Posts Tagged 'Youth marketing'

Common Misperceptions About Millennials

Published February 2, 2020 Generations , Marketing , Millennials , Youth Marketing Leave a Comment
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We’ve been researching Millennials literally since they have been old enough to fill out surveys. Over time, we have found that clients cling to common misperceptions of this generation and that the nature of these misperceptions haven’t evolved as Millennials have come of age.

Millennials are the most studied generation in history, likely because they are such a large group (there are now more Millennials in the US than Boomers) and because they are poised to soon become a dominant force in the economy, in politics, and in our culture.

There are enduring misconceptions about Millennials. Many stem from our inability to grasp that Millennials are distinctly different from their Gen X predecessors. Perhaps the worst mistake we can make is to assume that Millennials will behave in an “X” fashion rather than view them as a separate group.

Below are some common misconceptions we see that relate to Millennials.

  • Today’s kids and teens are Millennials. This is false as Millennials have now largely grown up. If you use the Howe/Strauss Millennial birth years Millennials currently range from about 16 to 38 years old. If you prefer Pew’s breaks Millennials are currently aged 23 to 38. Either way, Millennials are better thought of as being in a young adult/early career life stage than as teenagers.
  • Millennials are “digital natives” who know more about technology than other generations. This is, at best, partially true. The first half of the generation, born in 1982, hardly grew up with today’s interactive technology. The iPhone came out in 2007 when the first Millennial was 25 years old. Millennials discovered these technologies along with the rest of us. A recent Pew study on technological ownership showed that Millennials do own more technology than Boomers and Xers, but that the gap isn’t all that large. For years we have counseled clients that parents and teachers are more technologically advanced than commonly thought. Don’t forget that the entrepreneurial creators of this technology are mainly Boomers and Xers, and not Millennials.
  • Millennials are all saddled with college debt. We want to tread lightly here, as we would not want to minimize the issue of college debt which affects many young people and constrains their lives in many ways. But we do want to put college debt in the proper perspective. The average Millennial has significant debt, but the reality is the bulk of the debt they hold is credit card debt and not college debt. College debt is just 16% of the total debt held by Millennials. According to the College Board 29% of bachelor’s degree graduates have no college debt at all, 24% have under $20,000 in debt, 30% have between $20,000 and $30,000 in debt, and 31% have over $30,000 in college debt. The College Board also reports that a 4-year college graduate can expect to make about $25,000 per year more than a non-graduate. It is natural for people of all generations to have debt in their young adult/early professional life stage and this isn’t unique to Millennials. What is unique is their debt levels are high and multi-faceted. Our view is that college debt per se is not the core issue for Millennials, as most have manageable levels of college debt and college is a financially worthwhile investment for most of them. But college debt levels continue to grow and have a cascading effect and lead to other types of debts. College debt is a problem, but mostly because it is a catalyst for other problems facing Millennials. So, this statement is true, but is more nuanced than is commonly perceived.
  • Millennials are fickle and not loyal to brands. This myth has held sway since before the generation was named. I cannot tell you how many market research projects I have conducted that have shown that Millennials are more brand loyal than other generations. They express positive views of products online at a rate many times greater than the level of complaints they express. Of course, they have typical young person behaviors of variety-seeking and exploration, but they live in a crazy world of information, misinformation, and choice. Brand loyalty is a defense mechanism for them.
  • Millennials are fickle and not loyal to employers. On the employer side, surveys show that Millennials seek stability in employment. They want to be continuously challenged and stay on a learning curve. We feel that issues with employer loyalty for Millennials go both ways and employers have become less paternalistic and value young employees less than in past times. That is the primary driver of Millennials switching employers. There are studies that suggest that Millennials are staying with employers longer than Gen X employees did.
  • Millennials are entrepreneurial. In reality, we expect Millennials to be perhaps the least entrepreneurial of all the modern generations. (We wrote an entire blog post on this issue.)
  • Millennials seek constant praise. This is the generation that grew up with participation trophies and gold stars on everything (provided by their Boomer parents). However, praise is not really what Millennials seek. Feedback is. They come from a world of online reviews, constant educational testing, and close supervision. The result is Millennials have a constant need to know where they stand. This is not the same as praise.
  • Millennials were poorly parented. The generation that was poorly parented was Gen X. These were the latch-key kids who were lightly supervised. Millennials have been close with their parents from birth. At college, the “typical” Millennial has contact with their parent more than 10 times per week. Upon graduation, many of them choose to live with, or nearby their parents even when there is no financial need to do so. Their family ties are strong.
  • Millennials are all the same. Whenever we look at segments, we run a risk of typecasting people and assuming all segment members are alike.  The “art” of segmentation in a market research study is to balance the variability between segments with the variability within them in a way that informs marketers. Millennials are diverse. They are the most racially diverse generation in American history, they span a wide age range, they cover a range of economic backgrounds, and are represented across the political spectrum. The result is while there is value in understanding Millennials as a segment, there is no typical Millennial.

