- We're never not plugged in. My phone is rarely more than two feet away from me at any given moment. It sleeps next to me, and I'm not alone in this: 83% of us reported sleeping next to our phones. The last time I turned off my phone was for a plane ride, and you better believe I turned it on the second those wheels hit the ground. 55% of young adults use their cell phones or a handheld device to access the internet, compared to only 30% of adults 30 and older. To us, the internet isn't a thing you "sign on" to - it's just always with us.
- We value honesty and accessibility. We don't read the small print, and we don't even want to see it. Make your pitch quick and easy, but informative. Anything that reminds us of the hurried last 5 seconds of disclaimers during a radio advertisement for a pill just makes us skeptical about your entire brand. Engage with us on your Facebook page, respond to our complaints about you on Twitter. According to Razorfish's annual FEED report, 65% of consumers have had a digital experience (a brand responding to them on Twitter, for example) change their opinion about the brand, and an astonishing 97% of them reported that experience influenced whether or not they purchased a product or service from that brand. If you're not open, accessible, and personable, you're just going to look like a faceless corporation. And we hate that.
- The world is catching up to our expectations. We're not surprised to hear you all ruminating on the fact that consumers call the shots in retail. For us, this isn't a revolutionary new concept - it's just common sense. According to Razorfish, 73% of us have posted a review of a brand on a site like Amazon or Yelp. It's almost second-nature to us to drive the discussion about your brand. As a result, we're holding retailers to higher standards, and if they don't meet our expectations, we won't even think twice about posting on Facebook or Twitter or our blog about what a terrible experience we just had. Luckily for you, the same goes for when we have an excellent experience.
- Diversity is key. We're the most diverse generation of all: only 61% of us are white, compared to 70% of Baby Boomers. We're the face of the new America, and we don't mind it at all. It's totally normal to interact with people of different races, nationalities, and backgrounds on a daily basis. We're incredibly interested in other cultures, but we still embrace our own cultural heritage. It's what makes us unique. If a brand embraces and reflects this, we'll respond favorably. If you come across as a bunch of "old white men," you've got nothing in common... with any of us.
- There is no "generation gap." We're more connected to our families than any other previous generations, and we love it. Millennials report having had fewer fights with our parents when we were teenagers compared to the amount of fights older adults reported having with their parents when growing up. We're friends with our parents on Facebook. We call, email, text, BBM, Skype, iChat, and instant message with them. We write on their walls, they write back. They comment on our photo albums (even the ones where we're drunk, unfortunately).They still influence us, but remember that we influence them right back... even after we've moved out. After seeing my sisters and I get MacBooks, my mom immediately wanted to trade in her PC for a Mac.
- We don't care about privacy. According to a report by Accenture, over 50% of US Millennials write openly about themselves online. And 73% of teens and 72% of young adults use social networking sites. One in five of us has posted a video of ourselves online. Sure, we censor ourselves online - who we're friends with, how much employers can see, what embarrassing pictures on Facebook get tagged or not - but we're perfectly willing to give up privacy if it's worth it. Retailers absolutely must use this to their advantage. If you offer us a good enough deal, we're willing to tell you a surprising amount about ourselves. We live in the open, with most of our lives in the public eye... and we are suspicious of brands that don't share with us to the same degree.
- We expect you to respect our privacy. This is not a contradiction to the last bullet point. We're more open about ourselves than other generations, but we hate it when you abuse this openness. Don't bombard us with emails. Don't call us (Domino's Pizza started calling me with offers a few years ago after I ordered a pizza from them - Guess what? That was the last pizza I bought from Domino's). And, for God's sake, DO NOT text us advertisements if we didn't ask for it. It comes across as invasive and needy, and we will avoid you out of spite.
- We want instant gratification. Larry Rosen, a professor of psychology at California State University, describes in the New York Times that more and more teens are texting and instant messaging far more frequently than talking on the phone or emailing. They expect an instant response from everyone they communicate with, and this includes their shopping experiences. Don't have the shoes I want in stock? Fine. Either get them for me ASAP, or I'm whipping out my phone and buying them from someone else online. (Remember: If you do manage to get them for me ASAP, you can expect me to praise you on Yelp or Facebook.)
Again, these are all generalizations about an incredibly diverse generation of tens of millions of kids. If there's anything that can be said for sure about us, it's that we value what makes each of us unique. So selling to us can be tricky, because we don't buy into the "everybody else is doing it" mindset anymore. But if retailers can figure out why we go certain places and buy certain products, they will be able to target us in much more specific, personable ways that will translate into loyalty. This all brings to mind that timeless 2009 movie classic "Confessions of a Shopaholic," in which the main character said, "A man will never love you or treat you as well as a store." If retailers engage with us and take the time to get to know us, I think they'll find many of us will feel the same.
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