Nick Shore

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

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

"But we don't sell mucilage or acne cream," you may still be
thinking, "so why should we intendance?"

Consider for a moment the half-century long trajectory that
The Boomers have taken from 1960s to the nowadays day. Those bearded idealists
of the ceremonious rights movement are the self same retirees now marching with
placards in the streets protesting for heath-care reform. Information technology'due south not hard to meet
just how many of the tectonic shifts in culture and commerce over the last one-half
50 years take been powered by the demands of the Boomer generation. From Pepsi's co-opting of Sixties counter-civilisation, to the
casualization of the workplace, there is a wealth of testify for how closely linked broad
changes in the American landscape take been to the Boomers moving through time,
similar the proverbial egg in the snake.

Millennials are not merely a more voluminous generation than
Boomers, simply better educated, more than self-esteemed, more demanding, more
technologically savvy, more 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 curt, no matter what business you lot are in, they are your
next generation of consumers.

Whether three years, five, or 10 from at present, sooner or later
the Millennials will exist the ones continuing in the grocery isle, or in the banking company
managers part, or in the auto dealership evaluating your product or service
offering, asking "is this for me, really?" More than likely, of course, they won't
be standing in whatsoever of these places, just doing it on a voice-activated iPad
while driving to work in Smart Auto Version three.0, but y'all get the point.

And if you want a vision of the kind of impact this
generation tin can take on an industry, only look at some of the categories where
they have come up to play already: music– transformed from a big characterization album-driven model to something so
customizable and just-in-time that it'southward barely recognizable every bit the manufacture it
one time was; clothing–the fast way of a Forever 21 shattering traditional
"one trade drop per season" models into shards; and of form the
social networking "manufacture," remarkable in then many means, not to the lowest degree of which is
the speed with which a single business concern entity can go from zero to one-half a
billion consumers.

At MTV, of form, youth is our market.

MTV made a decision at its signal of inception to never grow
sometime with the audience but to reinvent periodically for each "generation next."
And then naturally, we have been i of the companies impacted starting time and dramatically
by the Millennial generation coming of historic period every bit amusement consumers.

Because young people are our viewers and considering they
are and then fast and then fickle (and condign always more so), we study them with a
deep intensity and intimacy. We strive to understand not just the "what," but
likewise the "why"–their drives (conscious and unconscious), desires, passions,
fears, and challenges.

In all of our work with Millennials, we accept 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 volition become equally consumers–not just consumers of entertainment,
but of cars, homes, refrigerators, and shampoo.

Earlier describing these principles, it's of import to
highlight ii tectonic forces that motion beneath much of what defines the
uniqueness of this generation. The first, and perhaps nearly of import, is the
recalibration of the nuclear family and, as a issue, the manner this
generation was parented.

A century of "parent-centered" nuclear family has steadily
been nether-going a paradigm shift,
and may take but passed the tipping signal. 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 non kid-driven) conclusion-making process. Parents are more than similar
best friends, life coaches, or as we at MTV call them "peer-ents."

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

No longer is it necessary to "insubordinate against" authoritarian
parents to individuate, appoint in acts of self-expression, or push at the
boundaries. As ane youth psychologist we work with pointed out, "Parents don't
say you can't become to the party, they create safety spaces to consume alcohol, they
say Can I pick you upwards after?, Here'due south money for a taxi."

Self-expression, having your vox heard, following your ain
path–these are all values that are positively encouraged in mod parenting
styles. Why rebel when you simply need to explain your behavior in terms of "my
experiment in self discovery."

Percentage of
Millennials who agree with the following statements
(from MTV Millennial Border
Study, 2010):
• I'g always expressing
myself in dissimilar means – 81%
• I hate it when other
people expect me to live by their rules – 76%
• If I want something,
nothing is going to end me – 69%

In short, the power dynamics of the family have shifted
dramatically, and much of the empowered, 1 could even say "super-powered"
style of the Millennials has its roots in this redistribution.

And in the style of pouring gasoline on a fire, the second tectonic
shift is engineering. The "Yous Demand It," push push, everything free, always
on culture of technology and the Net has amplified much of the "social
coding" of the manner Millennials were parented. And equally many commentators have
already pointed out, the revolution volition exist tweeted. The power is in the hands
of a million bearding easily, and can exist wielded apparently consequence costless,
in real time, with the click of a mouse.

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

ane. What
will it hateful when co-cosmos with your consumer becomes part of your business organisation
model?

A generation
raised on "children should be seen and heard" simply will not exist a passive
consumer of annihilation. They will demand a voice in, a stake in, even a creative
point of view near, everything that your business does–from the product
itself to the way it is sold and marketed, to the social responsibility
policies of the system itself. They may or may non choose to utilize that
power (for example simply miniscule percentages of people actually contribute to
the crowd-sourced IP of Wikipedia), only they will demand that the mechanisms
are in place that give them the choice to participate and the feeling that
co-creativity drives the development process.

