Let’s start with the obvious: Generation Z is even more plugged into technology than Millennials. The surveys found that over one-third of Generation Z members said they use technology as much as they can. This is in comparison to 27% of Millennials who said the same thing. While most Millennials probably didn’t use a computer until elementary or middle school, Generation Z members had technology in their hands at a much younger age. This generation was born into the world of smartphones, tablets and wearable technology. Consequently, they are often referred to as the “iGen” generation.

As a result of being surrounded by technology since toddlerhood, Generation Z has developed different views towards technology than one might expect. They are less likely to view it as a saving grace for the world, and instead more focused on the pragmatic uses of it. In other words, the iGen generation has never known a world without smartphones and tablets, so they don’t perceive these things as anything special. The surveys also found that 28% of Millennials are excited about self-driving cars while 19% of Generation Z feels the same. When asked if they believe science and technology can solve many of the world’s problems, 36% of Millennials strongly agreed while 30% of Generation Z strongly agreed.

There are also considerable differences with how each generation engages with technology. Generation Z is the first true mobile-first generation, meaning smartphones, not laptops or desktop computers, are their primary source of information. By now, retailers should be well aware of the importance of having a smartphone optimized website, complete with mobile-friendly checkout options. If they don’t, they stand to lose even more ground with Generation Z than they have with Millennials. In fact, 53% of Generation Z said they have made a mobile purchase in the last six months, while only 37% of Millennials said the same thing. Since it appears Generation Z will use their smartphones for every aspect of the shopping process, retailers should look to add mobile payment options, such as Apple Pay, to ensure they don’t miss out on sales opportunities with the younger generation.

I know what you might be thinking: “I just got used to Millennials and now I’m supposed to change my business again?”. The answer is a resounding yes, as frustrating as that may be. The latest data shows Generation Z outnumbers Millennials by about 3 million. The good news is that the oldest of Generation Z are just now finishing college, so there is still ample time to adjust your business to ensure you aren’t left in the dust when Generation Z enters the workforce and leverages its $44 billion dollar purchasing power. 

Music video pioneer, MTV, has undergone numerous rebirths over its 36-year history and currently finds itself in the midst of another.

Launched in 1981 with the music video “Video Killed the Radio Star,” the channel redefined musical entertainment for an entire generation. As the music video field flooded with imitators, the station switched gears, positioning itself at the forefront of the reality TV era with its then breakthrough series The Real World. For the next 20 years MTV rode the “unscripted” TV wave with reality shows like The Osbournes, Laguna Beach, and Jersey Shore.

Recently though, during a time when Millennials and Generation Z consume their music through YouTube, get their news from Facebook, and binge watch their television shows through Netflix, MTV found itself standing at yet another crossroads. News outlets began to question whether MTV was an outdated concept destined for death by digital competition.

Sound familiar?

Instead of rolling over, MTV took action. Its parent company, Viacom, created an entire research campaign dedicated to learning as much as possible about its target audience. Utilizing a subset of market research known as “coolhunting,” researchers attempted to pinpoint emerging and declining trends in youth culture.

What they found is that Facebook is a “must-have” for their audience and Snapchat is the fastest-growing social media network. Viacom also determined that young adults are living both online and offline at the same time, or as they define it – inline. They’re also consuming music on mobile phones instead of television and prefer the convenience and flexibility of TV Everywhere apps to traditional TV.

Taking this into account, MTV has concentrated its efforts digitally, remaining among the top 10 branded Facebook pages for the past seven years. The network launched its MTV App in 2013, allowing users to view content on their tablet, smartphone, smart TV, computer, or other streaming device.

This year, Viacom announced a plan to restructure MTV News towards more video, short-form, and multi-platform content rather than traditional long-form journalism. And instead of competing directly with free video sites, the network began incorporating popular vloggers into their own content, including placing YouTuber Tyler Oakley in several episodes of their original show Catfish.

They’ve also revived old favorites with a newer spin, streaming a revival of MTV Cribs on MTV’s Snapchat account and bringing the competition show Fear Factor over to the network with a fresh, new host in Ludacris. The repositioned Fear Factor saw a 164% improvement in ratings for viewers ages 18-34 and delivered MTV’s best Tuesday in a year and a half.

These research-driven decisions are paying off for MTV, whose overall June year-over-year Nielsen ratings were up 3% among Millennials, a first since 2011. The network also had four of the top 30 cable series in the third quarter, including the rebooted Fear Factor.