When composing this post, I typed “Millennials are …” into a Google search box. The first thing that came up to complete my query was “Millennials are lazy entitled narcissists.” When I typed “Boomers are …” the first result was “Boomers are thriving.”  When I typed “Gen X is …” the first result was “Gen X is tired.” This alone should convince you that there are serious misconceptions of all generations.

Millennials are the most educated, most connected generation ever. I believe that history will show that Millennials effectively corrected for the excesses of Boomers and set the country and the world on a better course.

Is getting a driver’s license still a rite of passage for teens?

Published February 4, 2019 Gen Z , Generations , Marketing , Millennials , Youth Marketing 1 Comment
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In the 80’s and 90’s, before the Millennial generation hit their teen years in force, we would use “driver’s license status” as a key classification variable in studies. Rather than split focus groups by age or grade in school, we would often place teens who had their license in one group and those who did not have their license yet in another group. Regardless of the topic of the group. We found that teens with licenses were more independent of their parents and more capable of making decisions without parental input. Drivers license obtention was often better predictor of consumer behavior than age.

Young people experience many rites of passages in a short period of time. These are experiences that signify a change in their development. They ride the school bus for the first time, get their first smartphone, enter high school, go to the prom, leave home to go to college, vote for the first time, etc. As marketers, we have always looked at these inflection points as times when consumer behavior shifts. The obtaining of a driver’s license is traditionally seen as a watershed moment as it signifies a new level of independence.

However, this wisdom no longer holds. Millennials, particularly second wave Millennials, are not as focused on obtaining drivers licenses as their Boomer and Xer parents were. Where I grew up, we couldn’t wait until our 16th birthday so we could get our learner’s permit. My classmates and I usually took our road tests at the first opportunity. Failing the road test was a traumatic experience, as it caused us to remain in our parents’ control for a few more months.

This is no longer the case. In 1983, 46% of America’s 16-year-olds had a driver’s license. That is now less than 25% currently. I was very surprised to notice that my children and their friends seemed to be in no particular rush to get their licenses. Many times, it was the parents that pushed the kids to take their road test, as the parents were tiring of chaperoning the kids from place to place.

There are likely things that have caused this change:

  • Today’s parents are highly protective of children. Parents no longer push their children to be as independent as quickly.
  • There are societal pressures. In most states, there are more stringent requirements in terms of driving experience to be able to take a road test and more restrictions on what a younger driver can do with his/her license. The license simply isn’t as valuable as it used to be.
  • Driving has peaked in the US. People are driving less frequently and fewer miles when they do. There has also been a movement of the population to urban areas which have more mass transit.
  • The decline of retail has played a part. Going to the mall was a common weekend activity for Xer teens. Now, staying home and shopping on Amazon is more common. Millennials never went to the mall to socialize.
  • Online entertainment options have proliferated. Movies and shows are readily streamed. Many teens fulfill a need for socialization via gaming, where they interact with their friends and make new ones. This need could only be met in person in the past.
  • Teens are working less so have less of a need to drive to work. Of course, this means they have less of their own money and that tethers them to their parents even longer.

