Social Is Now Second to TV as a Means for Influencing This Generation
NEW YORK, NY – Adroit Digital today announced the results of a comprehensive study of how 2,000 U.S. Millennials (consumers between the ages of 18 and 33) view brands and their thoughts on brand loyalty. The findings revealed how their brand choices are influenced and what matters most to them. This generation of tech-savvy, young adults are a consumer juggernaut, representing $600 billion in annual spending power. To secure the brand loyalty of these digital natives, brands and agencies need to look at advertising in a new way.
The insights gained in this survey are meant to assist agencies and brands in evaluating how their current efforts align with the next generation of brand promoters. The survey targeted a random sample of U.S. consumers who self-identified as being both between the ages of 18 and 33 as well as owning both a personal computer and a smartphone.
Key Findings:
- The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From the Tree: When it comes to brand loyalty, 64 percent of Millennials surveyed feel the same level of or greater brand loyalty than their Baby Boomer or Generation X parents, with 24 percent feeling more brand loyal than their parents.
- Social is Challenging TV for Influence: 60 percent of Millennials said that social advertising has the most influence over them in how they perceive a brand and a brand’s value, compared with TV at 70 percent. In contrast, traditional media outside of TV falls flat. Radio, billboards (OOH), and magazines finished last in the sphere of influence, with mobile and online — both display and video — comfortably in the center.
- Maybe Mother Doesn’t Know Best: While many Millennials have brand loyalty identical to or surpassing that of their parents, 77 percent will use a different set of criteria in selecting brands to which they’ll be loyal.
- No One Wants a Bad Reputation: In the new age of branding, having a quality product is no longer enough to secure loyalty. 47 percent of Millennial respondents said they would change brands if their current brand were found to have bad business practices.
- Keeping it Real: Moving forward, brands will need to sit up and listen in order to remain relevant to Millennials. Over half of the survey respondents, 52 percent, said that for brands to maintain their relevance, they need to be willing to change based on consumer opinion. 44 percent expect brands to engage in open dialogue through social channels and 38 percent want brands to be more about the consumer and less about the brand.
“For brands and agencies seeking to gain the trust and admiration of Millennials, the secret to success will lie in their ability to select the right partners, employ the right strategies, leverage the right technology and be prepared to constantly turn and pivot,” said Scott German, General Manager of Adroit Digital. “Through the wide array of ad tech available today, they’ll be able to open the dialogue of engagement and lay the foundation for earning the loyalty of Millennials.”
To download the full report, please visit: http://na-sj01.marketo.com/lp/adroitdigital/Millennials_Blast.html
About Adroit Digital
At Adroit Digital, we believe people move technology, not the other way around. Our team of programmatic experts uses human insights, our exclusive data set and unmatched media access to intelligently drive marketing performance. We work hard to delight our customers every day. We have offices in New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco. For more information, please email hello@adroitdigital.com; or visit us online: www.adroitdigital.com.
