I just read an amazing article from Marketing by Naomi Wohl, a young strategic planner at Ogilvy in Toronto. Millennials have a unique sense of timelessness. They want it now, and ‘forever’ has little meaning. Naomi explains why. It’s a little long, but I want to share most of it as it was written. I hope you enjoy it as much I did. She captures an essential truth of this generation that I haven’t heard expressed this well anyplace else. Enjoy!
The concept of forever is lost-literally. Timelessnessgone. Moments that will last a lifetime-MIA. We are in the Age of The Here and Now. The Age of Moment to Moment. The Age of ADD. ….Nothing creates fleeting experiences like our current culture of technology. Why buy a car when you can lease it? Why sign a cellphone contract when you can pay as you go? The newest iPod and flat-screen TV models are being designed just as their predecessors arrive on shelves. We buy in anticipation of getting the upgrade. We revel in the current model’s inadequacies because we’re so amazed at how quickly they can be improved. We live in a time in which lifetime warranties are meaningless. …
And who bears the brunt of this phenomenon? It’s the very same people engineering it-Generation Y. We are aged 18 to 28, and possess or have access to amazing stores of knowledge — though it is matched by an even greater indifference. We are a generation of silent overachievers (pretending we don’t really care), genetically and culturally encoded to think fast, want more, and crave new. We were built for this time; an ephemeral culture created by us, for us.
We repel things that last longer, and as a result, our attention span is getting shorter. I’m emotionally attached to my PVR. My high-speed Internet isn’t fast enough; I’ve had to upgrade to “Extreme.” I multi-task. I have developed an uncontrollable jittering knee when other things and people move too slowly. Do I sound anxious? Irritable? Maybe some pharmaceutical company is working on the drug for my Gen Y disease. Dear marketers, if you want to reach me, you’ll have to catch me. And please be quick about it.
For us, the concept of friendship has even changed from terms like “BFF,” to join my entourage on Facebook. As for relationships, the success and growth rate of online dating sites suggests we’re searching not for the partner who is a fit forever, but for the partner who is a fit nght now.
And yet, despite our current transient attitude, we are desperate to make the moment last. For those of us who want to try our hand at singing, dating, dancing, fashion designing, modeling, inventing, cooking or 5th grade math-prime-time programming can make us famous. In the wake of impermanence, fame enablers like reality TV, YouTube videos, or even Guitar Hero, give us a chance to be a rock star. Even if you only get to enjoy the fame for a moment, there’s a chance to make that moment last.
And last and last. Because thanks to the environment, all of a sudden forever matters again to Gen Y. Our long-term temporary thinking has led us into a permanent crisis, scrambling to reverse our hardwired non-committal nature with an undying pledge to preservation and conservation. The environment is the quintessential cause rallying the masses today. Never have we collectively been so dedicated to sustainability. We can fill the blue box at home, join the MySpace group for alternative energy and buy organic. If everything else in our lives is so temporary, why is this cause so captivating? Maybe we long for something to matter. Maybe we fear our lives will come and go as inconsequentially as all the fleeting experiences that filled them. We’re desperate to make something last. So we’ll endorse the cause and work to create a world that will never know we were even here.
For you marketers, trying desperately to grab my Gen Y attention as I rush by, here are some tips.
Firstly, your brand needs to be the new transformer of our time-capable of renewal and regeneration while demonstrating that essential I-can’t-live-without-you shiny feature. Next, don’t linger. Tell me what you want to tell me, but tell me quickly, because I’m already looking in someone else’s direction. And finally, be meaningful. Be the inside joke that only Gen Y gets; self deprecating but not insulting. Be Optimus Prime. Be my hero, and I’ll be your rock star.
