What Is A Millennial?

There is not one simple definition so there is not one simple strategy to reach them, and connect.

The 37-year-old Millennial is … everything you’d expect from a millennial, and in some cases more.

We have been evaluating millennial consumers for five years. Each year, we ask about values: how they view themselves, how they connect with brands, and what emotions their favorite brand evoked in the last 30 days. When we started, the group was 13-33. We now have a group that is 17-37. (We define millennials as a 20-year generation, born in 1980.)

Most marketers have pre-conceived notions of younger millennials as being obsessed with themselves. But what’s up with the older group?

What drives them? Hello, they’re three years under 40.

This year, we decided to parse the data by 17-27 and 28-37 to see how they feel and what their habits and responses were by decade.

The interesting thing is that in many instances, they are more connected, more involved and more socially conscious that younger millennials. A few observations …

Each year, we provide 36 attributes and ask our 1,000 respondent panels how they would best describe themselves.

Many of these attributes remain constant but we can see consistency for younger and older millennials on:

•     love my gadgets 55/54%
•     positive attitude 51/50%
•     self directed 59/56%
•     always on mobile 37/37%

One slight variation:

•     free spirited 63/44%

It’s still a top five attribute – and the only chink in the armor on their personal description. They’re just a little less free spirited.

Moving on to time spent a day, reading, looking at social media

•     58/63%

Time spent creating or posting content:

 ½-2 hours a day

•     59/61%

So now we’re seeing a greater compulsion to use their phone to create content, check email, look for information. Which is exactly what marketers need.

Even more so, we need consumers to share content they like. And we won’t be disappointed with the “older millennial.”

When we presented this statement:

I am willing to share/report brand content that I like, older millennials held their ground:

•     Agree 48/53   
•     Strongly Agree 25/23

The good news is that with most of the data in our survey, we can find older millennials defining themselves as brand champions.

Creating loyal consumers is our mission and we’re seeing it come to life in many ways with this cohort.

by Norty Cohen
Courtesy of mediapost