According to a Pew Research report, Millennials are markedly less cynical than older generations — at least as far as putting faith in government and business institutions. A full 82 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds agree with the statement, “the strength of this country is mostly based on the success of American business”. Agreement with this statement among Millennials actually increased 5 percentage points over the past four years. In contrast, agreement among other age groups is much lower and has decreased. 
The gap is even more pronounced when it comes to perception of government. Just 42 percent of people under 30 agree with the statement, “When something is run by the government, it is usually inefficient and wasteful”, compared to 62 percent overall (see chart).
These statistics are not that surprising and help explain the success of Barack Obama’s “change” message among Millennials. They do believe that all of us can do better, that government can be the solution not the problem and that business is a place to make a difference in the world. The College Board has been tracking the most popular majors for over 30 years. While the popularity of business as a major has declined from its peak in the 1980s, it is still the most popular major, beating the runner ups of health, biology, engineering and education by a wide margin.
The paradox here is that Millennials are entirely cynical and suspicious when it comes to marketing. My marketing students at University of Notre Dame uniformly believe that advertisers lie, that there is a catch to every offer and are willing to believe the worst customer service and product horror stories. I published an article in Ad Age: “Clued in or Clueless, What Marketing Students don’t know about Marketing.” I asserted that students routinely dismiss claims made in advertisements, without considering that it might be illegal or that there are natural checks and balances against lying in ads. The response from Millennials was denial. Here’s a sample of what Millennials had to say:
They also know that ads aren’t allowed to lie, but they do know that lying ads and false claims slip by and have to be brought to court to be disputed or distort the truth just enough to be factually accurate yet coming off with a different claim. This is why they’re skeptical. They don’t put much stock in enforcement and compliance, while well aware of the laws.
So my question is, if Millennials are truly are less cynical, why doesn’t their lack of cynicism extend to marketing messages?
