Stop the Presses….Millennials are going traditional!

As we all know, integrated marketing communications is such an essential factor when it comes to advertising a particular product or service to a company’s key target audience or demographic. Having a clearly integrated message that can be delivered successfully across all media channels can have a huge impact on consumers. This is even more prevalent to a specific market that most brands and retailers are looking to reach: Millennials. According to a study done by the NDP Group, about “81% of Millennials spend their hard-earned money in a brick-and-mortar store when it comes to their retail consumption” (Olenski, 2013). What was even more interesting about this topic came from another study conducted by Valassis, which highlighted the top sources the Millennial generation look to for most of the their coupons and deals.

Which source do you think topped the chart you might ask?

Well if you guessed online or email coupons, you were pretty close as those were the second and third most widely utilized sources. But the #1 source for Millennials to get coupons and deals was through…..NEWSPAPERS (at a whopping 51%)!!!! What makes this statistic even more compelling is that this particular group of consumers is considered to be the most “digitally-savvy demographic on the planet” (Olenski, 2013) and yet they actually prefer utilizing one of the oldest and most traditional form of communication still remaining today.

Essentially what these study results mean for brand and retail advertising is that companies should not make the mistake of assuming that a particular demographic falls into a certain category and prefers one communication medium over another. In this particular case, it should not be assumed that Millennials are only interested in the latest and most digitally advanced marketing methods or platforms (such as smartphones, iPhones, tablets and PC’s), when in fact they’re taking full advantage of the more traditional marketing and advertising methods.

This article reinforced the importance of creating integrated marketing communication campaigns that can be successfully delivered across all media channels as well as be received by all demographics. In addition, companies would be wise not to assume that they know a specific demographics media communication preference. By assuming too much, companies could end up losing out on a broad market segment that could ultimately have a huge impact for their brand.

REFERENCES

Olenski, S. (2013). Why integrated marketing communications is more important than ever. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2013/09/16/why-integrated-marketing-communications-is-more-important-than-ever/