comScore released a report highlighting the results from a recent market study that identifies the unique characteristics of the Millennial generation -- defined as persons born between 1981 and 2000.
The study examined the Millennial response to different types of advertising, including TV and digital -- compared to older generations -- and how marketers can most effectively target this large and important segment of the marketplace.
"The 79 million Millennials in the U.S. have an estimated purchasing power of $170 billion per year, making them a highly attractive segment for brands to target," said comScore vice president Bert Miklosi.
Their comfort-level with the Internet and new technology in general makes the digital medium an ideal platform for reaching these individuals. But Millennials are much more difficult to persuade with advertising -- especially the poorly conceived ads that you typically find on broadcast radio and TV channels.
Key findings from the comScore market study include:
The study examined the Millennial response to different types of advertising, including TV and digital -- compared to older generations -- and how marketers can most effectively target this large and important segment of the marketplace.
"The 79 million Millennials in the U.S. have an estimated purchasing power of $170 billion per year, making them a highly attractive segment for brands to target," said comScore vice president Bert Miklosi.
Their comfort-level with the Internet and new technology in general makes the digital medium an ideal platform for reaching these individuals. But Millennials are much more difficult to persuade with advertising -- especially the poorly conceived ads that you typically find on broadcast radio and TV channels.
Key findings from the comScore market study include:
- The defining characteristics of Millennials include their comfort-level with new technologies and cultural diversity, as well as being accustomed to on-demand access to entertainment, continual stimulation and extreme multitasking.
- Ad breakthrough via television advertising for Millennials was substantially lower than for older generations. However, Millennials demonstrated a higher propensity than other generations to retain a lasting impression of a television advertisement.
- Millennials tend to be less interested and more difficult to connect with, capture attention, impress, convince and entertain.
- Millennials also appear to be more price-sensitive, perhaps due to lower disposable incomes.
- Digital advertising performs better in relative terms among Millennials than does television advertising.
- Across generations including Millennials, the presence of key creative elements in advertising, coined by comScore as the Validated Drivers, were shown to relate strongly to successful advertising.
- Millennials are highly engaged with the content that they choose to view, within both television and digital environments. Engagement has been shown to amplify the effectiveness of advertising, so when targeting Millennials, it is important to utilize engaging content to help boost returns from investments in advertising.