A Year in Review

In case you're wondering where I've been... Well, I've been hard at work launching new websites (check out n2k.tv), blogging at The Next Great Generation, and planning a wedding on the side! But I've decided that's no excuse, so friends, I'm back.

I wanted to quickly comment on a few tech/social media/marketing things I've missed in my hiatus:

1. iProducts: Since I got my iPhone about a year ago I've noticed a few subtle changes. One, I'm more social now than ever. A lot of people say that technology is cutting down on face-to-face social interaction, but for me that is not at all the case. With 24/7 access to social apps, I'm responding to things faster and making plans at an alarming rate. Another unexpected change is that I'm really enjoying mobile games. I've never been into video or computer games, but I LOVE me some World of Goo on the iPad. 
2. Groupon: I started using Groupon and then unsubscribed when I let several of them expire. I'm not a coupon clipper - never have been. Maybe Groupon is the greatest thing since Google, but I'm just not as excited about it as I'm supposed to be. Also, their Superbowl commercial was terrible. 
3. Julian Assange: I thought the whole Julian Assange / Wikileaks debacle was quite entertaining. For a while there, I was afraid something catastrophic would happen, but so far it seems we're alright. That being the case, I can't wait to see the movie.
4. The Social Network: I am totally Team Zuck. He's awkward, geeky, irreverent, and fabulous. He's made a name for Gen Y, proving our potential before we ever expected to have our time to shine. I definitely think he deserved Time's Person of the Year. I loved the movie, even though it was a little harsh on Zucky. I'm also a big fan of Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's COO. Check out her TED Talk, "Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders."
5. The Superbowl: What a disappointment. Sure, there were a few ads that tickled my funny bone, but that just doesn't cut it for me. Where were the call to actions? Where was the social engagement? With the exception of Volkswagon's Vader spot launching the week before, which of these companies did anything out of the ordinary? The Superbowl is your chance to reach a massive, hyper-engaged audience, not to mention that you're paying out the wazoo for it, so why aren't you doing something to make it last beyond the 30-second spot? Come on people!

What am I missing? It's been a long time since my last post... Lots of ground to cover!

Re: “What Is It About 20-Somethings?”

For a while there, I was considering not saying anything about the recent NY Times piece “What Is It About 20-Somethings?” But then I found out there are people who actually agree with it. So now I have to say something.

The whole premise of the 10-page article is that Millennials aren't growing up as fast as previous generations. The examples they cite include not having steady jobs, moving back in with parents, getting married later than previous generations, and waiting to have kids. 

If you know me, you know I can't let this slide.

1. Not having steady jobs. First of all, nobody has a truly steady job in this economy. And when employers have the choice of a 40-something or a 20-something, both willing to work for the same salary, they're obviously going to choose the person with more experience. Thus plenty of 20-somethings are left without jobs for the time being, but I assure you once the economy picks back up, so will the Gen Y employment rate. We're a highly educated and highly motivated generation. We're not living off our meager unemployment checks for the fun of it.
2. Moving back in with parents.  Consider this scenario, which I've observed firsthand three times now. You graduated from college with $80k in student loan debt (student loan debt recently surpassed credit card debt for the first time in history). You've been applying for jobs, working a minimum-wage part-time job, and working unpaid internships for two years with no health insurance or benefits. You're exhausted and can no longer afford to pay rent, much less your loan payments, and then your parents say "honey, why don't you move back in with us?" At first you refuse because you value your independence, but then you think about it... Living with them, you wouldn't have to pay rent and you could maybe start to make a dent in those student loan payments. Moving in with them is the only responsible thing to do in this scenario (which, by the way, thousands of Millennials are facing).
3. Getting married later. Who can afford a wedding right now? I just got engaged (yay!), but it's looking like it will be a couple years of saving before we'll be able to realistically afford the wedding we want.
4. Waiting to have kids. This one really irks me. We can't afford to pay off our credit cards or student loans, we don't have jobs, we can't afford to get married, but we should be popping out babies? We're not growing up fast enough because we don't have dependents at the age of 24? Give me a break. We'll have babies when we can afford to take care of them. Or not. I'd like to think society has progressed enough that having children is no longer an expectation, but that's a whole different rant. I wonder how we would be described if we were having kids earlier than the previous generation... I somehow doubt the words "more grown up" would be included in the analysis. Huge double-standard here.

The article uses a term, "emerging adulthood," which was coined by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a psychologist who is "leading the movement to view the 20s as a distinct life stage." Apparently this is a new movement, although I do vaguely remember reading about life stages in my high school Intro to Psychology class, and I'm pretty sure transitioning from college to adulthood falls in there somewhere. It's alarming to me that there are actually people out there who expect us to jump straight from our college dorm rooms into the arms of our new spouses, all the while putting down-payments on houses and producing offspring. 

Another term often used to describe Millennials is "entitled." Okay, fine, yes. I feel entitled. Here are the things I feel entitled to:

1. To put some thought into what I want to do with my life
2. To wait until I find I job a love (and freelance in the meantime)
3. To save money until I can afford to make massive life decisions such as marriage, child-bearing, and house-buying

I've read lots of articles that blame our parents for this sense of entitlement, which I didn't buy at first. But then I was completely humiliated at a meeting where two out of the eight people revealed that they had been called - or visited - by their 20-something employee's parents. This distresses me. I've read the horror stories, but I never really believed it. These so-called "helicopter parents" are overprotective and are making their kids (and our generation) look bad. But for every one helicopter parent who smothered their kids, I would say there are 99 others that got it right. I think my parents instilled in me a sense of work ethic, respect for authority, ambition, social-consciousness, and confidence. Also, my parents would never call my employers (thanks Mom and Dad!). 

