Nick Shore

Unless you compete in a market that specifically targets
youth, you probably don't spend a lot of time thinking about the emergence of
the so-called Millennial Generation in America today.

And if you don't spend a lot of time thinking about
Millennials, it may come every bit a surprise to y'all that at 100 million strong they are
the single largest generational cohort in American history, dwarfing their
predecessors Generation X, and even out-sizing that most famous of all
generational behemoths, The Baby Boomers.

"But we don't sell glue or acne cream," you lot may all the same be
thinking, "then why should we care?"

Consider for a moment the half-century long trajectory that
The Boomers accept taken from 1960s to the present day. Those bearded idealists
of the civil rights movement are the self same retirees now marching with
placards in the streets protesting for heath-care reform. It'southward not hard to run across
just how many of the tectonic shifts in civilisation and commerce over the last half
fifty years have been powered by the demands of the Boomer generation. From Pepsi'south co-opting of Sixties counter-culture, to the
casualization of the workplace, at that place is a wealth of evidence for how closely linked wide
changes in the American landscape accept been to the Boomers moving through fourth dimension,
like the proverbial egg in the snake.

Millennials are not just a more voluminous generation than
Boomers, but meliorate educated, more than self-esteemed, more than demanding, more
technologically savvy, more than empowered and wired to win at the game of life. And they
are pouring daily by the tens of thousands into the commercial and cultural
mainstream.

In short, no affair what business you are in, they are your
side by side generation of consumers.

Whether three years, five, or ten from at present, sooner or afterward
the Millennials will be the ones standing in the grocery isle, or in the bank
managers part, or in the machine dealership evaluating your product or service
offering, asking "is this for me, actually?" More probable, of course, they won't
be continuing in any of these places, but doing it on a vocalisation-activated iPad
while driving to work in Smart Motorcar Version iii.0, but you lot become the point.

And if you desire a vision of the kind of affect this
generation can have on an manufacture, merely look at some of the categories where
they have come to play already: music– transformed from a big label album-driven model to something so
customizable and just-in-time that it'south barely recognizable as the industry it
in one case was; vesture–the fast fashion of a Forever 21 shattering traditional
"one merchandise drib per flavor" models into shards; and of course the
social networking "industry," remarkable in then many ways, not least of which is
the speed with which a unmarried business entity can get from zero to half a
billion consumers.

At MTV, of grade, youth is our marketplace.

MTV made a decision at its point of inception to never grow
old with the audience but to reinvent periodically for each "generation adjacent."
And so naturally, we have been 1 of the companies impacted showtime and dramatically
by the Millennial generation coming of age equally entertainment consumers.

Because immature people are our viewers and considering they
are so fast and so fickle (and becoming ever more so), we study them with a
deep intensity and intimacy. We strive to sympathise not just the "what," but
also the "why"–their drives (conscious and unconscious), desires, passions,
fears, and challenges.

In all of our piece of work with Millennials, we take identified a
series of traits that are quite unique to this generation (versus prior
generations), and which we believe will accept dramatic implications on who
they will become every bit consumers–not just consumers of entertainment,
only of cars, homes, refrigerators, and shampoo.

Before describing these principles, it's important to
highlight ii tectonic forces that move beneath much of what defines the
uniqueness of this generation. The first, and peradventure virtually of import, is the
recalibration of the nuclear family and, every bit a issue, the way this
generation was parented.

A century of "parent-centered" nuclear family has steadily
been under-going a paradigm shift,
and may accept just passed the tipping indicate. The nucleus of the family unit has been moving
towards the child, and Millennials look like the first generation raised in
that new nuclear family structure. No longer the hierarchical construction with
authoritarian parent "leadership," the new family is flattened to a democracy, with
collective (if not kid-driven) decision-making procedure. Parents are more than like
all-time friends, life coaches, or as we at MTV phone call them "peer-ents."

75% of Millennials in an MTV study agreed that "Parents of
people my age would rather support their children than punish them," 58% agreed,
"My parents are like a best friend to me."