Far from being dead, MTV has managed to revive itself with its research into changing consumer lifestyles, which has reenergized its business and introduced it to an entirely new generation.

And that’s a lesson we can all learn from.

Each year, Gifts & Decorative Accessories honors gift retailers around the country in its 25 Gifted Retailers Report.

This year, we feel it is more important than ever to honor gift retailers around the country who are finding ways to overcome challenges and be successful. In this report, rather than focusing on sales volume, we focus on the specific ways gift retailers are uniquely serving their customers.

Each Gifted Retailer selected will have a listing written for their store, listing key information and what makes their store different than the rest. Additionally, each Gifted Retailer will have the opportunity to submit photos of their store to accompany their listing. This is a great (and free!) opportunity for gift retailers to receive the recognition they deserve. A copy of the November issue featuring the report will also be sent to each Gifted Retailer.

For a chance to be featured as a Gifted Retailer in this year’s report, please go to www.giftsanddec.com/25GiftedRetailers2017 and fill out the form. 

It seems like a trendy topic in home furnishings research is “How can we market better to Millennials?”

It makes sense that retailers are focused on how to tap into the Millennial market. Around a quarter of the U.S. population are Millennials. It’s the biggest generation in U.S. history, even bigger than the Baby Boomers. In the face of these numbers, retailers are scrambling to figure out how to get Millennials into their stores.

The sad truth is this: Millennials are broke. They’re averaging less income than the predecessors while taking on more debt , leaving them with a much smaller amount of disposable income. As such, they’re putting off buying homes, getting married, and having children until later than previous generations. To put it simply, most of them aren’t in the market for a lot of the items home furnishings stores are pushing to sell.

Despite this, there’s some silver lining. This year’s Consumer Buying Trends study showed that Millennials are planning to purchase next year at a higher rate than all Americans in nearly every home furnishings category. The desire to buy is there. Retailers just have to vie for it.

They’ll have to fight the bigger stores to do so. Among the top home furnishings retailers for Millennials are Ikea and Target, according to HFN’s June 2017 Total Home study. With their straight-forward buying process and competitive pricing, Millennials are flocking to these stores for purchases.

So how do you solve such a situation? I’ve got a few ideas.

• Boost your website game : Millennials grew up during the age of major technological advances and that has heavily influenced how they shop. Of course e-commerce retailers like Amazon and Wayfair have capitalized on this, but brick and mortar stores can still have an online presence to catch the generation’s attention. Even if you stray away from online ordering, you can still incorporate customer product reviews, inventory listings for your stores, and information about delivery or financing on your website. Most Millennials compare items before buying and appreciate having that information before they walk into the store. In fact, 77% of Millennials say that they buy in-store after researching online, greater than the nearly 61% of all consumers who say the same.
• Create a low pressure environment: When asked what they disliked most about shopping for home furnishings in a store, an overwhelming amount of Millennials in the aforementioned HFN study mentioned the pressure of sales associates, specifically commission-based sales associates. We already know Millennials are doing research before they get to the store and a lot of them feel capable of finding what they’re looking for on their own when they get there. Consider a more hands-off sales strategy where customers can browse the store on their own if they choose, letting your sales staff be available for assistance or questions when needed.
• Get social: Millennials get their news online, a lot of times from social media. If you’re having a sale or special promotion (something that 77% of Millennials in HFN’s study say would make them more likely to shop and buy at a certain store), be sure to announce it on your social media channels, specifically Facebook and Instagram. Interact with Millennials on social media by encouraging them to use hashtags if they post about your store. Release photos of new products that you’re excited about. There’s several ways to create a buzz around your store this way and 34% of Millennials say that they tend to like brands more that use social media, compared to 16% of non-Millennials.
• Offer good products at competitive prices: I mentioned that Millennials have very little disposable income compared to other generations so if you want their business, you’ve got to strike a balance between price and quality. Sixty-three percent of the generation say they are more likely to shop and buy from a home furnishings store that has affordable items. Less concerned with brand names and more concerned with affordability, Millennials compare prices before they make a purchase and 57% of them even do it while they’re standing in your store. Almost that same number look up product reviews while they’re in a store to determine quality.

Any other ideas? Let us know how you’re getting Millennials into your stores.

