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.
I came to dance, dance, dance, dance
I hit the floor
‘Cause that’s my, plans, plans, plans, plans
I’m wearing all my favorite
Brands, brands, brands, brands
Give me space for both my hands, hands, hands, hands
You, you
Cause it goes on and on and on
And it goes on and on and on
Millennials are suspicious of marketers, skeptical of claims and ignoring ads, but their affinity for brands is undiminished. Gen Y understands that brands are cultural symbols that convey meaning. Brand choice, especially in image driven categories like mobile phones, shoes, entertainment, and clothing brands matters even more to teens and young adults, than to older consumers.
Brand Talk
Keller Fay’s 2010 Talk Track study asked participants use a diary to keep track of their brand conversations between July 2009 and June 2010. The study sample ranged from ages 13 to 69, and included a break out sample of 4,900 teens (ages 13 to 17).
They found that, overall, teens engage in a significantly higher level of word of mouth about all brand categories than the public as a whole. Furthermore, teens are twice as likely as everyone else to hold brand conversations online, although online still accounts for a minority of brand conversations even among teens (13% for teens vs. 7% for general public). (‘ Online’ included email, texting/IM and social networking).
The sheer volume of DAILY conversations about brands is impressive.
- 69% of teens have one or more conversations per day that include food/dining brands, versus 54% of the total public.
- 67%/39% about technology;
- 63%/42% about sports/recreation/hobbies;
- 63%/39% about telecommunications;
- 59%/38% about retail/apparel
- 58%/46% about beverages
- 45%/35% about automotive
- 45%/26% about personal care/beauty
Marketers, Brand Stories and Facebook
This week, Facebook announced a new program called ‘Sponsored Stories‘ designed to generate revenue from these conversations.
When a friend mentions a brand or has any brand interaction such as “Page Likes, App interactions, Place check-ins and Page posts”, that mention will now show up in a separate ‘sponsored stories’ area to the right of the feed. This is to make sure that mention isn’t missed. Here’s a short two-minute video from Facebook explaining how it works.
Make no mistake, Brand Stories are ’advertisements’, but they are likely to receive little or no pushback from Millennials, for they don’t seem like ads. Millennials want to know what brands their friends ‘like’. As the video points out, “anything they would have seen as a sponsored story is something they would already have seen in their newsfeed.” Now, it’s just more likely those interactions will be noticed.
Brandification?
As Millennial Josip Petrusa points out in his blog this week, Sponsored Stories is just a continuation of the ‘Brandification of Your Social Presence”.
“Both Edelman’s “8095” and L2’s “Gen-Y Affluents” reports have verified that Millennials are considerably brand-centric. They love the brand. They love brands. They share brands. They talk brands. They live brands. They speak brands. And they have invested considerable ideological value into them. They have come to represent who they are. When you make this correlation you begin to see the very beginnings of branded social profiles. Brands will no longer come to represent the products that encompass them but the user who empowers them. The user who humanizes them.”
The stories go on and on and on
From my perspective, what Petrusa calls ‘branded social profiles” is the continuation of a trend toward the humanization of brands and the branding of people, places and institutions that has been developing for years. The trend has simply accelerated with the advent of social media.
James Twitchell wrote a provocative book as early 2004, titled “Branded Nation: The Marketing of Megachurch, College, Inc., and Museumworld“ . Twitchell points out the importance of stories to branding in clear terms: ’Often the only thing that separates this ratty rug from that priceless tapestry is a story’.
In the age of social media, ’brand’ stories are no longer confined to the ‘marketplace’ but are now part of culture, both high and low. The difference is that now we are more self-conscious about creating those stories. Here’s Twitchell again:
“And really, isn’t all life about marketing, in a sense? You market yourself to your friends, to your employer, your constituents, and they to you. Your children market themselves to their sport team (pick me! pickme!), schools market themselves (a degree from us is a ticket to success), and even churches market themselves (services at 9 and 11) and their products (forgiveness now, salvation later). Maybe it’s just the illusion of not marketing that we need to dispense with.” (p. 3)
Yet another study appeared today showing Millennials are less interested in driving around in a car than they used to be. Sixty-seven percent of 25- to 34 year-olds say they’d drive less if other options were available.
