T.S. Eliot, seeing one geometric proof, or looking at a picture of an African mask leave them with a real, albeit oversimplified, impression of the world from which it comes. This works especially well for areas of art and study that are ‘fractal’ or holographic in nature, where one tiny piece reflects the essence of the whole.”
As a professor, I have experienced this subtle shift over the past five years in the form of pressure to distill my classes to the essence of what is important. The photo above is of my brand building library. As I sit down to plan a syllabus or class, I look at this bookshelf and despair – how can I possibly encapsulate this body of knowledge into finite, digestible, byte-sized pieces? It’s overwhelming. Somehow I doubt the professors of 50 years ago felt the same way. But then they didn’t have competition from a Facebook app.
Textbooks are becoming shorter and more condensed, in response to students’ impatience with long pages of text. Irrationally, I have come to judge my own competency as a teacher by how efficiently I can convey the concepts and complexity of the marketing and brand strategy without making unreasonable demands upon students. Increasingly, I see my job as the explorer coming back from a distant land to convey as much of what I know as is humanly possible to the untravelled audience in just 28 sessions.
Critical Thinking at Risk
A new book, Academically Adrift, is about to be released that reports the results of a study of 2,322 college students at a range of institutions from 2005-2009. Researchers discovered nearly half of the students didn’t learn “the critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication skills that are widely assumed to be at the core of a college education” during their first two years of college.
“Many of the students graduated without knowing how to sift fact from opinion, make a clear written argument or objectively review conflicting reports of a situation or event, according to New York University sociologist Richard Arum, lead author of the study. The students, for example, couldn’t determine the cause of an increase in neighborhood crime or how best to respond without being swayed by emotional testimony and political spin.”
Aside from the dismal overall finding, the specific findings of who did and didn’t learn are also telling:
“…The study also showed that students who studied alone made more significant gains in learning than those who studied in groups.”
“Students who majored in the traditional liberal arts — including the social sciences, humanities, natural sciences and mathematics — showed significantly greater gains over time than other students in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing skills.
“Students majoring in business, education, social work and communications showed the least gains in learning.”
“Greater gains in liberal arts subjects are at least partly the result of faculty requiring higher levels of reading and writing, as well as students spending more time studying, the study’s authors found. Students who took courses heavy on both reading (more than 40 pages a week) and writing (more than 20 pages in a semester) showed higher rates of learning.”
These results should be a wake up call to those of us in higher ed. College is not about byte-sized learning, it is about mastery and mastery requires more attention than what is required by hunting and gathering facts, or even learning how to hunt and gather facts.
The world is complex and getting more so. We can’t settle for simplicity.
Perhaps one of the more lasting ways that Millennials will shape our culture is the way that they think about their lives, career and work.
Where Boomers thought of career in terms of one or two employers and a series of jobs with increasing responsibility and pay, Millennials think of their career as something more personal and proactive.
Employer reputation and work environment matter greatly to Millennials because it shapes their personal brand. They are focused more on the skills and mentoring they will receive than managerial responsibilities and career progression. As a result, they show an unwillingness to ‘settle’ for something less, even in this tough economic times. The New York Times controversially reported the case of Scott Nicholson, a 24-year old 2008 college grad who turned down a $40,000 a year insurance job that he felt would be a ‘dead end’ (“American Dream is Elusive for a New Generation“, July 6, 2010)
As far back as 2007, this new way of thinking was well described in an piece for NASA on the new Gen Y worker. After outlining the basic characteristics of Millennials’ upbringing and outlook, the author, a Microsoft consultant, reaches this conclusion: organizations need to adapt to Millennials new views rather than try to reorient them to ours.
These characteristics create new challenges for managers. Because of the magnitude of the shift from baby boomers to millennials, it is unlikely that organizations will successfully reorient the millennials to what has come to be considered a traditional work ethic; rather, the workplace will need to adapt to the attitudes and needs of this generation….Millennials consider their knowledge and skill more as a source of employment mobility than of career growth. Many see their knowledge as personal and portable, not organizational and collective. When it is communal, it is very communal, openly shared across their networks without regard to boundaries….
Top-down or command-and-control methods will prove less effective for the next generation, but millennials can be brought together for a mission they consider meaningful. Defining the mission, and remaining flexible enough to refine and redefine it, will create an environment in which leaders will emerge. Millennials with effective skills that include leadership abilities will emerge as leaders in projects despite aversion to a long-term commitment to management as a career.
