Millennial — Go: How do you catch the Millennials?
I’ve sat through 4 briefing meetings since arriving at Havas Milan. The briefs have come from travel, luxury, CPG, and Entertainment clients — diverse verticals. Each brief had one thing in common:
Target Audience: Millennials
I keep shaking my head thinking about how the world is obsessed with this generation, which by the way is inclusive of moi (me, for all you non-French speakers). Part of what I don’t understand is how we can group the ages of 18–34 into one target audience. I can tell you for sure that when I was 18 I was a completely different person than I am at 29. With that said, I can only imagine the person I’ll be in 5 years at the age of 34.
I understand that this portion of the population is the primary driving force of overall consumption/purchasing power, however I think we need to step back and peel apart the label that the world has slapped on all advertising campaigns to strategize on how to better understand the different facets of this target audience.
One of the tools that I’ve learned to use in Milan is Sinottica. This tool helps apply data learnings (panel based) to our client’s indicated target audiences. Outputs include audience’s media consumption, primary location/residence, and further consumer/target insights. Leveraging this tool helps us better understand how we can capture the attention and message to the client’s niche audience. This tool is key, in my opinion, to further understanding down the millennial audience.
The key reason to further dissect this specific audience is to fully understand how to message to the younger vs older portion of the segment. At age 18 I was just leaving for college and my primary focus was college, boys and beer/partying. At 30, although my focus hasn’t changed 100%, I’m more interested in city life, men and wine/dinner parties. You may think to yourself — that’s pretty much the same, but let me tell you, it’s not. At age 30, I am less likely to pay attention to a Natural Ice ad and more likely to search for Wine of the Month.
I think this is extremely important to explain to clients who are looking to blanket target this age group. More clearly defining the client’s focus within the millennial segment can lead to stronger efficiencies, higher engagement and clearer overall business learnings.
