Empowered consumers, new technology and a new age of transparency have disrupted the marketing industry. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all strategy’ in the world we live in today. As a result, marketing experts have invested an increasing amount of money into understanding the youth audience’s lives, habits and attitudes to make their marketing messages as relevant as possible.
The youth population currently contributes £20bn to the UK economy annually, which is key to a number of markets such as fashion, technology and mobile (Mitchell, 2012). So it is key that marketers don’t waste money on solely investing in social media platforms, but to make their content useful, relevant and entertaining.
Millennials (AKA Gen Y)
Millennial’s (also known as the Generation Y), were born in the years 1980’s – 2000, therefore students aged 16-24 of today fall into this bracket (Gallardo-Echenique et al., 2015). They are the first generation to grow up with new technology and according to Gibbons (2004) students communicate differently via text and are characterized as tech savvy because of their need to interact with others, which is a key reason for Gen Y’s use of social media (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008).
So how does digital marketers need to address the characteristics of students through successful campaigns?
Empowerment and Perpetuity
Digital marketing campaigners should create content and campaigns to enable some type of international change. 66% of 16-24s feel that fashion brands should involve the consumers in actively backing a cause and 88% of UK millennials believe brands need to focus doing more good rather than less bad (Kemp, 2016). Marketers should therefore provide the tools that allow students to contribute and declare their support publically or promote a campaign themselves.
It is important that any campaign provides level of endurance so that the message delivered isn’t limited to the exposure of a short-lived social post or email. To enable international change or any positive change for that matter, the content must have potential to stay with the user and remind them of the initiative and message (Powers, 2015).
Example:
Urban Outfitters enabled its audience to get involved in their latest campaign empowering Transgender and Plus-size models. To show their support, each influencer designed a Hanes T-shirt including personal empowering messages and slogans. The statement overall ‘Be true to yourself and love one another’ is an uplifting message allowing the millennials to be part of an international change and publically support this.
Sociability
Millennials are said to focus on social interaction and connectedness through social activities. Marketers should influence to share content on social media to increase consistency of the message by including a hash-tag (Powers, 2015). The campaign should illustrate collective social activity to persuade the young people to share. 94% of millennials today feel it is important to have a unique identity thus, to increase portability it may be effective to create individual content and rewards for sharing (Jefford, 2016).
Example:
#Shareacoke – this hashtag is integrated for its phatic function as it serves as language for the sake of social interaction (Joos, Jakobson and Halle, 1957).
Instant gratification
Convenience is heavily gravitated by the millennial generation as 70% of students expressed they’re impatient and expect everything to be available when they want it (Jefford, 2016).
In other words, “instant gratification is a by-word of the digital age”.
According to Lauterborn’s 4 C model (1990), an efficacious marketing plan should focus on Convenience; this correlates with the 70% of millennials that care most about convenience when it comes to purchasing decisions (Jefford, 2016). Marketers have to ask themselves, why buy? When you can stream for free, why wait? When same-day delivery is available.
Example:
This characteristic is key to address because the student segment serve as powerful brand ambassadors through word-of-mouth activism with their peers. If they’re not satisfied, millennials will look elsewhere for something that benefits their needs – creating an emerging shift in the retail landscape.
Highly Skeptical and Informed
81% of 16-24yr olds connect with brand campaigns increasingly if they use YouTubers, vloggers and creative individuals with an online cult fan base to represent their brand (Jefford, 2016). Marketers need to shift away from using celebrities as brand advocates and use real people due to millennials becoming increasingly skeptical and highly informed, thus trusting ‘people’ over brands.
Example:
ASOS Insiders interprets influencer marketing that knocks out the traditntal marketing approach; this theory explores that most people are influenced by opinion leaders and secondhand information and perceive it as genuine (Buttle, 1998). Influences have the power to strengthen the brands relationship with loyal followers and ultimately boost customer lifetime value.
The attitudes, habits and behaviours of Millennials have become the focus group of the modern world of marketing. Digital marketing campaigners benefit from targeting Milennials due to their preference for certain forms of online advertising (Taken Smith, 2012). However, the marketing strategies aimed at Millennials must be perceived positively by this generation (Lukina, 2016). Hence the importance of understanding the characteristics of this segment to express relevant, useful and shareable content. Whilst Marketers see the benefits of digitally targeting Millennials, the risks of getting it wrong can be more damaging to the brand’s reputation. This is due to their skeptical and demanding characteristics and effectively fast WOM. Overall, this generation needs marketing that speaks to them, helps them grown their own brand image and help make a change.
Click here for more information on marketing to millennials.
References
Bolton, R., Parasuraman, A., Hoefnagels, A., Migchels, N., Kabadayi, S., Gruber, T., Komarova Loureiro, Y. and Solnet, D. (2013). Understanding Generation Y and their use of social media: a review and research agenda. Journal of Service Management, 24(3), pp.245-267.
Buttle, F.A., 1998. Word of mouth: understanding and managing referral marketing. Journal of strategic marketing, 6(3), pp.241-254.
Gallardo-Echenique, E., Marqués-Molías, L., Bullen, M. and Strijbos, J. (2015). Let’s talk about digital learners in the digital era. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 16(3).
Gibbons, S. (2007). Redefining the roles of information professionals in higher education to engage the net generation.
Jefford, M. (2016). 9 youth trends brands need to know about in 2016 – Factory Media. [online] Factory Media. Available at: https://factorymedia.com/insight/9-youth-trends-brands-need-know-2016 [Accessed 17 Apr. 2017].
Joos, M., Jakobson, R. and Halle, M. (1957). Fundamentals of Language. Language, 33(3), p.408.
Kemp, N. (2016). Do the right thing: how brands are embracing humane capitalism. [online] Campaignlive.co.uk. Available at: http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/right-thing-brands-embracing-humane-capitalism/1407191 [Accessed 17 Apr. 2017].
Lopez, M. (2017). 10 digital ways to reach Millennial students – eCampus News. [online] eCampus News. Available at: http://www.ecampusnews.com/featured/featured-on-ecampus-news/digital-marketing-millennials/ [Accessed 17 Apr. 2017].
Lukina, A., 2016. BUYING BEHAVIOUR OF MILLENNIALS CHANGING TRADITIONAL MARKETING PRACTICES.
Mitchell, L. (2012). The future of marketing according to youth: what 16-24s want from brands. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2012/oct/25/future-marketing-youth [Accessed 17 Apr. 2017].
Palfrey, J., Gasser, U., Simun, M. and Barnes, R. (2009). Youth, Creativity, and Copyright in the Digital Age. International Journal of Learning and Media, 1(2), pp.79-97.
Powers, K. (2015). Five Characteristics (and Examples) of Successful Digital Campaigns | Viget. [online] https://viget.com. Available at: https://www.viget.com/articles/five-characteristics-and-examples-of-successful-digital-campaigns [Accessed 17 Apr. 2017].
Taken Smith, K. (2012). Longitudinal study of digital marketing strategies targeting Millennials. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 29(2), pp.86-92.
Thau, B. (2013). Changing of the Guard: the Millennials. Chain Store Age, 89(8), pp.10-12.