This study may be a little self-serving (it’s sponsored by ZipCar, click here for the SlideShare presentation), but the evidence was already pretty overwhelming that cars are well-down on the Millennial shopping list. Last spring, Ad Age ran an article titled, “Is The Digital Revolution Driving a Decline in Car Culture?” They reported only 31% of 16-year-olds and 49% of 17-year-olds had licenses, with the decline accelerating rapidly since 1998. Share of miles driven by 20-30 years dropped to 13.7% in 2009 from 20.8% 10 years earlier.
What’s driving the decline in driving?
A whole constellation of factors appears to be at work here: concern about the environment, the poor economy and high unemployment, a shift in priorities toward experiences over stuff, and the availability of better options, such as ZipCar and public transportation.
Beyond these more ‘systemic’ factors however, is a nagging sense that perhaps the automotive industry itself has yet to make cars and the car buying process appealing to Millennials. Last summer the Examiner reported on a study by Wakefield research that found “Millennials Say Buying a Car More Painful than the Dentist“. The study revealed Millennials think cars are unappealing and the purchase process is worse. Here’s what they had to say about buying a car:
More than half of Millennials classify negotiations with a car salesman as more painful than going to the dentist. That common conception certainly isn’t going to help the auto industry. It needs some proverbial laughing gas to make the process a more enjoyable one. Millennials know just the thing. Internet. Eighty-four percent of Millennials agree that having convenient Internet access in the dealership during the car-buying process would make the whole experience seem more “fair and transparent.” More than anything, that means Millennials want to have easy access to research while they’re at the dealership. They’re likely trying already–from their phones.
A study by Microsoft on Millennials and the shopping process revealed similar results. They found Millennials want to connect with car companies through IM (56%), company blogs (74%) and mobile alerts (52%) about new car releases and price drops. Fifty-two percent said they would use self-service kiosks or mobile devices at the dealership rather than talk to a real person.
Pain in the purchase process aside, there is evidence that the industry is not addressing Millennials’ needs: high tech, high mileage, low maintenance cars.
- Technology: Wakefield research also found that 27 percent of Millennials said they would compare today’s cars to a 1980s desktop computer or typewriter. “The more integrated the technology in the car, the easier it fits in their lives”.
- Mileage: Gas mileage is one of the most important factors Millennials consider, according to the Deloitte Automotive 2009 Gen Y Survey. The “Attitudes Toward ‘Green’ Efforts survey, conducted by five Michigan State University grad students, found that Millennials are willing to pay up to $8,000 for a car with an increased 15 miles per gallon.
- Low Maintenance: Cars are expensive to maintain. According to DOT data, it costs $8,000 a year to operate a car based on the average 15,000 annual miles driven. NPD reports that automotive parts stores in geographic areas where Millennials cluster report 11% higher sales of filters, spark plugs, tools and hard parts, and concluded that many are becoming automotive ‘do-it-yourselfers’. After all, if they can fix their computer, why not their car? As this Gen Y’er explains in a short video, “I won’t buy a new car anytime soon” so “I do as much as I can on my own” and when necessary call a friend for help.
All this spells opportunity for car manufacturers. Why not create a car that is designed from the beginning to make D-I-Y an affordable and realistic option? If Millennials are willing to pay more for low mileage, why not follow the lead of Ford, Kia and Scion and offer more fuel efficient cars? If they are used to having fully-featured computers, why would they settle for a stripped down car?
There are some who will object and say the trend is one of delay not denial. It’s possible that as Millennials age, have children and move to the suburbs, their needs will change. Maybe. But, I believe they will continue to look for a different way to satisfy those needs.
If auto marketers aren’t successful in reversing the trend, the ramifications of loss of interest and dependency in cars by Millennials goes beyond the car industry itself. There are implications for housing, urban planning, the auto insurance industry, retailing, and makers of alternative transportion. Perhaps it’s time to invest in bicycles?
