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The last surveys define the youngsters between 18 and 35 years old, that is the ones who are born between the eighties and the early two thousands, “natives digital” or “Millennial Generation”.
It deals with over 11 million of youngsters, 2,3 billion worldwide; the most stimulant target for marketing and communication experts. In terms of consumption, they are real responsible for purchases, with a high level of autonomy and spending power. Not easily influenced from traditional advertising, they prefer to follow influencers and trend setters more or less famous and they consider to play an active power towards the major brands.
Which is the Millennials’ distinctive characteristic? They are the first generation that hasn’t knew a completely off-line life, as the previous ones. It is exactly the relation with technology, but moreover with the web and the social networks, the distinctive feature.
However, also from this point of view, a non-superficial analysis shows unexpected aspects of this generation. If it’s true that the majority has always the smartphone in the hands and even falls asleep keeping it on the pillow; if it’s also true that the majority has at least one profile on social networks and feels the need to share every moment of the day; it is also true that a 25% of the Millennials refuses to be “social”, or looks for new ways less ostentatious and more authentic to be social. Phenomenon highlighted by the last search for The Guardian, who investigated the reasons for this refusal.
A closer investigation shows that it is certainly not the only difference within this generation, generally described as the most global and conformed of all time. If there is one aspect which significantly distinguishes the Millennials from previous generations it is their multiculturalism. This is especially true in the North American society, where sociologists speak of Millennials "not white", that is African Americans, Hispanics and Asians. One aspect that is emerging even in our Italian and European realities.
The reference context of this generation appears thus increasingly multilingual and cross-cultural and this is, in our opinion, the most important novelty. There are various implications and not only from a sociological point of view. Also in terms of marketing and communication, it would be increasingly necessary an in-depth knowledge of this target in order to understand its complexity and diversity and to develop ever more ad hoc strategies.