SDL a “customer experience” software and services provider has released results of multi-country survey of roughly 1,800 millennials (18 – 36). Not unlike other surveys the picture that emerges is of a highly mobile-centric audience that is willing to engage with marketers that earn their trust but are otherwise hard to reach.
Most Millennials use at least two internet devices every day. A minority use three or even four — 37 percent in the US. The survey also found that “19 out of 20” Millennials (globally) own smartphones and check them an average of 43 times per day (in US it’s 45).
Social media are by far the dominant way these respondents learn about things online. Search engines are ranked near the top but fall below Facebook and Twitter for content discovery. Accordingly the advice is to build relationships and trust with Millennials first on social media.
Millennials report preferring “hyper-targeted” media vs. non/less-targeted media. This answer arises in the context of a question about streaming music habits. However this attitude appears to equally extend to advertising and marketing messages as well.
Millennials understand and accept that their data will be tracked. However there’s a relatively nuanced hierarchy of acceptable tracking according to the survey. For example, ad clicks, email addresses and device ID tracking are more acceptable to Millennials than facial recognition, phone number tracking or location tracking.
The report infers from the data that if Millennials understand and are aware of the types of tracking going on — the more transparency there is around data collection — the more comfortable they’re going to be with it.
As a broad proposition, Millennials are more inclined to do engage with trusted brands and ignore those with whom they haven’t connected in the past. They also want to be in control of their interactions with brands and expect “omnichannel” consistency across the board.
Millennials say they’re willing to trade personal information or data for relevant ads/content but only with trusted or known brands. Offers, deals and discounts are also a motivator for Millennials to trade personal information.
The gestalt image that one gets is of a generation of sophisticated technology and internet users that wants relevant advertising but not too much privacy intrusion and will simply ignore marketing messages that don’t speak to them directly — literally and figuratively.
You can see the full results of the survey here.
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