What makes someone attractive? When do couples break up? Who is happiest? Turns out social media data analysts have been tackling these questions and more.
Facebook and a free online dating site, OKCupid, each make their research available publicly. As OKCupid says “We run a massive dating site and therefore have unparalleled insight into sex and relationships.”
Social psychologists and anthropologists take heed, here are some of the fascinating insights the data folks have gleaned about tech-enabled romance.
The Facebook Happiness Index: Surprise! Couples are Happier
Facebook looked at the use of positive and negative words in status messages over the course of one week in January and filtered the data by Facebook relationship status.
Finding: “People who are in relationships [in a relationship, engaged, married] do seem happier than those who are not in relationships. …The people that seem the most unhappy are those that either don’t disclose their relationship status or those that are in an open relationship. However, those that don’t disclose their relationship at all are about 50% more negative than everyone else.”
Facebook Break Up Graph: Surprise! Couples Break Up Before Christmas
David McCandless is a designer who pulled information from 10,000 Facebook status updates that had the phrases “break up” or “broken up” in them to see what days of the year break ups happen with the greatest frequency:
Finding: “There are huge spikes of relationship ending statuses during spring break (early March) and in the two weeks leading up to Christmas. Valentines Day, April Fool’s Day, and the Fourth of July are all big breakup times as well. The lowest breakup day of the year, however, is Christmas Day.”
OKCupid Picture Analysis: Surprise: Attractiveness Matters in Online Dating, Especially for Women
Men and women rated photos for attractiveness. Photos were analyzed according to the number of messages they received and whether or not the messages evoked a response from the recipient.
Finding: Site-wide, two-thirds of male messages go to the best-looking third of women. So basically, guys are fighting each other 2-for-1 for the absolute best-rated females, while plenty of potentially charming, even cute, girls go unwritten.
As you’d expect, more attractive people get more replies. And since they themselves get so many more messages than everyone else, they write back much less frequently.
OKCupid Picture Analysis: Advice for Women: Look Into Camera and Look ‘Flirty’
A random data set of 7,140 chosen from all female users in big cities, with only one profile photograph, between the ages of 18 and 32, and “average-looking people;” (no extremes of attractiveness or unattractiveness). To quantify “profile success” for women, new messages received per active month on the site was used.
Finding: “For women, a smile isn’t strictly better: she actually gets the most messages by flirting directly into the camera. However, flirting away from the camera is the single worst attitude a woman can take. Certain social etiquettes apply even online: if you’re going to be making eyes at someone, it should be with the person looking at your picture. The Cleavage Shot is very successful, drawing 12.9 new contacts per month, or 49% more than average.”
OKCupid Picture Analysis: Advice for Men: Look Away From the Camera and Look Mysterious
A different metric was used for men because they are more likely to initiate a ‘hello’ than women. The metric for effectiveness for men is the ratio of “women met per attempt”. Basically, this is how many women a guy has a conversation with, per new woman he reaches out to.
Finding: “Men’s photos are most effective when they look away from the camera anddon’t smile. Maybe women want a little mystery. What is he looking at? Slashdot? Or Engadget? While making flirty eye contact is relatively okay for men, flirting away from the camera is the worst thing they, too, can do…
If you’re a guy with a nice body, it’s actually better to take off your shirt than to leave it on. If you’re not the type of guy who can show off your muscles, don’t veer off in the opposite direction and get all dressed up. Outfits more sophisticated than a simple collared shirt fare poorly.”
OKCupid Picture Analysis: Advice to All: Show Yourself Doing Something Interesting
Incoming contacts and answers were mathmatically modeled to see if the messages generated by a photo went unanswered or turned into legitimate conversations as measured by the number of messages back and forth.
Finding: “If you want worthwhile messages in your inbox, the value of being conversation-worthy, as opposed to merely sexy, cannot be overstated.”
OKCupid: Gays Are Not Sexually Interested in Straights
We combed through over 4 million match searches by gays and straights.
