Are millennials the most inauthentic generation ever?
In the real but not real, carefully curated online world of millennials, authentic artifice is accepted as legitimacy; therefore is it any wonder marketers are confused by what millennials want and how to deliver it to them? Kate Richardson discusses…
It’s the generation that sees through spin. They don’t respond to traditional advertising. They’re all about transparency and authenticity. Apparently.
Except that this generation is the first to grow up with reality TV, the internet and social media – all of which provide the murkiest of bacterial breeding grounds for trickery and fakery, two things considered marketing kryptonite by today’s digital natives.
The likes of Facebook and Instagram have enabled us online citizens to craft our own image and ushered in the era of the influencer.
Isn’t every generation less authentic than the previous? If millennials are coming across as inauthentic, it’s probably not because they actually are, it’s more likely that us oldies just can’t hear the dog whistles. Despite their seeming vapidity, they are still flesh and blood humans in all our infinite unfathomability.
this should get some clicks
As the saying goes..the secret of success is authenticity. Once you can fake that you’ve got it made.
“The young know everything.” – Oscar Wilde
The bigger question: does anyone still know how to use semicolons?
Somebodies been reading Zizek’s Nihilism beliefs, I fancy… Mind, its quite interesting this analysis of the Symbolic and its effect on the Real. Being a Millennial myself, I’d like to pretend that a favourite Surfer of mine doesn’t affect my purchasing decisions; but that would be a lie. I guess we trust that they wouldn’t (only) do it for the cash. As for ‘influencers’ surely its just the age old ‘sex sells’?
Good article, enjoyable read.
Young people : they’re idiots and you can sell them any old rubbish.
First law of Marketing, isn’t it ?
Great read. I actually can’t say it better myself. I was about to pen an article on the same subject and then read this – brilliant work Kate Richardson.
Millennial bashing is so 2000-late. Maybe marketers should make up their mind on whether this “group” is their holy grail target audience, their replacements, great members of their team, or a bunch of “inauthentic” fakers – oh wait, it’s only marketers who lump demographics into neat categories so they can pen op eds on whether they love/hate them any given week.
Articles like these are so boring. Let’s move on please.
An excellent read !For the sake of complete accuracy Mumbrella should have supplied a “likes ” icon
You say they don’t respond to traditional advertising, yet every photo in your article has them mesmerised by a device that only used traditional media to advertise itself.
The iPhone.
I’m sorry but the traditional vs social argument is well and truly lost. Nobody wants a brand hanging out with them whether that’s in the real world or social channels unless they like that brand. And the best way to build a brand?
Traditional. It has presence. It says ‘I’m real. I’m here.’ It’s very hard to build a likeable brand using just online, particularly when every online ‘specialist’ has so little idea of branding.
Great article. I think they’re sophisticated and totally able to tell the difference. It’s just fun entertainment. They’re buying, reading and watching lots and are discerning enough to know what and why they want it.
I remember the “olds” of my time in my early 20s saying roughly the same thing about my generation of the time.
Everything old is new again and its the older generations that coin the phrases that lump the younger ones unto a nice convenient grouping.