The millennial generation is leading the economy in numbers and purchasing power, making up 27% of the population with an estimated $1.3 trillion in consumer spending.
With such an influence in the market, the millennial group — those born between the 1980s and early 2000s — demands brands’ attention.
Millennials spend much of their time with content created by peers, lifestyle influencers, blog posts, and reviews when it comes to learning about new products, trending topics and brand loyalty.
In a study conducted by Ipsos,
- Millennials spend 18 hours with media per day; 5 of which is media created by their peers (UGC).
- UGC helps them buy, buy, buy and is 20% more influential on purchase than all other media types.
- Millennials check social media above any other media type by 70%.
Forrester’s report found that one-quarter of marketers hiked their content marketing budgets by 30% or more this year over last, and 47% of marketers boosted their content marketing budgets by 20% or more.
Seeing the surge in budgets, the shift is stemming from several factors – traditional media to online, efforts geared towards reaching millennials, and ad blocking, which makes the need for valuable, relevant content even more important to marketers.
Generation #hashtag (regardless of age), favor content and services that have been designed and distributed exclusively through digital (and especially mobile) channels. Perhaps most important for media companies, a younger cohort among Generation #hashtag says that it is increasingly willing to pay for content, especially for video, music and games.
So how can media companies monetize this powerful trend?
- Successful content is user-influenced, if not user-generated.
People love to hear about real-world, personal experiences, and brands can’t always provide them. So tap into your fan base instead. - Native digital formats, some of which are woven into mobile and social content feeds, are thriving, while old-school banner ads may be on the decline.
Learn to embrace such formats for direct marketing, but also for branding elements. - Make good use of consumer data.
More content isn’t necessarily a good thing — it’s making sure we are delivering the right types of content to the right audiences at the right time.
The advertising landscape is evolving at an extraordinary pace as media proliferation and technology advances create new ways of connecting with consumers.
While there isn’t one simple rule for maximizing advertising effectiveness in such a saturated market, understanding how consumers, more importantly millennials, feel about the ads and content on the various media platforms they use every day is a good place to start.