Finding: “We found virtually no evidence to support the idea that gay men or women search for straight matches. Only 0.6% of gay men have ever searched for straight matches, only 0.1% of lesbians have ever searched for straight matches and only 0.13% of straight people’s profile visitors are gay.”
Links to the full stories:
The Facebook Happiness Index (Mashable)
Couples Most Likely to Break Up at Christmas (Yahoo)
Your Looks and Online Dating (OKCupid Blog)
The Four Big Myths of Profile Pictures (OKCupid Blog)
Gay Sex vs. Straight Sex (OKCupid Blog)
If you had an extra $100 what would you do with it? It’s an interesting question that can reveal a lot about a person’s spending priorities.
A few years ago we conducted a series of studies for JC Penney to understand the ‘cross channel shopper’. One of the tasks assigned respondents was to spend $100 any way they liked. We required them to bring in the receipts and the merchandise to share with us what they bought where and why. It was a blast. The women had a great time sharing their bargains and experiences, and we couldn’t believe how much they got for the money. Likewise in some work for Wal-Mart we asked people to recount their greatest ‘bargain’ of the last year. Some think of bargains in terms of full shopping carts, others in terms of deep discounts on big ticket items. It’s the differences that made the exercises interesting.
Over the last few weeks, The Next Great Generation Blog has profiled members through the device of ‘Ten Questions’. Amid questions about products you can’t live without, favorite books and scandalous escapades, the blog asks participants, “ If you unexpectedly received $100 today, what would you spend it on?
As you would expect, the responses vary widely based on employment status and age. Nevertheless, the commonality is the desire to spend it on travel, dining out and social experiences. No one mentions an iPad or more gadgets.
If you unexpectedly received $100 today, what would you spend it on?
Angela Stefano: Rent? Food? My heating bill, so I don’t freeze in cold, snowy Buffalo? Sorry, I’m boring. Or I’d go spend it on a concert ticket (two, if I’m lucky and buy from the box office to avoid Ticketmaster’s stupid fees!). Or a plane ticket to Boston. Depends what bills are stuck to my fridge, what shows I’m debating going to and how badly I miss Boston when you hand me that hundo.
Evan Roberts: I haven’t bought shoes in at least a year, so a pair of black Johnston & Murphy Ainsworths (now on sale).
Caitlin Tremblay: Right now? Well I have a Pinkberry craving and that shit’s expensive. I get the chocolate with Cap’n Crunch on it if you’re delivering. Considering grad school is stressing me out (more than I’ve ever been in my life) I’d probably drag some of my friends to Lion’s Head Tavern and grab some Shock Tops and nachos…because that’s just the kind of gal I am. And their nachos are TO DIE FOR. Not kidding. Book a flight to NYC and take the 1 train to 110th. See you there.
Adam DiStefano: Nothing. I’d put it in my wallet and use it like pocket money (which probably means it would end up being used on food or drink).
Kayla Brown: Right now? Right this second? Let’s see… I’m out of conditioner… and my car insurance is due. I think I’d rather buy a sparkly dress and take a handful of over-worked, over-tired, over-caffeinated friends out for an epic adventure in the City of Dreams. Afterward, I’d buy them all omelettes with sides of delicious diner toast. This might sound like an oxymoron, but omelettes with buttery diner raisin-toast at ungodly hours of the morning is the closest thing to heaven. I think I’m over-budget. :o(
Colby Gergen, 21: Seriously? $100? I mean, I could buy a nice pair of jeans, but I already have 2 pairs and they do me just fine. I would probably buy something for my girlfriend, if I had a girlfriend (ladies…). What I’m trying to say is that if I received $100 today, right now at 1:00 am, I would buy more coffee.
Alex Pearlman, 23: Probably booze and cigarettes, which is where most of my money goes. But I might also treat myself and a friend to a fancy dinner, meaning it would be a fancy place, and we would also wear fancy clothes – one of my favorite activities.
Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditures data seems to support the qualitative insights from TNGG. In general, with the exception of apparel, young adult households seem to put a greater priority on services (other than health-related) than households in general.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics 2009 Expenditures Study, the “average” household headed by a person under 30 has these characteristics:
Age: 24.5 years old
Household Income: $40, 356
Renters: 73%
Amount spent on rent: $5,111
Household size: 2.3 (earners 1.4)
Amount spent on food: At home: $2,828 Away from home: $2,204
At least one vehicle: 80%
As an age cohort, these under 30 households have about 64% of the average after tax income for all households, and spend about 73% of what an average household spends. Categories where they spend proportionately less than average relative to their proportion of after tax income (64%) (i.e., underindex) include:
Cash contributions (34%)
Fees & admission (52%)
Postage and stationery (55%)
Floor coverings (27%)
Cars and trucks (new) (47%)
Health care / health insurance (36%)
Life insurance (34%)
Reading (46%)
Housekeeping supplies (59%)
Categories where they spend more than average relative to after tax income (overindex) include::
Food at home (75%)
Food away from home (84%)
Alcoholic beverages (96%)
Personal services (94%)
Men’s and women’s apparel (91%)
Education (138%)
As marketers think about how to bring products and services to the young adult market, they should try to think of how to cast those products more as ‘life enhancing experiences’ than as ’stuff’. Most products have at least some service component, or some opportunity to enhance the experience through additional services.
Note: For a fun way to explore differences in spending patterns or compare your own to average, check out Bundle.com
Crowdsourcing gets a lot of attention these days. Based on the idea that there is wisdom in numbers, the idea is to harness that wisdom on behalf of innovation or evaluation.
Yet there is something reassuring about knowing who’s opinion you are trusting. Our Millennial Marketing community of Gen Y ‘Super Consumers’ provides an alternative to crowdsourcing.
Our over 100 members are widely scattered across 20 states in the US., and internationally –in Germany, the UK and Brazil. Four are in Boston, Seven from Chicago, and 8 from New York. About half are women and half are employed full time although not necessarily just the women. Many PR and digital agencies are represented in the mix: Edelman, Burson, McCann, Unilever, Mullen, Strawberry Frog, BBHLabs and Intel to name just a few. The rest are students or interns, working part-time or looking for work.
The biggest commonality is a passion for social media. Half describe themselves as ‘social media enthusiasts’ and several are ‘community managers’. Nearly all use Twitter, and many maintain blogs. Most important, they love to talk about marketing. There are lively discussions of technology, social media, finding communities of interest, nostalgia and more.
The community is closed, by invitation only, so this represents a private space to have conversations that aren’t open to the world.
I recently asked the community their opinion of crowdsourcing. Here’s what I heard:
Josip Petrusa: Although crowdsourcing is powerful, the idea itself implies that you simply ask a crowd a question and members from the crowd will answer back. Whereas the idea of community and community-sourcing imply a stronger and more elaborate process. Even though in both cases I’m sure the process is quite similar, being a community and being a crowd speak two different tones.
Rebecca Denison: I agree 100%, Josip! I like that you bring up the difference between a crowd and a community. Anyone can be part of a random crowd, but community suggests something much stronger and more relevant.
Community sourcing doesn’t have the scale of crowdsourcing, but it has the advantage of asking people who actually have a stake in the answer. We think it should be a part of developing Gen Y targeted programs. After all, who better to not just respond to an idea, but provide their own ideas on how to make it better than Gen Y marketers?
Our proposals for Gen Y marketers generally suggest three phases:
Discovery: What is known about how Millennials feel about the category or subject?
Community Research: What does our community say about the topic? What ideas do they have for making the client programs stronger or more targeted?
Recommendations and Validation: Broader scale research to test ideas among a wider population of Millennials.
If you are interested in learning what this hand-selected group of savvy Gen Y marketers thinks of your program, I’d love to hear from you. And if you are an under 30 Gen Y marketer, contact me for an invitation to join us!