About the same time, my research firm, Brand Amplitude conducted proprietary research among young professionals about their work lives and careers and reached similar conclusions. Here’s an excerpt from the report:
“Relationships and corporate cultures are especially important to Millennials. They want want to feel cared for as individuals — not just employees. In short, they want mentors, coaches and teammates – not just bosses. “The whole concept of ‘reporting’ to people is very parents’ generation… [we] are more team focused.” Participants expressed more loyalty to the people they work with than to their company. As one brand manager put it, “I feel connected to the people I work with, not necessarily the company.” Another said, “People make everything worth doing.””
A common perception about Millennials is that they aren’t very loyal. Yet when we probed about workplace loyalty, we heard many say they would like to be loyal, but only to companies that ‘earn’ their loyalty. Millennials feel their parents’ generation was loyal to a fault. Millennials believe they have more options, so they insist they will only stick with a company that earns their devotion. “My company doesn’t realize that their most qualified people can and will leave for a better work environment.”
Today, there are many consultants and speakers who specialize in helping firms attract and retain Millennial workers, manage multiple generational workforces and train employees to respect generational differences. No doubt this is necessary and helpful. Yet, how much of the disconnect could be resolved if companies took the advice of the Microsoft consultant and look at work the way Millennials do, as a means to shaping their personal brand?
Gen Y wants to manage their career proactively, in the same way a brand manager approaches a product, by determining the desired identity and carefully selecting associations and experiences that will allow them to reach their goals.
That goal increasingly means a ‘slash’ career or succession that combines different skills and abilities rather than becoming singularly focused on mastering just one thing. The metric is different, too. It’s not just about the money, it’s about meaning and pleasure and the intangible of ’brand value’.
I have written about Rebecca Denison before in this blog, a young Gen Y marketer and member of our Super Consumer community. Rebecca helps companies measure their brands for Edelman in Chicago. Today she turns the tables and talks about how to measure a ‘personal brand’. Rather than rely on the usual metrics of Twitter followers, blog subscribers, or page views, Denison suggests these more “meaningful” goals and measures of personal brand strength.
Goal: Connect and build relationships with other PR professionals and those interested in measurement. Metrics:
- Number of folks added to my “Measurement” list on Twitter
- Number of LinkedIn connections made with others interested in measurements
- Number of conversations per week about measurements
Goal: Find more ways to build friendships in Chicago. Metrics:
- Number of friends added to my “Close Friends” list on Twitter.
- Number of clubs and organizations discovered.
- Number of people I know I can count on in a pinch.
Goal: Become a measurement resource for others. Metrics:
- Number of recommendations received on Twitter.
- Number of guest blog posts written about measurement.
- Number of times per week I’m asked for advice about measurement.
Yesterday the New York Times published an online article that will also appear in its Sunday magazine titled, “What Is It About 20-Somethings?” The article has already provoked controversy for itemizing the ways that today’s ‘emerging adults’ are more immature than the generations that preceded them. (See “The 10 most infuriating quotes from the Times’ latest 20-something takedown” for a sample.)
While the facts speak for themselves, I believe the Times has it wrong on the interpretation.
Some young adults figure it out their identity and life path more quickly than others, but collectively it is taking longer than ever before.Over the past few decades, there has been a dramatic shift in the onset of what have traditionally been regarded as the markers of adulthood –marriage, job, children:
One-third of people in their 20s move to a new residence every year. Forty percent move back home with their parents at least once. They go through an average of seven jobs in their 20s, more job changes than in any other stretch. Two-thirds spend at least some time living with a romantic partner without being married. And marriage occurs later than ever. The median age at first marriage in the early 1970s, when the baby boomers were young, was 21 for women and 23 for men; by 2009 it had climbed to 26 for women and 28 for men, five years in a little more than a generation.
We’re in the thick of what one sociologist calls “the changing timetable for adulthood.” Sociologists traditionally define the “transition to adulthood” as marked by five milestones: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had, by the time they reached 30, passed all five milestones. Among 30-year-olds in 2000, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so.
While the facts are compelling, they don’t necessarily imply that Gen Y is any less well-equipped, lazier or incompetent, entitled or emotionally dependent. In fact, delayed adulthood may be a reasonable adaptation to increased complexity and risk.
Life may not be any more difficult for this generation, but there is little question that it presents more options, and greater ambiguity. The Recession has made matters even more difficult by making meaningful entry level jobs much more difficult to find. Why rush into decisions you may later regret? What does five years matter in the scheme of things if it reduces risk of divorce or an unhappy career choice?
