Each step of millennials’ life is getting upgraded to a ubiquitous experience.  Either if it is about dining, traveling or the way they are shopping, the overall experience is becoming more and more important in order to create a sense of identity in their life.

Harris group found that millennials believe that living a meaningful and happy life isn’t about possessions and rather about creating memories through experiences. Their spending on live experiences and events relative to total U.S. consumer spending increased 70 percent comparing to the previous generation.

Creating a meaningful life through experiences

The concept of meaningful life, started markedly with the need of millennials to become more conscious regarding their emotional wellbeing and health. The need of experiences rather than things can be associated to a higher level of awareness brought by both self and social responsibility.

• Eating habits changed (trying to eat more healthy and giving up meat);
• Being aware of Carbon footprint- many people adopted eco friendly ways of transportation (bicycles or public transport)
• Living a healthy life – serves as a “cultural semaphore for discipline and success”- Farrah Starr Evening Standard

Awareness of both positive and negative factors influencing our life is possible through the power of media, that grew exponentially in the past years. Most of the millennials are well informed with strong beliefs and eager to support different causes.

1% of Millennials are influenced by advertising

Only 1 percent of Millennials say they are influenced in any way by advertising (Elite Day). Millennials don’t trust what the brand has to say about itself. They need to believe in it in order to adopt it, and the best way of doing this is through memorable experiences. These experiences will allow them to identify themselves and their values with the brand’s.

The experience offered by an event is unique because it gives not one but 3 stages: the anticipation, the event itself and the memories after. “Not only does that final stage last forever, but you can also share it”(Jack Huang, Bloomberg).

Millennials expect their whole life to be an experience full of excitement. An experience that can generate a familiar bouquet of beliefs that matches their core values. Consequently most of millennials are anxious about challenges that not only correspond to their values but as well will help promote their personal identity through social media. The use of brands has an important role in creating a higher impact and credibility for their social media content.

Experience is the ultimate status symbol

Millennials are more prone to adopt and become loyal to a brand with whom they shared a memorable experience. Succeeding in doing this will end up being beneficial for both parties. The brand will win new adopters and the adopters will start to develop a shared identity with the brand’s core values. This may be considered the key milestone in the process of acquiring new adopters and especially millennials.

Millennials love brands who bring experiences

• 82% say they noticed a brand sponsoring at an event
• 1 in 3 have a more positive opinion of that brand after the even  (Pandora Advertising 2016)

Boomers spent 12% less on experiences

Comparing Millennials with the Boomers Generation, their spending on experiences grew with 12% and they are considered “digital natives” with 43.5 percent of them who say they use social media to spread the word about products or services.

67% Millennials prefer investing in experiences

With the desire of creating as many memorable experiences as possible, 67 percentage of Millennials would rather spend their money on ‘experiences’ than ‘things’’; from which 75 percentage of women prefer experiences over things than 58.5 percentage man. (Pandora Advertising, 2016)

Brands or organisations that create experiences for their audience need to truly “get”  Millennials in order to engage with them appropriately and create an opportunity to differentiate themselves in the marketplace and forge long-term relationship with their customers.

What does it mean to truly “get” Millennials?

Being true and following your mission at all times. Having the vision to aspire high and always greed of offering your consumer the best quality, price and services.

And nevertheless immerse your consumers in memorable experiences because today experiences are like a merry-go-round – you can never get off.

Further reading:

https://www.bcg.com/documents/file103894.pdf

https://s1.q4cdn.com/959385532/files/doc_downloads/research/2016-Millennials-and-Money-Research-Report.pdf

https://pandoraadvertising.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/experiences_are_unforgettable2.pdf