The Millennial Generation as customers

From the book: “Millennials and the Popular Culture: How the Next Generation will change arts and entertainment” (Lifecourse.com)

Dr. Pete Markiewicz

Indiespace.com & Lifecourse AssociatesArt Institute of California, Los Angeles

5 views of Millennials as customers

• The “entitlement” generation

• The “call for a feeling” generation

• The “DJ/generative” generation

• The new Millennial brand

• The “virtual” generation (next deck)

The entitlement generation

• Derives from the “special” core trait– Millennials see their needs as “rights” – Everyone’s a “micro celebrity” worthy of special

customer service– Expect benefits (and a list) from the start – Expect free stuff

• “Special” enough to deserve it• They’ll give up their privacy to get it

– Helicopter parents will defend their “rights”

Reaching an ‘entitled’ generation

• Give them enhanced peer to peer communication – it’s their greatest “right”

• Tell them they have a ‘right’ to virtual products and services (that can reproduced at low to zero cost)

• Mashups, Widgets

• Membership

• Online entertainment

• User-generated entertainment

• Let them barter their privacy for your content• Parent/child co-marketing (parents will foot the bill)

The “call for a feeling” generation

• Derives from the “team-player” core trait– Millennials don’t have an “inner compass” (unlike their

mostly Boomer parents)– Online peer groups in Web 2.0 provide the “wisdom of

the crowd” for personal decisions– Short, frequent “ping” style communication (texting

rather than long calls, emails, or letters)– Definition of “friend” loosened to anyone you can

communicate with– Virtual personas to broadcast their inner state (e.g.

avatars in virtual worlds)

“Inner compass” vs. “The wisdom of the crowd”

Older generations have a feeling (excitement, sadness), and call a

friend to share…

Millennials call a friend to get their next feeling…

Millennials consult the group to know what to think/feel next! – Sherri Turkle, MIT

Calling for a feeling…

“Students can’t go for even a few minutes without talking on their cellphone. There’s almost a discomfort with not being stimulated – a kind of ‘I can’t stand the silence’…”

-Donald Roberts,Stanford Professor, quoted in “Generation M”, Time, March 27, 2006

Answering a “call for a feeling”

• “Ping” them via their networks• Viral, Internet every day (really hour)• Mass media when Millennials are “sharing”• Drop the Superbowl ads

• Tell them how to be… like everyone else• Do this – your friends are all doing it!• We help everyone share what you do!• We help you get the coolest product/service possible• We tell you how to plan your future • We support the “right” social causes (‘clickthrough’

activism)

The DJ/generative generation

• Derives from “team player” core trait– All Millennials are “media creators”– Preferred technology is generative– Media is “cut and paste” mashups– More parts, options, features = better product– Multiple origins, sources, ok– “Authenticity” less important

Generative technology

• Millennials have grown up with technology that encourages– Configuration– Flexibility– User modification– User sharing– User-created content

Generative technologies have…

• Leverage – simple product or concept enables a broad new range of activity

• Adaptability – easily built out, ramped up, modified• Ease of mastery – users can learn how to use –

and repurpose product• Accessibility – everyone can be creative using the

technology• Transferability – changes/innovations made by one

group are easily transferred to others• Payoff - allow amateurs to come up with the really

big innovations

Generative plus/minus

• Advantages– Easily “ramped up”, modified– Allow amateur innovation– Innovations rapidly propagate through system– Quick fixes for problems

• Disadvantages– Configurable may equal “too complex”– Too arcane (PNG versus GIF)– Lame amateur stuff crowd out professionals– Vastly more susceptible to damage through viruses,

hacking, malware

Examples

• Tea kettle versus “coffee pod”

• MP3 versus iPod

• iPod versus CD

• Mac versus iPhone

Carterphone vs. Pod

• The “Carterphone” or “Pod” gambit – Turn a generative system into a non-generative one– Take end to end control– Improve ease of use– VASTLY improve security

• BUT, when a wireless carrier controlled which cellphone could be used in their network– Quality suffered– Features valuable to consumers were removed– Undesirable features were not improved

SOURCE: Tim Wu, “Wireless Carterphone, 1 International Journal off Communication

389, 404-15 (2008), at http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/152/96

Reaching the DJ/generative

• Millennials don’t want – ‘Freedom’ for freedom’s sake at the hardware or

network level– Generative ability at the software level

• Millennials DO want– Configurability– Generative “mashup” ability at content level

(media exchange, visual language)– Sharing mashups (media creations versus open-

source software)

The Millennial “mashup”

• Features– Existing data and media re “DJed” together– Generative tech allows end-users to “overlay” media

from other sources– Results are easily shared via the network

• Types– Media creations (e.g. blog)– Virtual products/widgets (e.g. virtual pets)

• Creates value from – Word-of-mouth advertising– Virtual product sales and distribution

Selling to the generative…

• Your product should– Let them generate at the content level– Let them generate at the media level

• Build mashups• Create online characters/personas• Upload “micro-celebrity” video, commercials• Create/sell virtual products (IVMU example)

– Less important at hardware, software level• Don’t create products that

– Are stripped-down, inferior to “protect” the vendor– Show them the walls of your garden– Allow only one-way watching and listening– Don’t be the one who stops the Millennial Carterphone!

