By definition, I am a millennial. Born in the ‘90s and raised on a soundtrack of the Spice Girls, my peers and I are part of a generation who have embraced the end of absence and are now completely reliant on a reliable Wi-Fi or 4G connection to facilitate our day to day lifestyles.
We spend on average 18 hours a day consuming media. Staying ‘connected’ translates to an incessant scrolling of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram news feeds to name but a few. We allow ourselves to be readily bombarded with envy inducing pictures and status updates posted by the people and often the brands we ‘follow’.
Our obsession with scrolling and swiping may make us somewhat desensitised, but we aren’t yet completely numb. The saturation of our daily lives with online content arguably heightens our receptors for real life experience.
Ultimately, when we choose to disconnect, we search for the opportunity to revel in meaningful and memorable experiences. A live brand experience of a well curated event, for example, provides endless opportunities for Instagramable photos and shameless selfie-taking, which fuel our personal online ‘shop windows’.
Brands should choose to play on our FOMO (fear of missing out) insecurity and live brand experience provides a brilliant platform to do so.
Supporting these campaigns with hashtags and handles encourages us to include the brand in our online discussions. Our advocacy, which can be easily incentivised, is an authentic and valuable asset for any brand.
Millennials are readily vocal about their likes and dislikes and there are now so many social platforms to support these opinions and spread them instantaneously. Brilliant brand experiences create an immersive bubble in which the brand is brought to life to create a far deeper and more memorable connection with their audience.
The more exciting and original the experience, the more likely we are to talk about it to our friends and followers online.
Fundamentally, millennials live and breathe content which gives insight on who is doing what with who- it’s the 2015 equivalent of curtain twitching. So fuel it and give us a reason to talk and to remember you.