In an article by Katie McBeth on Hootsuite, I read about the stereotypes associated with the millennial generation. They are the generation that students in COMM101, the future class of 2021, are connected to.
Why are they so hard to define? – Katie McBeth
It’s only a generalization made to define a group of people who are quite similar to one another but to call them the generation that is lazy, entitled, and narcissistic does not fully attempt to put any understanding towards who they are as individuals. We are people, as Adam Conover mentioned in his speech at Deep Shift, we are just people, and it is important for marketers to recognize that aspect.
Origin of Generations
The creation of the word “Millennial,” was accredited to Neil Hower and William Strauss, from their book on “Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584-2069,” but the word is nothing more than just a marketing tactic fashioned to label an entire target market. Marked by a tag, we are seemingly considered the part of society with the most spending and buying power, we are technologically savvy, conscious, and progressive; however, we are more than just the stereotypes this world has assumed us to be.
What’s to Hate?
It is given that any generation, no matter what year the mass of individuals were born in, there will always be a hate, or rather, a jealousy formed from the generations that preceded them. This is a result of difference. We are afraid of living in a world that continuously changes, adapts and evolves—we want to understand the world we live in. For them, millennials are like the alien race who’ve grown up so different and fast-paced it’s a little scary.
Marketing to People So Different
Wade, E. 2017, May 14. Retrieved from ThinkAboutNow.com
If you understand millennials as just lazy, entitled, and overly confident individuals who breathe dank memes on social media and go through increasingly intense epiphanies about existential crises—where do you even start? If there’s one thing marketers should know is that millennials want to see value.
Millennials are different, but they are people who want to make a difference. Marketers should understand that we are people who care, and we will not be satisfied by the regurgitation of our recent memes and trends. Instead, we want to see companies change the way they brand themselves; like Dove’s Beauty Campaign, for example.
We want to feel as if we give back to the community, we want to have purpose. Additionally, we are not the self-absorbed people previous generations might want to believe; we are merely demonstrating our social responsibility.
To conclude, generations, whether millennial or not, don’t exist; only the adaptation of people, who will challenge our understanding, exist.
Word Count: 450
References
David Crossman. 2016, October 29. Simon Sinek on Millennials in the Workplace. Retrieved from YouTube
Duerr, J. 2017, June 10. Millennials Don’t Exist! Adam Conover at Deep Shift. Retrieved from YouTube
McBeth, K. 2016, September 26. Marketing to Millennials: Why You Content Should Reflect Your Values. Retrieved from Hootsuite
McBeth, K. 2017, January 27. What Does Millennial Really Mean? Why the Generation is so Hard to Define. Retrieved from Hootsuite
Rouse, M. 2015, January. Millennials (Millennial generation). Retrieved from WhatIs.com
Tanya. 2013-2016. The List of Millennial Characteristics. Retrieved from Lucky Attitude
TedX Talks. 2017, November 11. TedXSF – Scott Hess – Millennials: Who They Are & Why We Hate Them. Retrieved from YouTube
Wade, E. 2017, May 14. Bad Habits of Millennials Linked to Modern Parenting, Spanking. Retrieved from ThinkAboutNow