These shifts are difficult for many Boomers and Gen X’ers to understand. We couldn’t wait to get away from home and get on with our lives. It would have been an admission of failure to return home at any point. Only losers did that. Today’s Gen Y’er sees moving home as a practical solution to their problems. Why not save money by living at home while to pursue your dreams rather than settle for less?
While it is difficult to prove, I tend to agree that young adulthood is emerging as a distinct lifestage with its own challenges, distinct from those of adolescents or older adults. I also think this may be a good thing.
There is a strong argument (and much longitudinal data to support it) that young adults are actually more responsible than earlier generations, not less. More are opting for higher education. They are frugal spenders and careful money managers. They value relationships, family and giving back. They want to make sure that what they are spending their money and their time on is worthwhile, not just part of a plan. And if they like their parents well enough to live with them into their twenties, is that such a terrible thing?
Furthermore, as the article points out, society has sent mixed signals as to what we expect of someone 18, 21 or 26.
People can vote at 18, but in some states they don’t age out of foster care until 21.
They can join the military at 18, but they can’t drink until 21.
They can drive at 16, but they can’t rent a car until 25 without some hefty surcharges.
If they are full-time students, the Internal Revenue Service considers them dependents until 24; those without health insurance will soon be able to stay on their parents’ plans even if they’re not in school until age 26, or up to 30 in some states.
Parents have no access to their child’s college records if the child is over 18, but parents’ income is taken into account when the child applies for financial aid up to age 24.
In the end, I think the challenge is for the culture to catch up with Millennials, not for Gen Y to conform to cultural expectations.
Articles like this one in the New York Times suggest the culture has a ways to go if they continue to equate delaying ‘markers of adulthood‘ with ‘ immaturity‘. In fact, it may be just the opposite, a sign of extra-maturity.
Was the Featherbone Parlor a forerunner of NikeTown and the Apple Store?
Was the Featherbone Parlor a forerunner of NikeTown and the Apple Store?
There’s a myth that Millennials don’t like marketing and are indifferent to brands.
The reality is, as my friend Rishad Tobaccowala reminded me last week, that Millennials are ‘besotted with brands‘. While that may seem like a strong choice of words, he isn’t far off the mark. It’s easy to engage a Millennial in a conversation about brands. They love to talk about what their favorite brands are doing, as the buzz about Old Spice Guy and Nike’s World Cup marketing attests. They understand the ‘language’ of brands and the role they play in communicating about culture. And many choose to friend or follow their favorite brands in social media so they can stay up to date on the latest news or provide their feedback. Insider information about brands is strong social currency.
What Millennials actually dislike is interruptive advertising.
This is traditional advertising that is designed to appear everywhere and anywhere, irregardless of context, without personalization, with the single goal of gaining awareness and conveying an idea that may or may not have any relevance to the person seeing it at the moment. This type of advertising is becoming less and less effective because Gen Y (and others) don’t see any reason why they should put up with it and — and don’t.
As marketers look for new ways to engage empowered consumers, ironically they are returning to the origins of marketing. Marketers are finding ways to add value that may have nothing to do with purchase, but everything to do with making consumer’s lives more informed, more interesting, or more convenient. This is marketing that aims to get noticed, even engaged with, by promising that the marketing itself will improve consumers’ lives.
The book having the greatest impact on my thinking at present is Bob Gilbreath’s, The Next Evolution of Marketing: Marketing with Meaning. Gilbreath points out that there’s nothing new about thinking about brands as offering real service and real value independent of purchase. He points out that David Ogilvy’s first ad for Guinness was a reference guide to selecting oysters. The 100-year-old Michelin guide was originally a travel guide for car owners in France ‘complete with information about auto maintenance, lodging, restrooms, and restaurants’ that created awareness for its tires and emboldened consumers to take to the roads. Betty Crocker cook books helped consumers try new recipes and gave them confidence in the kitchen.
Gilbreath believes that the answer to today’s challenge of consumer avoidance of ‘interruptive’ marketing tactics is to return to meaningful approaches like these that connect brands more directly to their target audiences.
I think he’s right. We could learn from these old school marketers. Here’s another example, dating back to the 1880’s. Warren Featherstone was the inventor of the ‘featherbone stay’, a replacement for whalebone stays in corsets created from by-products from the manufacture of feather dusters. Featherstone knew a thing or two about branded utility and community building.
