Brands looking for advocates would do well to target Millennials.

Compared to other age groups, Gen Y is more inclined to share their opinions about purchases, both online and off line.

New data from Synovate, reported by Emarketer this week (see chart left), provides strong evidence that making and taking friends’ purchase recommendations are more important to younger consumers  than older groups.   The chart to the left shows the youngest groups (those 18-24 and 25-34)  were more likely than other age groups to have participated in nearly every one of the nine listed activities. Not surprisingly, the largest gaps between age groups were seen for online activities.

What makes this chart particularly interesting, however, is that it shows the desire to share  links / provide advice /rate /review / recommend was not limited to online formats.

In fact, one of the largest age gaps was seen for “Taking an active role in organizing an offline event or meet up for a group that originally met online”.  The figures by age for this activity closely parallel the figures for “Publishing a blog”. This alignment strongly suggests that young bloggers are more influential than older consumes both offline and online.

Chart and data from “Harnessing Active Brand Advocates“, E-Marketer, Jan 11, 2010.