The Millennial vote pushed Obama into the White House almost two years ago, helped by a remarkable alignment of values (optimism, change, yes we can), savvy online fundraising and Millennial-targeted marketing. Young voters went for Obama 2:1 over McCain in an election that appeared to signal a generation-long political realignment.
Twenty-three million young adults voted in 2008. Today there are even more Millennial voters, but early indications suggest the Gen Y vote will not be as unified as in 2008.
- NYT data through July 2010 (left) shows Gen Y is not as keen on either the Democrats or Obama as they once were. Just 50% of those born after 1981 approve of the President, down from nearly 3/4′s in early 2009.
- Pew Research data through April 2010 shows that the bounce Obama gave the Dem’s in terms of Millennial party affiliation (again defined as those born post-1981) has reverted to pre-election levels.
I tend to doubt Millennials will move to the polls in November to express their unhappiness, as they tend not to be a generation given to loud complaining or extremes. But there is evidence that, like many older Americans, they are unhappy with the economy, and worried about their ability to afford the current government spending spree.
CNN reported today that young investors are becoming much more conservative than they were 10 years ago. In fact, young investors today are more conservative than any other generation. Just 22% of investors under age 35 say they are willing to ‘take a substantial risk’ with their investments, down from 30% in 2001 and the lowest of any age group. Normally this is a group that is most willing to take risk as they have time to recover should something go really wrong. The data suggest they think things have already gone really wrong and aren’t optimistic about near term recovery.
The WSJ reported last week that non-college educated Millennials are especially stressed, both financially and socially. In an article titled “The Generation That Can’t Move Up” (9.3.10), the Journal uses compelling statistics paint a bleak picture of working class young adults who are increasingly constrained in their life choices, delaying marriage, having more children while co-habitating due to a lack of confidence about their ability to maintain steady work, and dropping out of religious traditions faster than their college educated peers. The article, written by a sociology professor and the director of an research institute on marriage, concludes this way:
“What happens, then, when the job-market conditions that once allowed most high-school educated American to connect tot he rest of society through hard work, marriage and religious participation no longer exist? Will working-class young adults begin to devalue marriage and religion, or will they fiercely hold onto these ideals because their values are all that they have left? Will their social disengagement leave them vulnerable to political appeals based on anger and fear?”
Statistics like these suggest that the Democrats have some work to do if they want to maintain their edge among young voters. Obama and his advisors would do well to investigate how to re-engage young voters with messages that resonate with Gen Y issues.
At the same time, Republicans have an opportunity, but to capitalize on the disillusionment, but it will require more than running against the status quo. They must articulate what they are for and how it will benefit young Americans directly.
Attack ads, which are likely to be a standard tactic this Fall for both parties, are unlikely to do anything than drive further apathy and distrust among Millennials. In fact, Millennials are distrustful of extremes. Research by Millennial-research firm, Civic Sciences, revealed they tend to shy away from even the polar ends of rating scales. And they don’t like it when advertisers bash their competition, so why would they find negative political ads compelling?
As the Obama campaign proved two years ago, Millennials will respond to positive approaches and new ideas.
A report by the research group, AmericanProgress.org, details the results of a survey on Millennial attitudes toward government. They conclude:
Despite their relatively positive outlook [toward government], though, Millennials do share their elders’ concerns that the federal government is often poorly managed and spends money inefficiently, the survey found. Young adults are particularly receptive to a reform agenda that would strip wasteful spending and focus on improvements in the delivery of government services. Millennials will reward politicians who adhere to these principles with their votes.
I love the Vanity Fair/ 60 Minutes poll because it asks questions I wouldn’t think to ask. This month, two questions caught my eye. Both questions are theoretical, and the results by age group surprised me. They underscore how differently Millennials often see the world.
1. Look Back or Look Ahead?
The Question: “If time travel existed, was readily available, and you were guaranteed to return to the present, would you prefer to travel to the past or to the future?”
The Answer: For Millennials (those under 30), the answer is resoundingly the past. Seventy-one percent said they would choose going back rather than into the future. This compares to just 59% for Boomers (45-64). Why the desire to return to another time? I have no idea, but can only guess that they will be around to see the future, while the rest of us will not? At any rate, it’s an interesting window into how they think.
