If there is anything the world can rely on, it is that time will pass, children will be born, daughters and sons will see the world differently from mothers and fathers, and new generations will supersede previous ones every twenty years or so.
Concurrently with the rise of industrial-scale P.R. and advertising, the last seven generations of people born in the U.S. and the rest of the world have been given thematic identifiers, the better to denote them for purposes of understanding them and, let’s be honest, sell to them. There was the Greatest Generation, born with the 20th century (and through the 1920s), the Silent Generation, born just before the Depression and through the end of WWII, the Baby Boomers, born from after WWII through the introduction of the birth-control pill in 1964, Generation X, running from the following year through 1980, Generation Y or The Millennials – a moniker that identifies people born from 1981 through 1996, the post-Millennials or Generation Z (or Zoomers), born between 1997 and 2014, and finally Generation Beta, being conceived and born as we speak.
Today we will concern ourselves with the millennials, who, while the eldest of them may be waiting for grandchildren, are, as a demographic unit, just coming into their own, socially and economically, in a way that won’t be ignored and should be heeded by anyone who wants to be apprised of consumption trends and the myriad ways in which they impact capital markets.
Having been keen followers of the millennials for some years now, we believe them to be more sensitive than ever to the watchwords credibility, authenticity, and personality. To the extent that it is possible or advisable to generalize the behavior of a hundred million people, anyone who wants their custom will need to understand the foundational psychology of the cohort.
Millennials are especially sensitive to and vigilant of perceived power dynamics, specifically the following: hierarchies (the anyone-can-post-and-comment ethos of social media has created a preference for a flatter social/communication landscape); the value/downside of tradition; the value of long experience; received wisdom/morality; the elites vs. the common man, the idea of narratives vs. stories vs. facts (expressed as ‘fake news’, ‘gaslighting’, relativism, et al, but also as distrust of consensus / prevailing opinion), privacy (seeking to keep their personal data out of the hands of large corporations), and being sold to (preferring an “honest review” by an influencer to an ad by a paid spokesperson).
As a result, a major theme with this cohort is empowerment, in the form of: direct contact / easy access (see flat society, above), seeking the comfort that comes with having your preferences catered to (free shipping for online shopping, food and similar items delivered within the hour in cities, pervasive gamification: missions, levels, badges, points, and leaderboards everywhere: from social media to workplace learning to productivity apps, etc., and baseline low-level entertainment quotient (emojis, animated gifs, et al.)); radical autonomy (increasingly available WFH and similar tech-enabled, location-agnostic labor models, accessibly priced electric scooters/bikes, wireless (noise-cancelling) headphones, 3D printing, etc.); cause/meme-themed shopping and investing: ESG, DEI, GameStop/AMC, Robinhood, etc.); and, finally, their increasing influence in the markets, stemming from a pronounced value-seeking outlook and rising financial clout (on the back of being good savers and recipients of the massive wealth transfer from boomers).
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