Why Marketers Must Break the Rules in 2017 to Spark Action in Millennial Buyers

They’re the “Me Me Me” generation. Or so some naysayers would have us believe.  

They’re the generation that gave us Facebook and Snapchat, Katy Perry and Kendrick Lamar.

Call them Gen-Y or Gen Wired. The iY Generation. The Internet Generation. Millennials. Call them what you like, but one thing isn’t changing anytime soon: their force – their presence – in the marketplace is only getting stronger by the minute.

In 2012, their purchasing power was around $733 billion (“The evolution of experiential marketing: Effects of brand experience among the millennial generation,” International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 2013).

Now, five years later, their purchasing power is well into the trillions of dollars. And their consumer voice is nearly 2 billion strong.

In short: marketers can’t afford to hesitate when it comes to developing branding and advertising strategies that effectively reach millennials.

And marketers know this.

But, often enough, they don’t know how to actually reach millennial audiences in a way that isn’t off-putting.

Or cringe-ishly out-of-touch.

The problem is this: some marketers treat millennial audiences like they’re pretty much the same as prior generations. Obviously, we all share similarities no matter what generation we hail from – but the generational differences, from a marketing perspective, are instructive.

The good news is that the way forward for you marketers who want to reach millennials is quite decisively clear. The bad news – and it’s really only bad news for those dilettantes who try to pass themselves off as marketers but don’t have the necessary personality and character traits – is that you’ll have to get a little uncomfortable.

First, marketers and advertisers and brands must thoroughly absorb the idea that unlike prior generations, millennials are more keenly aware of the manipulation and deception tactics of mass advertising.

They saw what happened to those who fell for Trump University’s multi-level marketing scheme, flashy ads for the “university” notwithstanding. They’ve seen the sneaky marketing tactics of big corporations like CenturyLink – corporations that just don’t want to advertise to them in a sincere, earnest, real way.

Marketers must appreciate the fact that millennials are overwhelmingly more loyal to their friends than to corporations. Do not try to befriend us if you don’t mean it. If you’re just trying to see how fast it’ll take for us to open our wallets. We’re tech-savvy. We’re not stupid. We know how to do mega-amounts of research to see if what you’re saying is true and accurate and not misleading in any way. 

Marketers also need to know that millennials don’t like being told what to do. It needs to be a dialogue – a two-way communication street. Instead of a one-way ad message that interrupts what we’re doing. And we really, really don’t like being yelled at. Whether by our parents or teachers or a way-too-amped-up television ad spokesperson. 

So let’s say that you, the always-intrepid marketer, understand all this. You get it. Now what? How can you take all of this into consideration and effectively whip it into a strategy that reaches and engages millennial audiences?

 To do that, you will have to break a few rules. That’s the part where it can get a little uncomfortable.

You must break through your creative boundaries. You must be willing to look at the status quo in the eyes – then tear it apart. You must be willing to think imaginatively, unconstrained by convention and conformity.

You must become a heretic who defies the magisterium of orthodox marketing.

Why?

Because the usefulness of many traditional marketing tenets is waning.

For example, traditional mass media advertising has long been a one-way street. The advertisers dump all this information on consumers, but it’s not a discussion. As noted above, this isn’t exactly all that effective for millennial audiences. Millennials have grown up in a digital media environment that is constantly, relentlessly two-way. That is what we’re accustomed to, and marketers must respect that.

How to create this kind of two-way dialogue in your marketing communications mix? The answer is experiential marketing – marketing which employs live brand experiences to emotionally connect with a target audience and ignite a wildfire of word-of-mouth brand advocacy.

And here’s the best part about experiential marketing: it actually resolves many of the hardest challenges marketers face when attempting to reach millennials.

Consider the following.

Traditional Marketing Rule: It’s okay – a good idea, even – to incessantly interrupt people with your advertising message.

Why This is a Bad Idea if You’re Targeting Millennials: Millennials don’t care for interruptive brand messaging. For example, pop-up ads – perhaps the best digital example of interruptive advertising – fare poorly with millennials, compared to less in-your-face web advertising.

Why Experiential Marketing is a Good Idea: Because experiential marketing provides a positive emotional experience that’s thoroughly non-interruptive, it is a robust way to sway millennial audiences. And since its main force lies in its power to drive word-of-mouth marketing – more so than other marketing approaches – it reaches large target markets without interruptive brand messaging.

Traditional Marketing Rule: To provide evidence for advertising claims, just use testimonials or celebrity spokespeople – and maybe a few product demonstrations.

Why This is a Bad Idea if You’re Targeting Millennials: This is a bad idea only because it doesn’t go far enough. Remember – millennials know how to do their research. Testimonials, for example, aren’t convincing enough – not anymore, especially considering that these can be faked. And millennials know perfectly well that your celebrity spokesperson gets a cheque for every product endorsement.

Why Experiential Marketing is a Good Idea: Millennials are a wary generation. So, unsurprisingly, the best way to provide impeccable evidence for your brand’s claims is through direct, live, interactive experiences, where your product or service or brand can be evaluated first-hand. And the second best way? Through word-of-mouth marketing (and remember that experiential marketing is a potent vehicle for that) – millennials will trust their dearly loved friends, after all, more than a celebrity or a product demonstration on TV.

It’s because of reasons like this – and other reasons, too – that experiential marketing must be fused into the core marketing mix of any brand or company aiming to win over millennial audiences in 2017.

Because – critics notwithstanding – millennials are actually the “We We We” generation. And it’s a generation charged with a spirited, youthful disdain for the “Me Me Me” advertising practices of brands that seem to only think of themselves.