“Featherbone Parlors were established in major cities and fashion shows were held to demonstrate the latest uses of featherbone to customers. With changing fashion styles, Warren kept adding new products and promotional campaigns. Featherbone bustles, bust extenders, featherbone-stiffened fabric, different weights and widths of feather bones, collar and belt foundations were among the new features offered. Promotions included instruction booklets and in 1893 Warren began publishing the Featherbone Magazinette for distribution to dressmakers and retailers plus advertisements in Ladies Home Journal and other women’s magazines. To further reach the home market and dressmaker, Warren patented and market a featherboning attachment for the home sewing machine in 1895. This 3-1/8″ long attachment mounted on the bed of the sewing machine and aided in the insertion of featherbone or stay.” – http://www.fabrics.net/joan905.asp
Think of the ‘featherboning attachment’ as an app and the ‘Featherbone Parlor’ as a 19th Century Apple Store, you can see just how far, or little, we’ve come from those early days. But there’s more. Warren Featherbone also understood the power of philanthropy. In 1917 he “acted on his vision to help create a better world for future generations by establishing the Warren Featherbone Foundation.” The foundation was intended to establish new methods for everyday people to engage in philanthropy. and led directly to the donation of properties for parklands and wilderness areas in the State of Michigan, known as Warren Dunes State Park and Warren Woods.
As we move from an interruptive model to an engagement model for marketing and brand building, brand strategies will also need to evolve, and perhaps what was old will be new again.
Marketers are investigating the power of ’branded utility’, ‘community building’, ‘user generated content’ and new forms of ’cause marketing’ as means for adding value and meaning to their brands.
We may look back and see the ‘Mad Men’ era of mass media as the exception, not the rule in the evolution of marketing.
For some great examples of campaigns that made participation the goal, see “Five Fantastic Campaigns that Put Digital First” by Jim Nichols of Catalyst.
At over 80 million strong, Millennials are a consumer market force today and will be even more important in the future. According to Alloy Media, the college market alone is made up of a record 16 million young adults with collective economic power of over $300 billion, $69 billion of which is discretionary. Yet economic clout is only the the most rudimentary reason marketers should be paying attention to this cohort. Young adults today have greater influence on consumer behavior than their enormous spending power even suggests.
The main reason Millennials matter to marketers is that they indicate future trends to a greater degree than young adults in the past. Here are a few reasons why:
- Technology proficiency has empowered Millennials to weild a disproportionate influence on the culture and on the buying decisions of other generations.
- Millennials are the first to put new technologies to use to make the most of their media time.
- Gen Y’ers are less impulsive shoppesr. They place a priority on experiences rather than possessions, and are more likely to make every purchase a considered one.
- Gen Y’ers also display a distinct generational “personality” when it comes to responding to marketing programs and messages. Consequently, push marketing is on its way out, the new marketing is all about engagement, and much of the shift is due to Millennials.
- Finally, Gen Y cares more about the company behind the products they buy and the places they work. Corporate branding and brand architecture are more important than they have been in the past.
Here are a few of the Millennials trends I have been seeing lately. I wonder how many will move mainstream?
1. TV is escaping the home. Many Millennials are talking about cancelling their cable subscription in favor of seeing shows via their Internet connection or on their mobile devices.
2. Nostalgia is Cool. Maybe it started with Toy Story 3 but Millennials are reconnecting with their childhoods.
3. Facebook Fatigue. Facebook fatigue has begun, or perhaps there are just better options now for connecting with friends. Long live text! (Until something better comes along).
5. Byte Sized: Posts are shorter. Texts are shorter. No one reads to the end.
6. Who Needs a Car? Many are forgoing a car in favor of less expensive and more environmentally conscious transportation.
7. Let’s Be Spontaneous! Last minute travel. Last minute dining. Who needs to plan? Text me!
What are you seeing? What trends are hot? What else is about to jump the shark?
Young people today watch more video in more different places other than traditional TV. This is hardly news.
Study after study has shown a dramatic shift, not in hours spent watching video, but where it is watched.
“Younger Viewers Watching More TV on the Web” – Retrevo 4.12.10 “According to a Retrevo “Pulse Report” of over 1,000 people regarding their TV viewing habits, 23% of people under the age of 25 watch most of their television content online compared with just 8% of people over the age of 25 watching most of their TV shows via the web.”
“Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8-18 year old s” Kaiser Family Foundation Longitudinal research tracked changes in media use 1999-2009 via diary. Loaded with great charts on total media usage and how it breaks out by medium over time. Total hours spent with media has increased by over 2 hours due to multitasking. TV accounts for 4 hours 29 minutes a day, but only 59% (2 hours 39 minutes) is watched live.
