From the bank to the grocery checkout I see the lines getting shorter. Sure, some days (mostly when you are in a hurry) there are lots of people, but in general not so many. I recently became aware of why the retail landscape was changing and then wondered what effect it would have on the promotional marketing/specialty advertising industry.
It seems that 2015 was a pivotal year regarding the population of the United States. Baby Boomers are not the largest living generation any longer! The reason why seems immediately apparent, after all the oldest Boomers are now 69 years old and many have not even made it to that age. But that is only a part of the answer. It seems that the young immigrant population is growing quickly and there are far too few older immigrants to replace the oldest Boomers. That means that Millennials are now the largest living generation.
Baby Boomers, those who were 51-69 in 2015 check in at 74.9 million. Millennials, 18-34 now have 75.5 million members, so says an analysis by the Pew Research Center working from U.S. Census Bureau data.
This new “largest” generation has characteristics no other generation has had – they have never known a world without a computer in the home! By the time the oldest millennials were born, video games were a decade old. They grew up at the same time the internet was growing and evolving. The youngest in the millennial generation can’t remember a time without a smartphone. The impact on marketing and sales is significant.
Oscar Wilde’s quote poking fun at the attitudes of young people may not be as valid as it was when Wilde wrote it. Information is at their fingertips “24-7.” The connected world of millennials touches everything they do. They shop and buy online as if that is how things always have been done. And now that more of the positions within businesses are filled by millennials and they are catering to people just like themselves – new skills and approaches are necessary for those of us in the promotional industry.
There are several strategies that can keep a distributor viable as this population shift becomes more apparent than it already is. First, if your business is bigger than just you and has a few salespeople, start focusing on bringing in some millennials. They will be surprised at what an interesting and fun industry this is and that they can earn a great income. But the biggest advantage for the business is that they already know how to relate and communicate with other millennials. If it is just you, then it will be important to learn how your customers want to buy from you (not how you want to sell to them). Do they want quotes in email or text messages? Will they even take a live call or sit for a short meeting? The best practices that did so well for so many years are not necessarily viable today.
The good news for Baby Boomers is that for the next few years our contemporaries are still going to be the bosses running things. They are the ones giving the marching orders to the millennials. So it is more important now than ever to work your contacts up to the management level rather than operating at the procurement level. It is the procurement level where many millennials are shopping online and driving every transaction down to the “street price.” In the 10 years that millennials have been part of the workforce, the attitude that our industry is a product oriented commodity business has taken root.
If you, regardless of the generation you are a part of, bring great ideas, creative programs and the best value to your customers, your business will thrive. If you simply want to operate a website and sell imprinted commodities – you will quickly find that you are late to that game and many well financed competitors already have that landscape staked out.
For any millennials still reading this article, you should make a note that you have only about 13 years until Generation X knocks you out of the top slot. That time will go quickly so paying attention to how Baby Boomers interact with you now will give you a good education on how you will be handling things in a little more than a decade. I do understand that 13 years in the future seems like a universe away and this industry might be structured entirely differently then it is now, but the “big three”, great ideas, creative programs, and strong value have been the foundation of promotional marketing for more than 250 years. The names change, cultures change, tools change and certainly communications change, but the “big three” continue uninterrupted.
Gregg Emmer is chief marketing officer and vice president at Kaeser & Blair, Inc. He has more than 40 years experience in marketing and the promotional specialty advertising industry. His outside consultancy, providing marketing, public relations and business planning consulting to a wide range of other businesses, has been a useful knowledge base for K&B Dealers. Contact Gregg at gemmer@kaeser-blair.com.