There are likely many other causes. But the result is clear. Teens are getting licenses later and using them less than they did a generation ago.

As a result, researchers have lost a perfectly good measure! Obtaining a driver’s license is not as strong a rite of passage as it used to be.

We’ve been thinking about what might make a good alternative measure. What life event do young people experience that changes them in terms of granting their independence from parents? Leaving home and living independently for the first time would qualify but seems a bit late to be useful. There may be no clear marker signifying independence for Millennials, as they stay dependent on parents across a much wider time period than in the past. Or, perhaps we need to change our definition of independence.

Battle of the Brands is available for purchase!

Published January 4, 2017 Generations , Millennials , New Studies , Youth Marketing Leave a Comment
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boxing-glove

How does your brand compete with others in the battle to win today’s youth?

Crux Research has conducted a syndicated study of 57 youth-oriented brands that is available for purchase on Collaborata.  We have a “data only” option for sale for $4,900 and an option including a full report and consultation/presentation for $9,500.

Brands that succeed with Millennials can enjoy their loyalty for years to come. This study’s 13- to 24-year-old group is often given short shrift by brands that have a more adult target. That can prove to be short-sighted thinking. Teens and young adults not only spend significant amounts of their own money, they also influence the spending of parents, siblings, and other adults in their lives. They are the adult shoppers of the future; building a relationship with them now can translate into loyalty that lasts their lifetime. This study shows you exactly where your brand fares among this critical cohort right now and what you need to do increase young consumers’ engagement with your brand.

More information about this study can be found here.

Objectives for our “Battle of the Brands” project are as follows:

  • Compare and contrast the relative strengths across a variety of measures of 57 youth-oriented brands.
  • See how your brand is “personalized” — learn where it statistically maps across 32 brand personality dimensions.
  • Discover how the 57 brands fare on the key measures of Awareness, Brand Interaction, Brand Connection, Brand Popularity, and Motivation.
  • Take away key insights into why some brand succeed, while others struggle, with these Millennials and Gen Z consumers.
  • These brands have been selected from a wide range of categories, including social causes, media and entertainment, retail, technology, and consumer packaged goods.

Become a co-sponsor of this actionable today! Increase your brand’s youth standing tomorrow.

Congratulations to Truth Initiative!

Published June 6, 2016 Generations , Marketing , Millennials Leave a Comment
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Congratulations again to our client, Truth Initiative!  Last week Truth won 4 Effies and 2 Big Apple awards for its anti-tobacco campaigns.

Read more about these wins here:  truth campaign grabs 4 effies, 2 big apple awards.

Asking about gender and sexual orientation on surveys

Published March 2, 2016 Education , Generations , Marketing , Methodology , Millennials , Youth Marketing Leave a Comment
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When composing questionnaires, there are times when the simplest of questions have to adjust to fit the times. Questions we draft become catalysts for larger discussions. That has been the case with what was once the most basic of all questions – asking a respondent for their gender.

This is probably the most commonly asked question in the history of survey research. And it seems basic – we typically just ask:

  • Are you… male or female?

Or, if we are working with younger respondents, we ask:

  • Are you … a boy or a girl?

The question is almost never refused and I’ve never seen any research to suggest this is anything other than a highly reliable measure.

Simple, right?

But, we are in the midst of an important shift in the social norms towards alternative gender classifications. Traditionally, meaning up until a couple of years ago, if we wanted to classify homosexual respondents we wouldn’t come right out and ask the question, for fear that it would be refused or be found to be an offensive question for many respondents. Instead, we would tend to ask respondents to check off a list of causes that they support. If they chose “gay rights”, we would then go ahead and ask if they were gay or straight. Perhaps this was too politically correct, but it was an effective way to classify respondents in a way that wasn’t likely to offend.

We no longer ask it that way. We still ask if the respondent is male or female, but we follow up to ask if they are heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, etc.

