Understanding and Marketing to Millennials

Marketers Are Sizing Up the Millennials as the New Consumer Model.  (The New York Times, 8/21/2014)

Some examples:

The mattress industry.  

Meeting the Millennials:  Getting to know your next big customer.  (BedTimes, January 2012)

According to the Times, the article advised mattress companies to sponsor a music concert or create online quizzes about mattresses.

Quiz time, courtesy of Sleep Train Mattress Center.

1. Sleep position:  What position do you prefer to sleep in?
• Side and/or back
• Stomach
2.  Sleep location:  If you were sleeping in a house with no bed, where would you choose to sleep? 
• On the carpet
• Comforter on the carpet
• Couch
• Pillows on the couch
• Recliner
3. Mattress duration.  How long do you plan to use this mattress?
• 2-5 years
• 5-7 years
• 7+ years
4. Mattress quality
• I want to buy a basic quality product
• I want to buy a standard quality product with some features.
• I want the best value of a high quality product with obvious features and benefits.
• I want to expand my options by considering clearance, closeout or discontinued mattresses.

Totino's (General Mills).   General Mills, one of the country’s largest food companies, last year revamped its frozen pizza brand, Totino’s, with black packaging and spicy flavors in an effort to appeal to millennials. The new Totino’s Bold products are marketed with zombie videos on YouTube instead of the picture of the matronly chef Rose Totino clad in red-and-white checkered apron that graced newspaper ads in the 1980s, when the target consumer was baby boomer mothers.



Kickstart (PepsiCo).  Breakfast drinks are also experiencing millennial-related upheaval. Marketers have found that young adults want something besides orange juice or coffee in the morning. Many of them, who exercise more than their parents at that age, have energy drinks for breakfast. 

PepsiCo already has responded to that change with Kickstart, a drink it created with millennials in mind that combines Mountain Dew flavor with 5 percent fruit juice.



One more quote from the Times article.  At the same time, millennials are the most educated generation in American history. Far more members of this generation are going to college than of past generations.

Most educated or most years spent going to school?