Lena Dunham is one. So are Justin Bieber, Mark Zuckerberg, Taylor Swift, Prince William, LeBron James, Lionel Messi and the Olsen twins. Yep, they're all Millennials, people born between 1980 and 2000, and they’re the biggest demographic block since the Baby Boomers.
They also now account for $1.3 trillion in consumer spending and are online more than any other age group beside Gen X’ers.
So what do these big-spending grown-up children want? In a word: authenticity. Social media isn’t an afterthought, it’s a given. So if a brand is only pumping out canned messaging through its Twitter and Facebook pages, it’s unlikely to connect with Millennials. But if a brand offers true social engagement, including responding to concerns or providing tech support or customer service through social media, those are things that a Millennial consumer won’t soon forget.
"What Brands Do Millennials Love?" SAY News, 28 Jul. 2014. Web. 21 Mar. 2015.
Chipotle — A recent study by Barkley of the favorite fast-food brands of Millennials (PDF) found that Chipotle, the burrito joint that advertises that its meat is grass-fed and antibiotic-free, topped the list. This means that Millennials are willing to pay $2 or $3 more for lunch if they know they are getting a healthier option. Taco Bell, clearly the lower budget Mexican fast food option, placed at number four on the survey.
Only 27 percent of the Millennials surveyed by Barkley would admit that McDonald’s is their favorite fast food chain, barely more than half of those who said it was Chipotle (48 percent). Sure, McDonalds brainwashed Millennials with Happy Meals just like the Gen X’ers before them, but the Millennials have moved on, making those drive-thru lines a little shorter than they used to be.
Panera Bread — The sandwich-salad-bakery-coffee place came in number two in the Barkley survey, which reinforces why Chipotle is popular with Millennials: the young folks are willing to pay a little extra for something they perceive to be more healthy.
Dunkin Donuts — The biggest surprise of the Barkley survey is that Dunkin Donuts, the New England coffee chain, beat out Starbucks, the West Coast coffee chain. Starbucks would appear to most on the verge of world domination, but Millennials are more likely to skip the fancy Starbucks latte in favor of a raspberry donut and cheaper coffee that’s still pretty damn good.
Old Navy — Gap’s budget brand, Old Navy, scores big with Millennials through its combination of low prices, humorous TV ads, and social media campaigns like its annual summer $1 flip-flop sale, #flipflophooray. With Old Navy, Millennials know what they’re getting: inexpensive seasonal essentials that they can jazz up with a pair a designer sneakers and a set of Beats headphones.
Smirnoff — Millennials like to drink and haven’t developed a taste for whiskey yet, so they are buying vodka for their house parties and mixing it with Sunny Delite, probably. Absolut Vodka used to be the king brand of Gen X vodka drinkers, as well as the king of the print ad campaign. But Millennials don’t read print publications, and somehow Smirnoff is doing a better job of reaching them online and on their devices.
Air pollution in the Middle Kingdom is downright awful. Beijing often disappears into a thick, “pea soup” of smog which reduces visibility to just a few feet, in many instances.
On Jan. 12, an air monitor atop the US Embassy in Beijing recorded an astonishing 755-reading by the Air Quality Index devised by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). For perspective, this scale usually goes no higher than 500. Furthermore, the EPA considers any reading above 100 to be “unhealthy for sensitive groups.” Readings above 400 are “hazardous” for everyone.
Air pollution is so bad, in fact, that the usually taciturn Chinese leadership is permitting public discussion about the issue, in that “we’ve got to do something” sort of way.
No less than the hardline, Communist party mouthpiece People’s Daily newspaper asked, in a front page editorial the other day, “How can we get out of this suffocating siege of pollution?”
Read more: Airpocalypse Now!...Profit From China's Air Pollution http://dailyreckoning.com/airpocalypse-now-profit-from-chinas-air-pollution/#ixzz2M7Nmhrjr - See more at: http://dailyreckoning.com/airpocalypse-now-profit-from-chinas-air-pollution/#sthash.jWO45Xh5.dpuf
