Millennial Marketing: The beginning of backlash?

A Google search on the term 'Millennial' today returned 1,900,000 hits (this blog was number 31!). With all the hype, I suppose it's understandable that some marketers will view all the fuss as... well, hype! A poll of readers of the enewsletter, SmartBrief, shows half of all marketers agree it's all hype. That is surprising to me. While there is a bandwagon element to the recent outpouring of news on Millennials, I think there is fire under the bandwagon, hence all the smoke (how's that for metaphoria?). Here, again, are a few reason why Millennials matter to marketers:

1. Size. There are as many Millennials as Boomers and remember what a difference they made.

2. Taste. While they do like our music, they have different preferences in just about everything else. They are the trendsetters, especially in matters of entertainment and technology.

3. Politics. Millennial Makeover authors, Haig and Weingrad, got it right. Young voters were the difference and will continue to be for decades.

4. Values. Millennials are motivated differently. They want to make a difference in everything from the workplace to the environment. They just might do it.

My recommendation? Accept the hype and focus on the substance.

Big News! Millennials Disproportionately Influential

Okay, so it's not big news. The Obama win shows how influential young voters are in politics. Research from Rubicon Consulting group shows how influential they are in marketing. Rubicon's report, "Online Communities and their Impact on Business: Ignore at Your Peril" provides these statistics on just how important they are:

About 80% of the user-generated content on the web, including comments and questions, is created by less than 10% of web users, a group we refer to as the most frequent contributors (MFCs). The rest of the web community sits back and watches the interactions as a mostly-passive audience that only occasionally injects a few comments"

Half of all MFCs are under the age of 22.

MFC's look a lot like Millennials: They're more ethnically diverse; more technically skilled; more likely to be single; more likely to work in technology, entertainment, or communication companies; and more likely to be Democrats.

The Rubicon report emphasizes that far from being a problem to be solved, the fact that most web communities are dominated by a few active voices and a lot more 'voyeurs' is something marketers can leverage by targeting MFC's. There really are influencers - a lot of people are reading the opinions of MFC's and using them in their purchasing decisions across a variety of product categories, especially electronics, vacations, movies, restaurants and jobs. The chart below shows that this is especially true for Millennials. For nearly every category, the influence of online word of mouth is strongest for those 18-22.