Fbs Unit Assignment

2.2 Millennial consumers

It is widely acknowledged that William Strauss and Neil Howe coined the term 'Millennial'in 1987, when children born in 1982 were entering preschool, and the media were first identifying their prospective link to the new millennium as the high school graduating class of 2000( Horovitz, 2012). Although this spans nearly two decades, millennials are becoming the most important consumption powers in the world.

2.2.1 Defining and contextualizing millennials in global scope

The phrase Generation Y coined by an Ad Age editorial of August in 1993 is also frequently used  to describe those who were then aged 11 or younger as well as the teenagers of the upcoming ten years (Generation Y, 1993).

Other scholars use the term Echo Boomers to define this generation as well, based on the fact that they are the offspring of the baby boomers and the significant increase in birth rates from the early 1980s to mid 1990s, which repeated the same situation of their parents' age(Armour, 2005). Similarly, author Elwood Carlson called this cohort the 'New Boomers' in his book The Lucky Few: Between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boom(Carlson, 2008).

Psychologist Jean Twinge described Millennials as 'Generation Me' in her 2006 book (Twinge, 2014）, In 2013, Time magazine ran a cover story titled Millennials (Stein, 2013). Chinese Millennials are commonly called the 1980s and 1990s generations.

2.2.2 Consumer behaviour of millennials

Based on the recent Forbes report (Schawbel, 2015) interview 1,300 millennials:

this specific generation consumers have their distinctive and unique characteristics comparing with their parents, which could be generalized as below:

1. They are difficult to be influenced by advertisement. Only 1% of surveyded millennials said that a compelling advertisement would make them trust a brand more.

2. They would rather buy a car and rent a house. 71% of interviewees would rather buy than rent a car, where as 59% would rather rent a house than buy one. 61% admit that they can't afford a house. They are largely impacted by the economy, crushed by student loan debt and underemployed, and many of them still have to live with their parents.

3. They review blogs before buying. 33% of them rely mostly on social media reviews before they make a purchase, compared to fewer than 3% for TV news, magazines and books. While older generations rely more on traditional media, millennials resort to social media for an authentic look at what's going on in the world.

4. They attach more importance to authenticity than content. 43% of them rank authenticity over content when reading news. They first have to trust a company or news site before they even reading the content from them. They connect best with single individual bloggers over logos.

5. Their buying behavior won't be changed by the future inheritance predicted by Accenture nearly $30 billion that will be transferred from Baby Boomers in the upcoming years. 57% claimed that the legacy won't change their spending habits, which means they won't spend more. 

6. They want to engage with brands on social networks. 62% of them say that they are more likely to become a loyal customer if they are engaged with brands through social networks as platform. This obviously demands more efforts from brands to reach the millennial consumers.

7. They want to co-create products with companies. 42% said they are willing to help brands to develop future products and services.They want to be more involved with the creation of products, thus companies enabling them to be part of the product development process will have more opportunities to win in this market.

8. They are using multiple tech devices. 87% of them use between two and three tech devices at least once on a daily basis. 39% are either very or completely likely to purchase a tablet computer in the next five years, while 30% are for wearable devices. They are more obsessed by new technology, which means brands have to be able to engage them on new platforms as they are released.

9. They are brand loyal. 60% said that they are often or always loyal to brands that they currently purchase. 

10. They expect brands to give back to society. 75% said that it's either fairly or very important that a company gives back to society instead of just making a profit. They prefer brands that support their local communities and would like to pay more for the sustainable products.

Unlike prior generations, millennials rely mostly on blogs (33% selected them as their top media source) before they make a purchase. Fewer than 3% of millennials rank TV news, magazines and books (traditional media sources) as influencing their purchases and only 1% said that a compelling advertisement would make them trust a brand more. Millennials (58%) expect brands to publish content online before they make a purchase and rank authenticity (43%) as more important than the content itself (32%) when consuming news. Millennials don’t trust traditional media and advertising and are looking for the opinions from their  friends (37%), parents (36%) and online experts (17%) before making a purchase.

The majority of millennials surveyed (77%) agree that the bad economy has impacted their ability to save and spend money, and believe that they won’t get social security at age 66 (62%). Despite the $30 billion inheritance that Accenture predicts will transfer from Baby Boomers to millennials in the upcoming years, 57% said that the money won’t change their spending habits. Furthermore, they are already paying off their students loans with their current jobs (33%) and parent support (23%). Millennials believe that they are already knowledgeable (55%) about managing their own finances and only 8% believe they have no knowledge whatsoever. Men (68%) feel that they are more knowledgeable than women (49%) about managing their finances.

2.2.3 Fashion marketing to millennials

Companies and brands are fiercely competing for millennial consumers. There are eighty million millennials in America alone and they represent about a fourth of the entire population, with $200 billion in annual buying power.  They have a lot of influence over older generations and are trendsetters across all industries from fashion to food (Schawbel, 2015). While the group is greatly potential to be an alluring gold mine to businesses, marketing to millennials is challenging as well as profitable. When marketing to Millennials, a strong brand isn't enough to lock in a sale (Mori, 2014). Marketing messages focused on traditional milestones of adulthood may no longer be as relevant ( Mitskavets, 2015).