If you’re curious what the research says about something specific and you want PBM Strategic Insights to cover it in a blog, reach out to us below:

 largetsinger@pbmbrands.com

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After reading this story, I started thinking about the relationship between humans and data today. Over the last twenty years since Kasparov lost to the IBM computer, technological advancements have led to the rise of big data. Big data has been called the “global nervous system of our world today”. Everything, it seems, can be quantified and broken down by computers, leading to unprecedented insights.

Almost all successful companies today are leveraging data to some extent. A recent analysis from researchers at Forrester found that 74% of firms want to be data-driven, but only 29% are successful at connecting analytics to action.

These findings make it clear that companies aren’t always good at utilizing the data they have. In many cases, it’s probably not that a company or institution needs more data, but instead needs a better system driven by humans that is designed to interpret data and connect it to meaningful action for the business. After all, what good are numbers if there’s no one around to analyze and apply them?

My former boss was fond of saying “a trained monkey couldn’t do this part” and what she meant was that as powerful as technology and data has become, humans are still irreplaceable when it comes to understanding what data is telling us and how we can apply it. 

When companies crowdsource, they use an external group of people (a crowd) to obtain a needed service or idea. Different than outsourcing, crowdsourced work comes from an undefined public rather than a specific group.

While first officially coined in a 2006 article by Wired magazine, the earliest example can be argued back to the mid-1800s with the collection of words for the Oxford English Dictionary when a group known as the Philological Society contracted more than 800 volunteer readers to collect words from all available books and document their usages. The OED continues to solicit public input as they constantly update their publication. More recently, Wikipedia launched at the beginning of the 21^st century as a collaboratively written and edited online encyclopedia that allows any user to submit or edit an entry. The ever-evolving website has several million entries.

Online crowdsourcing platform, eYeka, recently released their 2017 report concerning the current state of crowdsourcing and found the use of crowdsourcing has since grown to some of the biggest companies out there including Proctor & Gamble, PepsiCo, Airbnb, and Unilever. It is popularly used for web development, language translations, design work, photography, user testing, and ad creation.

The results speak for themselves. Look no further than the most recent Super Bowl ads for Doritos. During the past decade, their crowd-generated ads won USA Today's Ad Meter top spot four times while never being out of the top five.

When a company is looking for an original and fresh perspective, crowdsourcing is perhaps the best way to go. The scale of crowdsourcing provides access to diverse resources and skills in an environment where knowledge sharing is king. Crowds are typically motivated intrinsically, choosing to volunteer their services to a product or company that they believe in. Crowdsourcing can increase user-generated reputation, in that consumers are more likely to believe in a brand with praise from other consumers. And of course, it can cut costs.

Not a perfect solution for every task, crowdsourcing does have its cons. Companies must take care to made sure that quality standards are met and that information security is still a priority.

Still, crowdsourcing is projected to continue to rise in use by businesses both big and small with a greater role in innovation and advertising. eYeka predicts that while crowds will not replace in-house brand experts, they will augment them by contributing new and innovative ideas. This can give companies better outcomes and a much-needed competitive edge in today’s market.

One of the paradoxes of our age today is that we are more connected than ever with each other through our screens, but more disconnected than ever in real life. As cultural analyst Sherry Turkle points out in a TED talk, we are settling for mere connection though our digital devices instead of real life communication with those around us.

Social media and our smartphones have given us the ability to stay connected with whoever we want to, whenever we want to. A friend of mine recently took a six month trip to Australia and my friends and I were able to talk with him almost every single day via Facebook. It was no different than if he were back home, living in the same town as most of us. This level of connection was unheard of before the age of smartphones and social media.

As we continue to progress into the age of social media and smartphones, the line between our real life and our online life is becoming increasingly blurred. Look no further than online dating, where the rise of popular dating apps such as Tinder have dramatically altered the landscape of dating life, particularly among twenty-somethings, by turning the challenge of finding a partner into a speed-dating game.

A growing body of research suggests that social media can have negative effects on mental health, often leading to a fear of missing out, or FOMO, as it is colloquially known. Most of us, not just Millennials, are probably guilty of checking our phone during a social outing to see what we might be missing. Social media can also negatively impact our mental health by inviting unhealthy and unrealistic comparisons with others based on their social media lives, which is typically an inaccurate portrayal of their real life.

Perhaps an important question we should all stop to ponder is this: are our smartphones and social media accounts leading to more connection or more interruption in our lives? As we continue to progress into the digital age where digital behemoths such as Amazon, Facebook and Google vie for more and more control of our lives, it is important that going forward, we stop to consider what role we would like our smartphones and social media to play in our life, and how much control we afford them.