Understanding how and why brands connect with Gen Y is critical to Millennial marketing, but research on the subject can be hard to come by. Primary brand research is often closely guarded. That makes figuring out what Millennials want now and, more important, will want in the future a challenge for those without money to spend on getting out and talking to them. Here are three great, free resources on Millennial brands:
1. Outlaw Consulting Trend Reports: Outlaw specializes in researching Millennial trendsetters. They have been doing this longer than anyone I know and provide great content on their site in the form of their in-depth newsletters. These newsletters are full blown reports. Last year, they profiled the top 15 brands.
2. Businessweek recently shared their list of brands with global girl appeal ("How Brands Become Girl Approved", 9.18.08) as part of an overall survey of global brands. There were the usual suspects: Coca-Cola, Apple, Starbucks, and Google. But there are also a few surprises -- Ford, Citi, H&M, Motorola. Actually, I am not so sure about the surprises and neither are they. But what I especially liked was the slide show, the synopsis of what each brand means to girls and suggestions for what it could mean.
3. Graham Brown also has a long record of understanding youth culture, especially mobile marketing to youth. His blog, mobileyouth.org contains a wealth of data and links to slide presentation on youth culture and mobile marketing. For a sample, check out this presentation to Vodaphone on slideshare:
I especially value the links to four slideshare presentations on the Gen Y appeal of four specific brands: Scion, Jones, EA games and Red Bull. He describes these as 'brands with uncommon sense'. Here is the Red Bull presentation.
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I found the mobileYouth slides interesting. I was a little surprised that there was so much us/them talk. If the site is considered one of the go-to references for mobile marketing to youth I expected that it would feel younger. The tone of the presentation sounded like old people sitting around in an office park hypothesizing about what they (old people) think youth want. I expected that mobileYouth would be run by young people and would be talking about what they themselves want. (maybe it is and i just came away with the wrong impression)
ReplyDeleteRecognizing the role that MFCs (most frequent contributors) play in social networks is important. More important is spending time thinking about how to engage and incent the MFCs. They don't contribute for money so they can't be bought like other advertising is. They want recognition and other intangible social rewards. The MFC youth I've worked with are motivated when they feel they are playing a special role or getting access to unique opportunities. It takes socially adept younger people to build authentic relationships with these MFCs to lay the groundwork if really successful collaborations are to happen. Any firms hoping to leverage social media need to start by intentionally recruiting the right young people.