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Millennial Marketing Must Haves

This article is more than 9 years old.

There was a time not so long ago that the image of a sales person in a thousand dollar suit extolling the virtues of commando marketing seemed the norm. Loud voices rang through the historical halls of advertorial offices saying, “Do not ask what your customer wants, TELL them what they want!” For awhile this became the go to approach for all types of marketing. And we the consumer did what we were told. Those days are gone.

For many companies the millennial generation has been a bit of a conundrum to say the least. Let’s start with who they are; when the end of Generation X was finally outlined for us, logically the next group of consumers to target became Generation Y this made sense. As time progressed, however, we began to see fundamental shifts in the collective mindset of those we aspired to market to. People were changing due to the advent of social media and economic conditions including globalization and Gen Y has morphed into the Millennial Generation based on the ever emerging ideations of the newly anointed consumer base. As Wikipedia tells us, the Millennial Generation is anyone born from the mid eighties to the early two thousands, a broad base of consumers with an even broader array of needs and wants; and this generation is sensitive.

MG’s are the first real generation to be the product of the “me” philosophy. In the past we spent little or no time considering our inner thoughts and desires and just went about our business as we were expected to, go to work, walk the dog, buy a coke and invest in our 401ks. MG’s on the other hand, while some still harbour the earlier tendencies are not really prepared to just go through the motions of life, they want to have a say, they want to be heard and they want societal norms to change in some cases.

SO WHAT GRABS THE ATTENTION OF A MG CONSUMER?

While some companies have made great strides in reaching out to the Millennial Generation others have found it hard to break with the old tried and true marketing philosophies of the past. Some companies have spent a fair amount of time and energy trying to find out just what it means to be a Millennial consumer and a few key points seem to be prevalent;

  1. The Millennial Generation expects more from the companies they do business with both in quality and choice.
  2. They embrace the ideation of philanthropy and are happier to do business with companies that show they care about people and the environment.
  3. They desire the most time efficient, convenient, tech friendly and mobile methods available to shop, talk and explore (making App Store Optimization incredibly important).
  4. They will almost always act on recommendations about products or services from family and friends above any other form of influence.

WHO HAS DONE IT WELL?

American Eagle, for instance, found great success with its Aerie Lingerie ads as set out here in a Business Insider article. They managed to do what many other companies have not and that is to find a common underlying theme to some of the Millennial Generation’s philosophies and ideals. The ideology at issue here is the need for MG’s to be considered real, authentic, individual and most importantly, important. AE addressed the MG’s need to be heard in its simplest form.  They approached the “selfie” generation with an ad campaign that was, in its simplest form, a selfie based campaign. These were regular people, no photo shopping just real, authentic, important individuals. American Eagle is building on that success with the introduction of their Denim Distressing Campaign, letting consumers have a more hands on role in designing their jeans.

TOMS Shoes, a small company in Santa Monica has seen their sales rocket over the last five years doing what only a generation ago was thought insane and many thought would fail. They pledged to the consumer that for every pair of shoes that were purchased a pair would be donated to a person in need. This resonated with the Millennial Generation and TOMS Shoes has now surpassed the million pair plateau. The idea that you can help those in need while helping yourself to a new pair of shoes has been an excellent way to win over the Millennial crowd.

Tim Horton’s has won over the MG crowd by providing more choice and convenience to consumers by recently merging with Burger King effectively making the chain one stop shopping for the MG in a hurry. Timmy’s also recently hired a 34 year old as its’ new CEO and is in the process of reinventing and reinvigorating its growth plan for the new consumer base.

Other companies that embraced the Millennial Generation’s value set are ones that acknowledge an MG person’s need to be heard and have a say in what they purchase, Apple has done a great job of this with its iTunes platform. It may seem contrite but the old adage of knowing your customer is certainly one that has not changed. It may be more important with the Millennial Generation than it ever has been before.