The Millennial is Dead. It's Time for Selfhood
Tom Ellis-Jones, chief client officer at ZAK, reveals how brands are misjudging the desires of the under 30s.
As I started writing this piece on the Death of the Millennial, little did I realise that I would also be calling time on the Xennial too, a new micro-generation that hijacked the news agenda recently.
For the purpose of clarity, the term Millennial was originated to describe a generation born between 1982 and 2004, while the term Xennial describes a micro generation born between 1977 and 1983.
And in my view, it’s time to call bullshit on both.
ZAK's chief client officer, Tom Ellis-Jones
For years now, the word Millennial has been hijacked by the media and marketing industry to broadly define the behaviour and attitudes of young people. Yet over a third of young people we asked don’t even know what the term means.
The fact is, you just can’t define two decades of young people with one single set of values. Not when youth culture and what it means to be a young person in the world today is so diverse and multi-layered.
At ZAK, we specialise in connecting brands with the under 30s, so we were compelled to explore a better way to understand contemporary youth culture and deconstruct why the term Millennial is being rejected by youth. We commissioned a global study that draws insight from influential global collaborators across science, publishing and culture, in addition to over 2,000 consumers aged 18 to 30.
"Isn’t it time we ditched these loose and lazy descriptions for entire generations of people and start working a little harder to truly understand the perceptions, motivations and behaviours of young people?"
In it, we discovered that some inherent traits of being young are fixed. Risk, Belonging and Novelty are hard-wired into the youth brain because the pre-frontal cortex – essentially, the front of the brain that manages grown-up things like decision-making, planning and prioritisation – develops much later than the pleasure-seeking brain that’s more or less ready by puberty. This is called Nature.
But the context in which the youth brain develops is all important. Never have young people been so exposed to so many influences and so much different and diverse content. All of which is shaping their views on society, humanity, politics and their environment.
Proof of this from ZAK’s research is how youth milestones have changed over time. 60% of the sample stated that “getting married” was a perceived sign of success for their parents' generation. For them though, finding a purpose in life (33.1%) or positivity around their own sexuality (27.7%) were cited as being more important than getting married (only 23%). This is Culture.
It’s the combination of fixed, inherent behavioural traits combined with fluid, cultural influences that creates our sense of individuality, or what we at ZAK call: our sense of Selfhood.
In short, Nature x Culture = Selfhood.
So, what does this all mean for brands trying to engage with the under 30s?
Let’s look at the three inherent traits of youth and what they mean to young people today.
RISK
This has always been important to young people, but its definition is changing. Over 50% of young people today describe risk as getting out of your comfort zone; as expressions of purpose, freedom and ambition rather than more traditional forms of risk-taking such as transgression (4.15%) and rebellion (1.6%).
This notion of RISK with purpose has been expressed most recently by Lynx as they set out to redefine modern masculinity. In a series of advertising and social content that featured guys talking about a range of topics, from the last time they cried to how they feel about their body, the brand challenged traditional perceptions of what it is to be a man. So, while risk has always had a role in trying things out, now the cultural context is all about the bravery to be who you truly are.
BELONGING
Young people’s sense of belonging has also changed from being about tribal connection to coming together for moments of shared experience with a diverse group of like-minded individuals. Nearly half (46%) stated caring for each other and acceptance of difference (37%) as a form of belonging versus being the same (3.6%) and identikit (1.35%).
A great example of what we have identified as BELONGING with diversity, is the new #worndifferent campaign for Dr Marten’s that sees 29 individuals brought together to celebrate how Dr Marten’s aren’t just worn by subcultures but by people united by diversity and self-expression. This is synchronicity.
NOVELTY
Just snacking on bites of instant gratification to give us spikes of pleasure has evolved into a deeper curiosity about ourselves and the world and a search for more meaningful rewards. Over half (53%) of young people said curiosity was about exploration and learning (50%) versus being ‘all about likes’ (1.35%) and pursuing fads (3.8%)
If NOVELTY has more meaning, then VICE is one youth brand that is getting it right. The media company has become the pre-eminent voice of youth culture because they’re committed to delivering news in the form of challenging content that forces you to lean in and reevaluate your perspective on the world.
In summary, as an industry that claims to be audience and insight-led, isn’t it time we ditched these loose and lazy descriptions for entire generations of people and start working a little harder to truly understand the perceptions, motivations and behaviours of young people and what this means for brands wanting to engage with them.
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