What is a Millennial?
There is not one simple definition so there is not one simple strategy to reach them and connect.
The 37 Year Old Millennial Is…
Everything you’d expect from a millennial – and in some cases more.
Moosylvania has been evaluating millennial consumers for five years. Each year, we ask about values – how they view themselves, how they connect with brands – and what emotions their favorite brand evoked in the last 30 days. When we started the group was 13-33. We now have a group that is 17-37. (We define millennials as a 20-year generation, born in 1980.)
Most marketers have pre-conceived notions of younger millennials – obsessed with themselves. But what’s up with the older group?
What drives them? Hello – they’re three years under 40.
This year, we decided to parse the data by 17-27/28-37 to see how they feel – what their habits and responses were by decade.
The interesting thing is that in many instances, they are more connected – more involved and more socially conscious than younger millennials. A few observations…
Each year, we provide 36 attributes and ask our 1,000 respondent panels how they would best describe themselves.
Many of these attributes remain constant – but we can see consistency for younger and older millennials on:
- love my gadgets 55/54%
- positive attitude 51/50%
- Self-directed 59/56%
- always on mobile 37/37%
One slight variation:
- free spirited 63/44%
It’s still a top-five attribute – and the only chink in the armor on their personal description. They’re just a little less free-spirited.
Moving on to time spent a day, reading, looking at social media
- 58/63%
Time spent creating or posting content:
½-2 hours a day
59/61%
So now we’re seeing a greater compulsion to use their phone – create content - check email – look for information. Which is exactly what marketers need.
Even more so – we need consumers to share content they like. And we won’t be disappointed with the “older millennial.”
When we presented this statement:
I am willing to share/report brand content that I like, older millennials held their ground:
Agree 48/53
Strongly Agree 25/23
The good news is that with most of the data in our survey, we can find older millennials defining themselves as brand champions.
Creating loyal consumers is our mission and we’re seeing it come to life in many ways with this cohort.
Norty Cohen is CEO and Founder of Moosylvania, the St. Louis-based ad and creative agency well-known for their sought-after annual research and data on the Top 100 global brands. Cohen shares his insights and research at events throughout the US every year, however, for the first time, he will be publishing his research in the upcoming book, The Participation Game, which examines how and why consumers adopt brands.
Prior to starting Moosylvania, Cohen was the COO of former agency of the year, Zipatoni. Prior to his four decades of creative and innovative engineering experience, he received his degree from the University of Missouri, School of Journalism. Cohen is a weekend rock warrior and plays percussion in a 70s review rock band. He is also on the Executive Board of Gateway to Hope, a charity that buys insurance for women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer. Cohen can be found on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twi
Copies of The Participation Game may be reserved at https://
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