Dive Brief:

• Marketers are realizing that typical channels aren’t the best way to reach the highly-desired 18-34 year-old audience, according to several media agency executives who spoke with The New York Times.
• Millennials are blocking ads, skipping online commercials, and are watching less traditional TV.
• Perhaps the biggest challenge for marketers is that millennials spend 41% of their "media time" on mobile devices, according to research conducted by comScore.

Dive Insight:

Millennials are an important audience for both consumer and B2B marketers, but the challenge for marketers is the coveted demographic doesn’t want to see advertising. Many are cord-cutters who don’t watch traditional TV, and many skip online ads and utilize ad-blocking technology on their devices.

“Everything you know about advertising — chuck it," Laura Desmond, CEO of the Starcom MediaVest Group, told The New York Times. "It’s a completely different world and game with millennials.”

So what does this mean in practice? For marketers who want to reach millennials, it means using things like mobile apps and emojis instead of the 30-second ads that have long been a staple of advertising.

Marketing to millennials means appealing to their optimism and delivering more than a 30-second spot. Branded, value-added content that informs and entertains -- and is often delivered via social media platforms -- can help marketers reach these elusive consumers.