Tuesday afternoon’s roundtable topic of discussion was How the Become a Relevant Brand for Millennials Now.
The session began with moderator, Britt Hysen, giving the audience a brief overview of how to ‘define’ millennials. As founder and editor-in-chief of MiLLENiAL magazine, Britt has a unique perspective on the term. As social impact and sustainability are some of top values held by millennials these day, the goal of the roundtable was to discuss how existing brands can understand this and potentially grow their userbase by marketing to millennials.
The session saw insights from David Williams, Director at KIN&CO, Andrea de la Cruz Barral, researcher at QUE QUIERES HACER CON TU VIDA, and Juan Jose Litran, Public Affairs Director from THE COCA COLA COMPANY.
David provided unique insights relating to the millennials mindset. He argues that finding value and inspiration in your work isn’t just a ‘young person’ thing but given the proliferation of computerization in the workplace, people of all different ages are questioning the purpose of work. Driving them to seek employment from causes that relate to their core values.
Juan brought a unique perspective on how COCA COLA Spain looks at millennials in relation to their brand. They see two sides of the millennials: those who are digital natives, independent and entrepreneurial with university level education and then those who have limited digital knowledge, lower self-esteem and are early school drop out or without a job. Given the reality of youth unemployement in Spain, they launched Project Gira. Project Gira aims to increase these millennials exposure to positive role models, work opportunities and education. It seemed to be a success so far.
Andrea then shared her research with the crowd. Her research asked 2000 young people in Spain (between ages of 21 and 20) What do you want to do with your life? What her research uncovered was that millennials today are facing a tension between what they want vs. what the world expects from me. Her key insights is that if businesses offer opportunities that young people are not passionate about and force them to move away from their relationships, it will be impossible for such businesses to attract talent of this generation.
In conclusion the event generated some interesting insights into how a brand can think about the term ‘millennial’ and a few practical values they can reflect upon.
Jessica Fallon, SB Barcelona 2016 Volunteer, MBA Class of 2017, IESE Business School