We recently completed a study among 4-year college students where we posed this question.  Results were as follows:

  • Heterosexual = 81%
  • Bisexual = 8%
  • Lesbian = 3%
  • Gay = 2%
  • Transgender = 1%
  • Other = 2%
  • Refused to answer = 3%

First, it should be noted that 3% refused to answer is less than the 4% that refused to answer the race/ethnicity question on the same survey.  Conclusion:  asking today’s college students about sexual orientation is less sensitive than asking them about their race/ethnicity.

Second, it is more important than ever to ask this question. These data show that about 1 in 5 college students identify as NOT being heterosexual. Researchers need to start viewing these students as a segment, just as we do age or race. This is the reality of the Millennial market:  they are more likely to self-identify as not being heterosexual and more likely to be accepting of alternative lifestyles. Failure to understand this group results in a failure to truly understand the generation.

We have had three different clients ask us if we should start asking this question younger – to high school or middle school students. For now, we are advising against it unless the study has clear objectives that point to a need. Our reasoning for this is not that we feel the kids will find the question to be offensive, but that their parents and educators (whom we are often reliant on to be able to survey minors) might. We think that will change over time as well.

So, perhaps nothing is as simple as it seems.

“I wish that I could be like the cool kids”

Published November 15, 2015 Generations , Marketing , Millennials , Youth Marketing Leave a Comment
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In today’s digital environment, marketers are often seeking a viral way to spread news about their product or to stoke a trend. Traditional thinking was that trends spread predictably. Trends were seen to launch on the west coast (usually from urban environments), spread to the east coast, and eventually make their way to middle America and a mass market. This is why so many “cool seeker” or “trend seeker” researcher panels were established. By connecting to the cool kids in the right environments, marketers could get an early sense of what was going to happen next and get on board for the ride. They could seed ideas with the right audience and let nature take its course.

The Internet has largely blown up this paradigm. It has become a great “leveler” of youth trends. Now, a trend can start anywhere, become viral seemingly randomly, and spin out of control quickly. A geographic center of trends is hard to pinpoint if it exists at all. In research, “trend seeker” panels have become more of an oddity in market research – and have been supplanted largely by online communities of teens from across the country.

How can a communications and “connecting” technology (the Internet) have such a profound impact on how innovations and trends take hold?

Innovation diffusion to the mainstream has been the subject of academic study for some time.  Perhaps the most seminal work in the field came in 1962 when Everett Rogers published The Diffusion of Innovations. This book has been required reading at MBA marketing programs for more than 50 years.

In this book, Rogers outlines a classic theory. Innovators (2-3% of the population) start using a product. Early adopters (10%-15%) see what the innovators are doing and jump on board quickly. Next, the early majority (30%-35%) jumps on board as the hype around the product peaks. The late majority (30%-34%) gets on board. Finally, eventually the laggards (10%-15%) join in.

For decades, this thinking caused marketers to focus a disproportionate effort on the innovators – the 2%-3% of the population that supposedly spark new trends. This concept is the underpinning of why marketing dollars flow towards young people, urban consumers, minorities, etc. as marketers hope to start a chain reaction through the Rogers segments. Why have we had such a focus on youth marketing? It isn’t because they have a lot of money to spend, as compared to other age segments they don’t.  It is because marketers feel they are influential.

New media and viral marketing has made this thinking even more prevalent. If we can just reach the influencers, we’ll let loose a viral effect and sell a lot of product. Unfortunately, this thinking is a good example of applying an old paradigm to a new world.

Even in the pre-Internet past, this thinking tended to work more on a “fad” than a “trend” level. To illustrate this, in presentations I often ask the audience to write down what they think the most successful marketing brands and products have been in the past 10 years that are youth-oriented. I pause, and then list them out on a whiteboard. Typical responses are as follows:

  • The iPhone
  • Harry Potter franchise
  • American Idol
  • Barbie
  • National Football League
  • Various Boy Bands

I then point out that franchises like these, which have hit it incredibly big with youth, all have one thing in common. They didn’t diffuse to the mainstream in the Rogers fashion. They didn’t start by being popular with cool kids. Rather, they found a way to go directly to the mainstream. Oftentimes, they got there by being shunned by the cool kids.