And this probably won't be a former event ("lets get and do
some creative focus groups and get our audience to help united states of america think about
innovation"). It volition be an on-going existent fourth dimension feedback loop with demonstrable
touch on and validation built in. One of the most buzzed about ad campaigns of
the concluding few years is Old Spice, where real fourth dimension changes happen in the
commercial artistic as a result of input from the audience. In that location's the beauty
of the idea itself, so there'due south the power of the feedback/validation loop
created with the audition–"Meet, y'all thing, your vote counts, your impact is
felt and something moves as a event, you are smart and artistic and you have … power."
And speaking of smarter …

2. What
will information technology mean to make your product ten times smarter than it is today?

In all the enquiry we conduct with this generation at MTV,
the give-and-take nosotros perhaps hear the most is "smart" (closely followed by "random,"
"bad-mannered," "awesome," and "love"). "Smart" means a multitude of things to the
generation, just one matter that'southward common is that it carries a very loftier premium
and social currency. For the most educated generation in history, told past then-called "velcro" parents that smart is
everything, it should hardly exist a surprise. And indeed 57% of the generation
consider themselves smarter than their parents, and 68% concur that "Nerds are
the new jocks"!

We already have the Smartphone, the Smart Car and even Smart
Water. What is smart soap, smart diapers, smart gas stations.

When you investigate the concepts of smartness farther with
the generation, some of the nuances that emerge give fascinating insights into
their collective psyche. For something to be "smart" it has to, for example, entertain
me, remember what I practise and conceptualize my needs, do "everything" for me, take
born complexity and layers of meaning, shape-shift, be equally smart as me!

iii. What
will it mean to exist in a "two role player game" with your consumer?

Millennials accept a natural predisposition to view situations
in terms of the metaphor of a game. Take the workplace–"what are the rules of
this globe, what are the levels, how exercise I get to the xth one equally
quickly as possible (that nice CEO suite on the corner of the height flooring), is
there a shortcut, a smart bomb, a secret archway, a magic potion?" Square,
the location-based social networking site, literally turns one's social life
into a game consummate with badges, medals, trophies, and fifty-fifty 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 twenty-four hour period
off schoolhouse … ability-players in the game called "family." Raised on a diet of almost millions of hours of World Of
Warcraft, elaborate globe kid-centered "constructs" similar Harry Potter, and
soccer trophies for the whole squad, Millennials want to win.

Asked nearly "worldview" based on the following phrases, the
intergeneration differences here become quickly apparent.

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

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

Marketing to this generation may exist more similar a two player
game, where everyone's looking for the win win. How volition your campaigns create
a sense of "play" on the office of the audience, a sense of depth and levels, a
sense of engagement, a validation loop, and ultimately a sense of material and
emotional victory (or even of existence the special one that figured out how to
game it )? In the marketing entrada for Halo 3, level later on level of depth was
buried inside layers of the marketing campaign, consumers freeze-framing DVR
playback of commercials to pick upwardly codes embedded in the motion picture to follow
breadcrumbs downwardly Cyberspace wormholes for the adjacent inkling.

4. What
will it hateful 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 mode that Bob Dylan perchance was for the Boomers or Kurt Cobaine
for Xers, then today that confront would exist Lady Gaga'southward. Considered beyond uncertainty the "nearly interesting
person today" by the generation the core characteristic of Gaga is the speed
and ferocity of her self-reinvention. She is doing in x minutes what it too
Madonna ten years to reach.

Who do y'all recollect is the most interesting person in pop culture today?

Size of word indicates volume of response:

The parental premium placed on self expression for today's
kids, combined with technology tools to literally "curate the self" in real
time, has created an clamorous appetite for newness. If something does non
version, it quickly becomes slow. This has ever, of course, been the
consumer demand that drives every visitor'south innovations engine, but the requisite
rpm of that engine is rapidly going into the red zone as this generation come up
on line as buyers. It's no longer acceptable, for example, that chewing gum
remain the same flavor throughout the elapsing of the chew. No, the glue has to
flavor-shift mid chew lest the chewer'south dopamine/adrenaline cycles start to
fade and new stimulus is required.

five. What
will information technology hateful when in that location is no such thing equally an united nations-connected product?

Everything we are learning near the generation points to a
need to exist constantly connected, existentially uncomfortable with the feeling
of being "alone," experiencing a fearfulness of missing out when they stray to the hinterlands
of their social graph. One interesting piece of research led us to understand
how the automobile, so squarely a symbol of liberty and independence for prior
generations, has go in danger of existence perceived as a "disconnection
device" for Millennials. "Trapped" within the hermetically sealed vehicle, "solitary",
and of form unable to text and cheque your status update, the feeling of the
open road becomes the very antithesis of freedom, more like isolation.

A production which is 'un-connected' has a certain inertness
for the generation. At the more than superficial level even the about inert product
can build a spider web site and "connect". But it is much more challenging to
re-imagine your product feel by request how to increment its innate
connection. What would a connected retail experience look like? Maybe like
the so called "haul video" syndrome where kids film themselves in irresolute rooms
trying out unlike outfits, mail service the film of their ensembles in existent fourth dimension,
and seek feedback from their social network on which ones look best earlier
purchasing.

Every bit the quondam hockey adages goes, you don't skate to where the
puck is, y'all skate to where it'south headed. And in the case of the Millennials,
nosotros're looking at a hundred million pucks moving towards open water ice where bold,
as-yet-unimagined products and services volition some twenty-four hour period await them. And then heads-up, here come the Millennials.

Nick Shore is Senior Vice President of Strategic Consumer Insights and Enquiry at MTV. He is responsible for all of MTV'south research efforts across MTV, MTV2, mtv.com, mtvU, and MTV Tr3s platforms.