WHO RUN THE WORLD? MILLENNIALS!
Gen-Y aka Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996 ) grew up living through a bunch of scary, exciting crises and breakthroughs, so it’s only natural that they’re fueled and hot-bloodedly driven by their subsequent mistakes, lessons and values.
Environmental crises, economic recessions, revolutions, segregation, greedy capitalism, debts, post-modern-day colonialism, pandemics, the internet, the power of social media, bigfoot, etc… you may name it all but; millennials have lived it all.
This in turn will have you, dear reader, figuring out exactly the link between the Arab spring, the #metoo campaign, the hong kong protests, the BLM movement, les gillets jaunes, andDove’s real beauty campaign have in common. Yup, that’s right, it’s wild millennial power. Now this wild millennial power is represented in terms of a rapidly changing face of power, of a social media-driven, very very disruptive, collateral approach among Gen-Y.
These new-age power demonstrations should alert you guys and gals to two high-key important things: firstly, what power? and secondly, how in good fudge’s name should my business/ brand cope with this new surge of earthquaking power? Here’s where we at TACUniverse come into your rescue with a thorough guideline on keeping up with the millennials.
THEY’VE GOT THE POWER!
As a business/brand owner/ entrepreneur we highly advise you to revisit the powerstructure hierarchy. According to research conducted by Viacom velocity, an integrated marketing research team, different kinds of power (which are reminiscent of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs) are carefully observed.
These power hierarchies are divided into two levels: the personal, and the communal. The former encompasses agency and autonomy over one’s own life, while the latter veers towards locality, influence, impact, and validation.
Logically speaking, combined with the growing Gen-Y numbers, market equilibriums are definitely being influenced and reshaped. This mini financial times video demonstrates the magnitude of Gen-Y’s power over the markets:
As you might’ve guessed by now, Gen-Y is shifting towards brands, labels, and trademarks, instead of institutions sike! to realize their need for power. This indicates a transfer of trust to brands and labels.
Therefore, it’s vital for businesses now to acknowledge this, and to serve as connectors; by bringing people together in real life and online, amplifying their strength, reach, differences, and common grounds.
A very recent situation where the above was beautifully enacted takes us to twitter, where the number one trending hashtags of #انت_مش_لوحدك #FreeWomenInEgypt and #بدایة _ثورة_نسویة
Kept roaring to help voice the victims of sexual assault and rape, sparked by the outrageous ABZscandal. Thanks to this massive scale female empowerment campaign, thousands of women came forward to file suits and claim their justice and peace.
TOGETHER WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL
Aligning and collaborating with Gen-Y is a must-do for businesses and brands. This can be done by means of collecting and analyzing consumer data, reassessing production and manufacturing protocols, and even getting a full-on rebranding.
A simpler comparison of manager vs. employee will demonstrate the differences between you and your Gen-Y counterpart:
Brands need to listen carefully to their Gen-Y employees/consumers/ users so as to bring about the necessary change for their businesses’ thriving. It’s also a vital asset to search for underrepresented minorities/communities/segments to voice and signal boost. Because if you haven’t heard it yet, minorities are in fact, not so minor anymore, minorities have grown big and won’t stop growing.
Here’s a vivid lunchbox statistics image detailing the magnitude of millennial demography:
They are 36% of your current workforce
They are 60% of the world’s population
They will make up 75% of your employees and your most significant consumers by 2025It’s obvious ladies and gents, your businesses need to reach out, include, call to action, listen and engage with Gen-Y be them, employees or consumers.
Shayef baher el social media shu kbeer?
As the legendary dame fayrouz once had our heads turning to “ Be kubr el bahr bahebak”,we shall now have your heads flipping. Imagine this: your social media platforms are seas of infinite possibilities ( storms, icebergs, etc). Not to mention, they’re also seas of infinite opportunities(lifeboats, fish etc), which, if sized correctly, expect a power-up boost to your business status. For instance, if you monitor ongoing trends carefully, you can make use of riding a trend to increase your revenues.
Take the recent Egyptian Peanut Butter بیناء بارر trend. Abu Auf and Metro nailed it by advertising themselves using the بیناء بارر slogan and harvested sale booms. Also, take GaryVee, a Belarusian-American entrepreneur, New York Times bestselling author, speaker, and influencer.
His Gary V Arabic Instagram page is a huge success. Its admins employ a smart tactic of content moderation, where they lovingly tend to their followers 24/7.
By answering their queries, they detect the common problems facing them and how trending trends affect them. In turn, they magnify the range of Gary’s to the rescue videos as helping answers
OOPS, YOU GOT CANCELED
Back to the seas of possibilities mentioned above though, while conservation efforts lead toa boom in marine life and health, a bad oil spill can persist on for years and cause huge damage. Therefore, love, observe and interact with thy consumers through the vastness of social media in an effort to avoid those oil spills and stains to your businesses’ reputations. Simply put, for the love of food please look past the point of service delivery/sale, and make sure that your supply chain reputation is polished. Why ? simply because:
Nowadays, a little bad review or complaint or exposition to your brand and service will definitely cost you big time. It’s only natural since Gen-Y’s are the life-givers to cancel culture. With a few clicks here and a few reviews there, an inconvenience can be of a make it or break consequence to your businesses’ reputation.
A prime example of this is the recent cancellation of Hadia Ghaleb “fashiontravelentrepreneurship” via twitter following her “neutral” “stance” on the ABZ case via Instagram. Followers quickly took to twitter and Instagram expressing their outrage at her after this incident, where they criticized her use of a 1.8m follower Instagram platform and voiced that she should use it for important causes such as awareness-raising and female empowerment.
Another good example would be the cancellation of Deva curl products following Ayisha Malik’s honest exposition of the brand’s damage to her hair via youtube.
Ayesha swiftly took to youtube to expose the damaging effects of the chemicals present in Devacurl products as it caused her gorgeous curls to fall out, break and look lifeless. Ayeshaproved herself with before and after live footage of her hair.
IF IT FITS, THEY SITS
Two keywords: personalization, and AI. yup that’s right, a smart growing business should aim at personalizing their customer experience via AI. According to research from Salesforce, 75% of business buyers expect the companies they buy from to provide personalized experiences, anticipate their individual needs, and provide relevant suggestions.
The bland era of mechanized copy-cat one size fits is now long gone. Why you may ask? To adapt to and go with the millennial flow of unique individualism.
An ideal role model for this direction is Amazon, where the retail mogul has shown a striking increase of 35% in sales revenue in 2019. Amazon adopted a more tailored market approach by using ads based on their customers’ purchasing habits and preferences.
Another fine example is, hats off, Spotify’s personalized “ for you” playlists and account customization. Admins at Spotify are keen on tending to their listeners’ preferences and making them unique playlists that are specifically designed on their chosen music.
One genius example would also be Grammarly’s personalized weekly reports. These reports help Grammarly users track their writing progress including techniques, mistakes and choice of words. 12/10 recommended for all those who seek to improve their English writing skills.
n a nutshell, millennials are a whole new reincarnated Brave Heart, voicing in verbal freedom, rewriting market history, and controlling cash flow. So, our advice for all the business owners/ entrepreneurs in the club? make love, not war. Join forces with Millenials, go for integration, dialogue, and transformations.