(unless you still think the music industry is cool)

Generative for mobiles

• Do– Keep the “walled garden” for hardware, network– Keep code, network private (security)

• But…– Lower gates for developers (e.g. add Flash)– Provide tools for media generativity (mashups)– Figure out a revenue model (micropayments)– Provide tools for sharing between users

• Don’t– Use celebrities (professional content producers)– Rely on “top down” entertainment, media as a sole

strategy

The new Millennial brand

• Brand loyalty, with a difference…• Loyalty to the transaction, not the big picture• Loyalty to companies giving them “generative” ability

Loyalty to companies with a social cause

• Millennials trust • A few “big, bright, and friendly” brands that give them

generative capacity– Think Apple, Google, MySpace, Facebook

• Millennials don’t trust• Brands catering to narrow race/gender classifications• One-way brands (they don’t get to generate)

Millennial house of worship

Brands and networks

New network allows

more brands to reach

an audience due to

lower cost barrier

Network technology allows

ever-larger groups of consumers to

form consensus on a small number

of preferred brands

# of

Brands

Time

New network (telegraph, telephone,

radio, television, Internet) is introduced

End of brand fragmentation?

In the long term, Millennial consensus building will reverse brand fragmentation and a few

“big, bright and friendly” brands will re-emerge - Neil Howe

Becoming a Millennial brand

• Cool Brands– Enable me to create via technology– Tell the truth– Are NOT edgy or cynical (software LINK)– Are serious (no ironic humor, jackass behavior)– Are something my parents and I agree on

• My Brands– Part of my communication network– Say/prove that I’m special– Mix (apparently) free stuff with payment– Let me make and share stuff– Show social responsibility (‘click through activism’)

The virtual generation

All the features of Millennials as customers described thus far are small potatoes

compared to their participation in virtual worlds

See you at the next deck!

References• Millennials and the Popular Culture

http://www.lifecourse.com/pubs/books.php • Millennials Go to College (2nd ed.)

http://www.lifecourse.com/pubs/books.php • The Press-Democrat - Millennials fight Boomer-led Wi-Fi bans

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/EarlyEdition/article_view.cfm?recordID=9085&publishdate=04/13/2008 • “Generation M”, Time Magazine March 27, 2006• Sherri Turkle MIT cyber-psychologist, in The Economist, April 12, 2008• Online traffice at compete.com

http://siteanalytics.compete.com • Cnet - Neilsen 2008 results for social networking sites

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-9948219-36.html • Why virtual worlds are overtaking the game industry

http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2007/10/why-virtual-wor.html • New World Notes - New World Notes' True Community Search: Top Twenty Popular Second Life Sites, September 20

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2007/09/new-world-notes.html • “Total minutes” netratings for web 2.0 sites

http://www.netratings.com/pr/pr_070710.pdf• MySpace real pageviews

http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2006/04/myspace-click-factory • Fun with numbers: Do New Ratings Mean New Valuations?

http://voices.allthingsd.com/20070712/robert-seidman/• Second Life statistics

http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy-graphs.php• Second Life engagement “Second Grade Math”(Oct. 5th 2007)

http://blog.secondlife.com/category/economy/ • Kid’s worlds poised for growth spurt

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1005410&src=article_head_sitesearch • Harvard Business School Conference, Nov 2007

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=16326• There.com demographics (2004)

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PJQ/is_6_2/ai_114573226 • Daedalus Project - The Psychology of MMORGs

http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001369.php http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/pdf/3-4.pdf

• Comparing virtual worldshttp://www.kzero.co.uk/blog/?p=978

• Virtual World Growth Projectionshttp://www.slideshare.net/nicmitham/virtual-world-growth-projections/

• Round-up of 50 virtual worldshttp://fabricoffolly.blogspot.com/2007/10/second-life-in-perspective-round-up-of.html

• eMarketer report on virtual worldshttp://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1005410&src=article_head_sitesearch