2. Best Thing That Could Happen?
The Question: “If one of the following things could happen to you without any effort on your part, which one would you pick?” Receive $10,000 fax-free, Get a college or advanced degree, become fluent in a ntoher language, be one year younger, lose 10 pounds.
The Answer: Those under 30 elected education over money by a wide margin – 46% vs. 23%. Among Boomers and Gen X, the majority (43% and 45% respectively) would choose the $10,000. This makes a little more sense, but I still would have expected more to opt for the money.
My point? It’s dangerous to project your own preferences on another generation — and especially on Gen Y. They tend to surprise us. That’s why it’s essential to have a listening post.
Does your company make an effort to stay in touch with how under 30 consumers think? I am fortunate to be interacting with students and young marketers nearly every day. Without that connection, I would be in real trouble. If you are looking to plug in, here are some ideas for getting and staying connected with Millennial consumers:
1. Recruit Gen Y brand ambassadors and create an advisory council. Off Campus Media has extensive experience recruiting student brand ambassadors. Or look to your Facebook page for young influentials who have already indicated an affinity for your brand.
2. Start a Gen-Y specific market research community. This is the route Mercedes Benz took with its Gen Benz MROC.
3. Tap an existing Gen Y panel. There are several good panels available to marketers, such as Colangelo’s YTribes community.
Our Millennial Marketing Gen Y ‘Super Consumer’ community is available to any marketer who wants to connect with savvy young marketing professionals.
This group was hand-selected to represent the best of entry level marketers in PR, digital advertising and brand marketing. Josip Petrusa is one of the roughly 100 young marketers who belongs to the community. Josip blogs nearly daily about marketing to Gen Y. He suggests the best way to get to know this generation is to engage with them directly. Since he says it better than I can, here is a portion of his recent blog post, “Are You Crowdsourcing Gen Y? Maybe You Should Be”.
“What better way to understand the elusive, loyal but not loyal, always buying but can’t be reached through advertising, wanting everything, always connected Millennial generation. The combination of having the ability to get useful information quickly and reach has created a great movement towards Gen-Y Crowdsourcing communities.
Mercedes Benz has done it with Generation Benz, IBM has got into the action and as of late,Durex joined the game by creating it’s own Gen-Y initiatives. Crowdsourcing is definitely not a new idea. But at this moment in time, it’s becoming increasingly valuable just like stumbling onto a diamond in the rough. And though this example is only but a few companies that have gone the way of strategically using crowdsourcing, there is also the emergence of online research communities directed at fulfilling the needs of anyone. At a moments notice, you could quite literally receive powerful and profound information.
Gen-Y Crowdsourcing Communities, such as the Millennial Marketing Super Consumer Community, are fascinating areas companies, brands and corporations should be interested in, investigating and using. This is not just an assortment of random individuals. It is a delicate process of hand-picking the right minds for the subject matter. And I would know this, since I am a member of said community.
Crowdsourcing for Gen-Y thoughts is extremely powerful. Not only does it remove the company centric approach many companies painstakingly fail with, it allows the customer to say what they think, ultimately giving those who need the information the right direction to head in. You’d be surprised what Millennials have to say. After all many people are more than surprised and shocked once they realise I’m a twentysomething myself.
So why leave it to the old adage of “from the outside looking in.” Come join us Millennials on the inside. We’ll amaze you more than you think. We’re more capable and useful than you even know.”
For more information on Brand Amplitude’s Gen Y community contact Carol Phillips. http://twitter.com/carol_phillips
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.
Nearly 20 years ago, William Strauss and Neil Howe wrote a book that theorized a 22 year generational cycle based on repeating generational archetypes called simply “Generations“. They called these cycles ‘turnings’. Children raised during a particular Turning share similar historical and cultural experiences, which results in their being like each other, and different from other generations. This was to my knowledge the first appearance of the word ‘Millennials’.
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.