“How Teens Watch: The Future of Media is in Their Hands: Nielsen 6.16.10 “12-24 year olds are more connected, more tech savvy, and more likely to use personal devices such as smartphones, laptops and other gadgets for video viewing. They are also less likely to watch traditional television. Teens living at home tend to watch more TV overall than 18-24 year olds busy with college or their first jobs. But the “first screen,” TV, is less central to both.”
But will this behavior shift persist as Gen Y ages?
The Nielsen research raises some interesting questions regarding whether this pattern away from traditional TV and toward time shifted TV or third screen is age and lifestyle related or generational. This may seem like hairsplitting, but actually is important. If the behavior is age and lifestyle related, they may revert back to traditional viewing with age. If it’s generational, however, we’re seeing something more fundamental.
Nielsen suggests the changes may, in fact, be more due to age. But I think it’s generational.
Let’s look closer at the Nielsen analysis. This gets a little convoluted, but bear with me (it helps to look at the chart above as well). According to Nielsen:
“The teens of 2001 watched less than 25 hours of television a week but by 2009 as they aged into 18-24s, they were watching 31 hours of television.
Even more dramatically, the young adults of 2001 watched less than 25 hours of television but watched more than 36 hours a week of television as they aged into the 25-35 cohort.”
This is compelling on the surface, but I think the comparisons are unfair. First, if you compare apples to apples – P18-24 in 2009 vs. P18-24 in 2001 – you see that the total hours of viewing have increased from under 25 per week to 31 per week in 2009. So the increase from P18-24 in 2001 to P25-34 in 2009 is consistent with the overall trend that indicates video watching in general is becoming more, not less, important.
Second, the Nielsen analysis doesn’t account for the fact that the media environment is exploding with options, making it difficult to predict how today’s 18-24′s will behave ten years from now. If the pattern of increased television holds, they will watch more, but that does not necessarily mean it will be on traditional television. ”Convergence” is something that has been predicted for a long time. Given the dramatic changes in time shifted and third screen viewing by Gen Y, it may actually come true sooner than we think. In my opinion, the changes indicate a generational shift. Those in traditional television should take little comfort in the Nielsen analysis.
According to Pew, just 31% of Millennials have no plans to go to college, with the rest either in college, planning to go to college or already graduated. This may be the most educated cohort in history. Yet, there seems to be an increasing sense of uneasiness about the degree to which college is preparing them for life after college.
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.
Of all the impacts of the Recession, the impact on Millennial attitudes and shopping behavior may be the most lasting.
There’s no question, Gen Y has been hit harder than other generations by the double whammy of fewer jobs and higher student loan debt. The result is a generation that is more consciously frugal and actively reconsidering the role of material possessions, luxury, sustainability, career in their lives.
The result may be a new Gen Y aesthetic, one that prizes minimalism and simplicity over luxury and status in the choice of homes, fashion, technology, travel and more.
A recent report by Price Waterhouse Coopers, “The New Consumer Behavior Paradigm: Permanent or Fleeting“, found there is a more careful approach to shopping and consumption across all generations, including Gen Y. Twenty-five percent of 18-27 year olds say their shopping behavior has ‘changed significantly’ and another 47% say it has changed somewhat.
“A more thoughtful approach to spending on luxury and non-discretionary goods is emerging. Shoppers are placing a premium on goods that exhibit qualities of timeliness, usefulness and versatility. Items that make shoppers feel like they are getting something that will hold its value for the money (rather than something that is going to go out of style next season or has limited, narrow usefulness) will be judged worth the investment. Shoppers also continue to look for goods that are “green” or sustainable and appear to be willing to pay a slight premium for green goods that also deliver a personal economic benefit—e.g., energy-saving light bulbs and appliances.”
My favorite source for culture trends is Tim Stock, professor of Design at Parsons School of Design in New York. This week he released a fabulous new presentation focused on the post-recession definition of ‘luxury’ and emerging ‘culture codes‘. According to Stock, “The recession left us acutely aware of the fallacies of finance and the need for sustainability.” At the same time “transparency is forcing us to confront the truths that lay behind the production of our favorite luxury goods.” (See 4.28.10 NYT article “Why does this pair of pants cost $550?” for more evidence.)