No longer is it necessary to "rebel confronting" authoritarian
parents to individuate, appoint in acts of self-expression, or push at the
boundaries. As one youth psychologist nosotros work with pointed out, "Parents don't
say you lot tin't go to the political party, they create safe spaces to consume booze, they
say Can I selection you up afterwards?, Here'due south money for a taxi."

Cocky-expression, having your phonation heard, following your own
path–these are all values that are positively encouraged in modernistic parenting
styles. Why rebel when yous merely need to explain your behavior in terms of "my
experiment in self discovery."

Percentage of
Millennials who hold with the following statements
(from MTV Millennial Border
Report, 2010):
• I'm always expressing
myself in different ways – 81%
• I detest it when other
people expect me to live by their rules – 76%
• If I want something,
nothing is going to stop me – 69%

In short, the power dynamics of the family unit accept shifted
dramatically, and much of the empowered, i could even say "super-powered"
style of the Millennials has its roots in this redistribution.

And in the mode of pouring gasoline on a burn down, the 2nd tectonic
shift is technology. The "You Demand It," push button, everything costless, always
on culture of technology and the Internet has amplified much of the "social
coding" of the manner Millennials were parented. And as many commentators have
already pointed out, the revolution will be tweeted. The power is in the hands
of a million anonymous hands, and can exist wielded apparently consequence free,
in real fourth dimension, with the click of a mouse.

Based on what nosotros know most what makes this generation tick,
and what we hear and observe about them on a daily basis, nosotros have distilled
downward five principles, or possibly they would be better described as challenges
for businesses thinking about what information technology will mean to cater to this Millennial
consumer as they come on line in a major style to more and more than sectors of
concern.

1. What
will it mean when co-creation with your consumer becomes part of your business
model?

A generation
raised on "children should be seen and heard" but will not be a passive
consumer of anything. They will demand a voice in, a stake in, even a creative
indicate of view most, everything that your business does–from the product
itself to the way it is sold and marketed, to the social responsibleness
policies of the organization itself. They may or may not choose to utilise that
power (for instance simply miniscule percentages of people really contribute to
the crowd-sourced IP of Wikipedia), but they will demand that the mechanisms
are in place that requite them the choice to participate and the feeling that
co-inventiveness drives the development process.

And this probably won't exist a i-fourth dimension outcome ("lets go and do
some creative focus groups and get our audience to help us remember nearly
innovation"). It will be an on-going real fourth dimension feedback loop with demonstrable
affect and validation built in. I of the most buzzed about advertizing campaigns of
the concluding few years is One-time Spice, where real fourth dimension changes happen in the
commercial creative as a result of input from the audition. There'due south the beauty
of the idea itself, so there's the power of the feedback/validation loop
created with the audience–"Come across, you matter, your vote counts, your touch on is
felt and something moves as a result, you are smart and creative and you have … power."
And speaking of smarter …

two. What
will it mean to make your product 10 times smarter than it is today?

In all the inquiry we deport with this generation at MTV,
the word we perhaps hear the well-nigh is "smart" (closely followed past "random,"
"awkward," "awesome," and "love"). "Smart" means a multitude of things to the
generation, merely ane affair that's mutual is that it carries a very high premium
and social currency. For the well-nigh educated generation in history, told by so-called "velcro" parents that smart is
everything, information technology should hardly be a surprise. And indeed 57% of the generation
consider themselves smarter than their parents, and 68% agree that "Nerds are
the new jocks"!

Nosotros already take the Smartphone, the Smart Car and fifty-fifty Smart
Water. What is smart soap, smart diapers, smart gas stations.

When y'all investigate the concepts of smartness further with
the generation, some of the nuances that sally give fascinating insights into
their commonage psyche. For something to be "smart" it has to, for example, entertain
me, remember what I practice and anticipate my needs, exercise "everything" for me, have
built-in complexity and layers of pregnant, shape-shift, exist as smart as me!

iii. What
will it hateful to be in a "two thespian game" with your consumer?

