Millennial tag is a form of ageism and is dividing the marketing industry says panel of young guns

Sisson

A panel of up and coming marketers has said the use of the term millennial is “creating a divide” in the industry.

Speaking on a panel entitled how millennial marketers are driving digital change Rebecca Sisson, who runs database marketing at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, said she disagreed with the label generally given to people in their 20s ad below.

“There’s been a lot about millennial marketers this week and I disagree with it,” she said. “I think we’re creating this divide between us and them, and we need to not do that.

“We need to think of it as any other collaborative relationship in our jobs, so to sit here and provoke and deepen that divide is wrong. Like anybody you work with there’s something to learn from them. I think it’s an interesting conversation but to dig in about age isn’t rally going to help anybody.”

However Adobe’s Matt Scharfe said the difference with millennial was around innovation and the way they approach it.

“Every generation looks back at the generation behind them and thinks they’re crazy,” said the manager of display media operations.

“And I think a lot of it is warranted because it’s a different time. Innovation used to be defined as it happens because of necessity.

“If that was ever true I don’t think it is any more, I think innovation spawns from inefficiencies today for the millennial marketer, and it’s because the millennial marketer is just inherently different they were born from data born from digital and understand technology from the ground up. So when something’s inefficient they dive into that.”

Another panelist at the Adobe Summit event, Jerry Jao, co-founder of Retention Science, redefined the situation saying there were people from every gerenation who “exhibit different slices of millennial behaviours”.

He added: “I’m going to propose a new way to describe it as the connected generation. Everything we do that’s connected requires this real time interaction and real time service need between brands and consumers.

“The instant gratification generation, the now generation. How many of you have ordered an Uber and if it takes more than five minutes you say fuck it I’m going to Lyft. It’s not segregating these age groups, if we’re looking at mindsets we find these millennial behaviours exhibited by these people very quickly.”

Alex Hayes

Alex Hayes is a guest of Adobe at the Summit conference in Salt Lake City