Millennials (aged 18-35) are a group who many feel they know. However, building marketing campaigns on these assumptions has led some down a path that meant their brand was viewed completely differently as to that which was intended.
Marketers focus on numerous negative stereotypes (spoiled, selfish, self-absorbed and lazy to name a few), however unless you can cleverly poke fun at these they will not help when it comes to communicating with this group. There are many more positives than that of generations who have preceded them, as the research shows, so why don’t more marketers focus on some of these?
Millennials are ambitious risk takers who are looking to find meaning in their lives, and brands should highlight these features to better connect with them (Foresight Factory, 2017). Their work further reinforces findings from a study by Mail Online and Metro in 2016 which gives guidelines for marketing to this group, and is well worth a read (http://www.millennialrules.co.uk/).
One popular stance is to be more than a brand and stand for something that helps and makes a difference – 46% of UK Millennials like it when brands address current social issues in their advertising (Foresight Factory, 2017).
The major thing to remember is that two thirds of global Millennials (Foresight Factory, 2017) don’t want to be defined by their age, so it is important that age is not the key focus as, as we’ve uncovered, the group are united and defined by so much more than this.
