Dive Brief:
- A Hotwire PR report finds that next year marketers will and should approach millennials as an audience segmented by their passion rather than as a cohesive age demographic.
- Illustrating the marketing challenge, ad tech firm Turn found in an analysis that marketers are spending 500% more trying to reach millennials than the rest of the age demographics combined.
- Earlier this fall at the eMarketer Attention! 2015 event, marketers were told authenticity was key to marketing to millennials and going beyond viewing the group as an age demographic might be one way to achieve that goal.
Dive Insight:
Millennials are a challenge for marketers, who are spending exponentially more on the age demographic than the rest combined. However, reaching and engaging the group remains difficult. So much so that a recent report from Hotwire PR, “Communications Trends Report,” finds that next year instead of viewing Gen Y as a cohesive age demographic, marketers will instead need to segment them into their individual passions for marketing messaging.
Max Knight, Turn's vp of marketing services, told Adweek, "People keep thinking millennials, millennials, millennials — but there are different types. People keep saying this word, but it can't just be this big group."
Turn’s analysis uncovered four main groups within the Gen Y demographic: struggling aspirationals (57%), successful homeowners (18%), active affluents (17%), and comfortable TV watchers (8%).
Further, Curalate CMO Matt Langie recently told Marketing Dive, “The most important thing to remember is that ultimately, millennials are a diverse generation of consumers. They lead varying lifestyles and can't be reached with a one-size-fits-all approach. The best thing marketers can do is to be educational, entertaining and visual.”