Stock’s “Recession Codes” presentation (see below) goes one to explain that not everyone is responding to these pressures the same way. He describes four different segments, Purists, Passport Posses, Guilted Lilies and Brand Heavies. Purists recast traditions in a new way while Passport Posses take a more irreverent stance toward fashion and luxury. Guilted Lilies embrace nature and shun all kinds of ostentation. Only the Heavies have a more traditional view of the meaning of brands. This is powerful stuff and I urge you to at least flip through the presentation.
While Stock doesn’t limit his analysis to one generation, Millennials in particular seem to be embracing the concept of ‘traveling light’ as a way of life.
Many Gen Y-targeted blogs and articles provide advice to others on how to live the frugal life, avoid debt and aim for experiences over stuff. A post from CollegeFashion.net provides “10 Recession Fashionista Tips”, including “Plan Plan Plan”, “Cut back on the frills”, and “write down your debt in a place you’ll see it every time you spend money”.
Whether by necessity or choice, minimalism appears to be the new ‘chic’.
Basics are in. (Sales of Levi’s are on the upswing).
Complexity and clutter are out. (The biggest complaint about the iPad appears to be that it doesn’t do enough to warrant buying a new device. Recycled and vintage are hot. Even the value of an elite education is increasingly being questioned.
Further evidence of the new minimalist aesthetic comes from a blog post last week by Matt Cheuvront, an influential Gen Y blogger and the voice behind “Life Without Pants“. He writes of a “Rising Trend of Minimalist Marketing“:
“The minimalist trend isn’t rising, it’s here, it’s everywhere around us. We’re living in a society that ultimately wants less. We’re condensing our wants to meet our needs – and in a world in which we are absolutely inundated and bombarded with information – we value simple and effective over flash and glamour… I was in the store the other day buying some shampoo and something obvious was staring back at me – gone are the days of the bright pink bottles with crazy typography that scream “look at me”. Now we’re seeing rows upon rows of simple, clean, white bottles with easy to read fonts and clear “messages” about what that product will do for me. Calls to action are clearer, messages are much less fuzzy, and everyone, even Vidal Sasoon, is buying into the minimalist approach.”
Will this trend last? According to Matt Cheuvront, minimalism is not the majority, but it is a growing trend for marketers. Many of the comments in response to his post seem to support the view that fewer gadgets, fewer things and more experiences are the way of the future.
“Minimalist living is something that resonates with me tremendously. I usually don’t get involved in predictions, but I think it’s safe to say that minimalism is here to stay. The thing that appeals to me about the whole thing is the simplicity. Everything stripped to the bare essentials. As a civilization we’ve gone to the extreme end of consumerism (at least in the Western countries) and are now realizing what’s really important.” – Henri J
“However you look at it, minimalism is SO appealing right now. People are sick of feeling overwhelmed. It’s a turn off. How do you appeal to people? Keep it simple. I think the future has simpler living in store with higher quality.” – Melissa G
“I’ve always been a big fan of minimalism in my life, globally, and is a part of all my decisions, particularly from an ecological perspective. I want as few packaged, processed, and plastic things in my life as possible. I live in a small space so that I’m not tempted by the suburban sprawl ethic of always getting more “stuff.” And once you get set in your more minimalist routine – life is a lot more comfortable. And I love seeing that minimalism of all varieties is becoming more mainstream.” – JennSutherland
“With regard to minimalism per se I think a lot of it has been forced by the current world economy which when, coupled with the likes of craigslist and ebay as a simple means to turn unwanted or unnecessary belongings into hard cash, has led people to decide whats important in their lives. I also think that the current economy has turned the traditional college-career-family trajectory right around. A LOT of people who were before totally career-driven (and therefore money-driven) have had that option taken away from them, not through choice, and instead have been forced to drive their energy and enthusiasm into other pursuits, such as enterprise and travelling (and blogging).”
“I am definitely seeing the minimalist marketing as a trend. I agree that as a society we are overwhelmed with information. I genuinely hope that this trend continues and I believe that it will. There is definitely a strong correlation with the “green” movement and the allure of minimalist marketing so I believe that this style of marketing will continue to grow.” - MelliMoore
This trend poses interesting challenges for marketers:
First and foremost they need to create functional products with fewer features, lower cost and lower environmental impact. Beyond this they must find new ways to make their brands meaningful and desirable now that anti-chic is the the new cool. One brand that seems to be ahead of the fashion so to speak is Urban Outfitters. A recent post on TheNextGreatGeneration.com blog explains the source of its appeal. Urban Outfitters creates a unique experience that mimics rummaging through a vintage shop in the East Village. How chic can you get?