Millennials have a natural predisposition to view situations
in terms of the metaphor of a game. Have the workplace–"what are the rules of
this earth, what are the levels, how do I get to the 10th one as
quickly equally possible (that nice CEO suite on the corner of the pinnacle floor), is
there a shortcut, a smart bomb, a undercover entrance, a magic potion?" Foursquare,
the location-based social networking site, literally turns 1's social life
into a game complete with badges, medals, trophies, and even mayor-hood awarded
to "players."

The generation learned young and learned well how to
expertly negotiate with their parents to get a pass out of homework or a day
off school … power-players in the game chosen "family." Raised on a diet of nigh millions of hours of World Of
Warcraft, elaborate world kid-centered "constructs" like Harry Potter, and
soccer trophies for the whole squad, Millennials want to win.

Asked about "worldview" based on the post-obit phrases, the
intergeneration differences here become quickly apparent.

"Game" the system:
Millennials – 53%
Boomers – 26%

Protest the system:
Millennials – 13%
Boomers – 59%

Marketing to this generation may exist more like a two player
game, where everyone's looking for the win win. How will your campaigns create
a sense of "play" on the role of the audience, a sense of depth and levels, a
sense of date, a validation loop, and ultimately a sense of material and
emotional victory (or even of existence the special ane that figured out how to
game information technology )? In the marketing entrada for Halo 3, level after level of depth was
buried within layers of the marketing campaign, consumers freeze-framing DVR
playback of commercials to option up codes embedded in the pic to follow
breadcrumbs downward Internet wormholes for the next clue.

4. What
will it mean to your business to operate in on-going versions rather than a
concluding product?

If we had to identify someone who is the face of the
Generation, the way that Bob Dylan peradventure was for the Boomers or Kurt Cobaine
for Xers, then today that face would be Lady Gaga's. Considered beyond doubt the "almost interesting
person today" by the generation the core characteristic of Gaga is the speed
and ferocity of her cocky-reinvention. She is doing in 10 minutes what information technology too
Madonna ten years to achieve.

Who do you think is the near interesting person in pop civilisation today?

Size of give-and-take indicates volume of response:

The parental premium placed on cocky expression for today's
kids, combined with technology tools to literally "curate the cocky" in real
time, has created an insatiable appetite for newness. If something does non
version, it speedily becomes ho-hum. This has e'er, of course, been the
consumer need that drives every company's innovations engine, but the requisite
rpm of that engine is rapidly going into the red zone as this generation come
on line every bit buyers. It'southward no longer acceptable, for instance, that chewing gum
remain the same flavor throughout the duration of the chew. No, the gum has to
flavor-shift mid chew lest the chewer'southward dopamine/adrenaline cycles start to
fade and new stimulus is required.

5. What
volition it mean when in that location is no such thing as an un-connected product?

Everything we are learning about the generation points to a
demand to be constantly connected, existentially uncomfortable with the feeling
of beingness "lone," experiencing a fear of missing out when they stray to the hinterlands
of their social graph. One interesting piece of enquiry led the states to understand
how the auto, and then squarely a symbol of freedom and independence for prior
generations, has become in danger of being perceived every bit a "disconnection
device" for Millennials. "Trapped" inside the hermetically sealed vehicle, "alone",
and of course unable to text and check your status update, the feeling of the
open route becomes the very antithesis of freedom, more than similar isolation.

A product which is 'un-connected' has a certain inertness
for the generation. At the more superficial level even the most inert product
can build a web site and "connect". But it is much more than challenging to
re-imagine your product experience past request how to increment its innate
connection. What would a connected retail experience wait similar? Maybe similar
the and so called "booty video" syndrome where kids film themselves in irresolute rooms
trying out dissimilar outfits, post the moving-picture show of their ensembles in real time,
and seek feedback from their social network on which ones look best earlier
purchasing.

As the quondam hockey adages goes, you don't skate to where the
puck is, you skate to where information technology's headed. And in the case of the Millennials,
we're looking at a hundred million pucks moving towards open ice where bold,
as-yet-unimagined products and services volition some day await them. So heads-up, here come the Millennials.

Nick Shore is Senior Vice President of Strategic Consumer Insights and Research at MTV. He is responsible for all of MTV'southward enquiry efforts beyond MTV, MTV2, mtv.com, mtvU, and MTV Tr3s platforms.