I believe the rise of the Internet will eventually (once they catch on) cause marketers to stop thinking in the traditional way about how new trends diffuse to the mainstream. The introverted kid in the Midwest who has a popular blog is fast becoming more influential than the hipster on the street in Los Angeles. Marketers will find more direct tributaries to the mainstream, and the cool hunter research panels that still exist in the market research industry will disappear.

How the truth campaign plans to end youth smoking once and for all

Published August 14, 2015 Millennials , Youth Marketing Leave a Comment
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Excellent article on a great client!

http://www.fastcocreate.com/3049629/behind-the-brand/how-the-truth-campaign-plans-to-end-youth-smoking-once-and-for-all

Millennials as Entrepreneurs?

Published February 13, 2015 Generations , Millennials , Youth Marketing Leave a Comment
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shark-tank-sharks

A few years back, I followed a symposium speaker who described how today’s youth generation (Millennials) were likely to be highly entrepreneurial. Her reasoning seemed to be that big ideas and companies tend to be launched by young trendy people willing to take risks, that experiences such as the founding of Facebook show how far technology can take a young person with big ideas, and that there are so many Millennials that big things were about to happen.

I disagree. Here is a prognostication to file and look at in about 20 years: when all is said and done, history will judge Millennials as one of the LEAST entrepreneurial of the recent generations.

Why? There are some key characteristics of Millennials that lead strongly to this conclusion.

  1. Millennials are risk-averse. If you look at long term trends on almost any risk behavior, you will see that Millennials are on the good side of history.  Drug, alcohol, and tobacco use has plummeted, crimes committed by young people have declined, teen pregnancy rates are at their lowest in decades, and college attendance is at an all-time high.
  2. Millennials have grown up in a world of structure and protection. This is a “comfortable” generation that largely hasn’t felt a need to act out or to fend for themselves as children.  Just a generation ago Gen Xers were known as lightly-parented, latch-key kids, who as a consequence had to learn to find their own creative solutions to problems they encountered.  Millennials have not had to develop these types of skills. In fact, many Millennials expect to move back in with their parents for a time post-college, and much of this boomerang mentality is from a desire to return to their parents, not just out of economic necessity.
  3. As Millennials have come of age, the education system has evolved in a narrow way, with an almost exclusive focus and reward structure around STEM fields. Many would say that creativity has become collateral damage along the way. This develops college graduates with incredible technical skills, but boxes them in creatively.
  4. Today’s employers are focusing more than ever on the care and feeding of their Millennial employees. They no longer hire gobs of college graduates and let them fight their way to the top.  Rather, they have instituted career advancement and mentorship programs and seem much more willing to invest in the development of their young employees.
  5. Finally, Millennials seek structure and security in employment. Each year Universum conducts a college student survey which asks pending college graduates whom their ideal employer is. Just as the Millennial generation started graduating college, larger organizations, former startups that had become huge companies, and even governmental agencies started taking over the top 10. Would you believe that the #3 most desirable employer among humanities graduates is currently the US Department of State? Or that #4 is the United Nations? Or that #6 is the FBI? Incredibly, even the NSA makes the top 10.

Millennials seem perfectly formed for larger organizations that take the time truly understand them. They will desire the structure and caring these organizations can provide as it parallels the structure and caring that has surrounded them their whole lives.  They will of course want to be able to express their ideas and find creative solutions to problems.  What we are now seeing in large organizations is a willingness to allow them to do so.

This is not to say that in 20 years we won’t look back and see some incredible firms that were started by Millennials, as we certainly will. But, compared to their Gen X predecessors, I’ll be very surprised if this generation is characterized as entrepreneurial in a historical sense.

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