"Does that mean it’s a good thing to let 20-somethings meander — or even to encourage them to meander — before they settle down?" I think the article misinterprets what's going on at this stage. It imagines Millennials to be wandering around, foggy-eyed, unsure of how to proceed with our lives, when that's simply not the case. Leaving aside all the absurdly successful Gen Y entrepreneurs already changing the landscape of business as we know it, the rest of us simply want to make sure we're making smart decisions before jumping into our lives. If that means we're not growing up, so be it. I'll wait.

Lots of great discussions have come out of this article, such as this piece on Carol Phillip's Millennial Marketing blog, this discussion on Slate, and this fantastic article on The Huffington Post. What do you think? Does the NY Times have us pegged?

What Gets Gen Y Shopping Carts Rolling?

I recently participated in a panel discussion with three other Millennial marketeers, Matt Cheuvront, Lauren Fernandez and Kenji Summers. The topic was "Gen Y shopping habits" and the audience was about 1,000 retailers attending IRI's CPG Retail Summit in San Antonio. We had the pleasure of being moderated by the President of Innovation himself, Thom Blischok. The conversation was utterly fascinating to me, and very fun, so I thought I'd share some of the highlights.

Here are the questions and a summary of our answers:

• How and where do you primarily shop – online, at the mall, on a smartphone…and why? 
• Obviously my answer was "all of the above," but after more discussion it became clear that all of us were gravitating more and more towards shopping online. Kenji mentioned that he shops in brick-and-mortar stores, but even then, he checks prices online using his mobile device. I said that I tend to shop for necessities in the store, but for major purchases like a plasma TV, I'll go online and do the research first. It was widely agreed that customer reviews are extremely influential in our buying decisions.

• How have the internet, social media, and other new technologies (mobile) changed the way you shop?  Relate to brands? 
• We all agreed that the easy communication afforded by social media and mobile technologies has made us come to expect brands to up the ante when it comes to customer service. There are a million ways to communicate with us, the consumer, and when brands make the effort to be available and transparent, that's when we'll really connect with them.

• Has the current economic climate impacted your spending habits? If so, how?  Do you buy more store brands over name brands if they are more economical?
• This was where I was able to step in as the only panelist who had been unemployed and completely broke recently. The down economy definitely impacted my spending negatively. I didn't go out to eat very often, I stopped getting haircuts, and I stopped buying clothes (ouch). But I didn't stop spending altogether. My strategy was to set up a rewards system for myself. I would save a little money every time I got a check from a freelance client, and then whenever I landed a new client or met a goal, I would treat myself to something I was depriving myself of (a night out, a new jacket, etc). So brands targeting Millennials, don't despair - those of us not currently spending are saving up and working towards buying your products. Keep talking to us. We're listening!

• What are your biggest motivators when making purchase decisions?   
• For all of us, customer reviews and recommendations from friends were big. Yes, we're young and poor, and price is certainly a consideration, but if it comes down to choosing between a cheap product with terrible ratings, and a slightly more expensive product with excellent ratings, it was widely agreed that we would pay more for the higher rating. The internet is forcing brands to be held accountable for the quality of their products and customer service. It offers anybody and everybody a soap box, and Millennials, more than any other generation, are using that soap box.

• Why should marketers pay close attention to your generation? What are your top expectations from brands and marketers today? 
• We didn't get into this very much, so I'd like to touch on it now. My observation has been that Millennials are on the verge of something big. I think as soon as the economy recovers and Gen Y starts to have more disposable income, the entire retail landscape is going to be altered. We have high expectations from brands. We want to be brand loyal, and we will be, if you're fair, transparent, and communicative. We are very much an instant-gratification generation. We move fast and brands will have to keep up, or they're going to miss out.

• What else should CPG companies and retailers do to increase brand loyalty with your generation?
• Lauren touched on this a little bit with an example about Twitter. If she tweets about a product she likes, and they respond with something as simple as "thanks for the mention," she feels that much closer to the brand. I agree. If a company is accessible and I can feel like I have somehow made a personal connection with the brand, I will be more loyal to them, almost like a friend who does a good job of keeping in touch. We've been inundated with marketing messages and advertising, and those methods of mass communication are simply not as effective as they once were. 

On my flight home from the conference, I had the pleasure of getting some feedback from an audience member, Jana deHavilland King, Director of Consumer and Market Intelligence at L'Oreal.

For her, some of the highlights of the panel were hearing how brands capture our attention, and how we make buying decisions. She found it surprising that it was so important to us that brands make an effort to engage us on a personal level, and also that we're actively seeking out companies that are involved in the community or at least taking strides to make the world better. She didn't realize how important these things were to us and found it both refreshing and encouraging.

One thing that stuck out to her was that Gen Y seems very resourceful and aware. She found it impressive that we're so independent at such young ages. The way we're taking such huge risks right now and always going forward with nothing to fear, she thinks (and hopes) that we're going to do great things. She said she's curious and excited to see what our generation will be like in 10 years.

Jana's final takeaway was a whole new outlook on the Millennial generation. The phenomenon of constantly communicating and sharing online is intimidating to other generations, but she said when we explained it, it made a lot more sense and gave her an understanding that she didn't have before.

To see video highlights and innovation insights from the Summit, click here. For full audio, visit kenjisummers.com.

Millennials reading this, do you agree with our answers to the panel questions? Do you have anything to add?

Also, I overheard someone saying they thought our panel was "scary." I'm not sure what they meant by that, but it leads to my next question. Boomers, Gen X, does any of this surprise/scare you?