Brands must entertain young
audiences to drive engagement
By Erin Dostal
Millennials, broadly defined as adults between 18 to 30 years of age, are a savvy, demanding bunch. Thus mar-
keting efforts toward this demographic need
to foster engagement through entertainment.
After all, millennials as a group are gener-
ally tech-savvy, well-versed in social media,
and are often indifferent to today’s deluge of
marketing communications.
Mountain Dew’s new Dark Berry soda premiered via The Dark Knight Rises promotion
The targeted marketing strategy is based on
“guerilla, grass-roots tactics that are inherent
to each campus,” Sellers says. “HBO’s goal
with this program is to establish the next
generation of brand loyalists. We want to establish HBO as their first choice in programming in the future.” The fact that college-age
millennials are still forming their preferences
makes them so valuable, she says.
Unfortunately, it’s not exactly an industry
secret among brands that millennials are an
open slate when it comes to their individual
tastes. Zach Harris, senior marketing mana-
ger at Mountain Dew, says that one of the
biggest challenges marketers face when target-
ing millennials is the group’s experience with
an over-saturated media market. “There are
so many options for millennials, and they’re
aware of a lot of them,” Harris says. “We’re
always asking: How do we stay relevant?
It’s important to stay top-of-mind, because if
we’re not, someone else will be.”
Mountain Dew partnered with Warner
Bros. Entertainment Inc. around the studio’s
June 2012 release of the new Batman film
The Dark Knight Rises, Harris says. “We know
millennials are drinking Mountain Dew; we
know millennials are excited about The Dark
Knight Rises,” Harris says.
Millennials show their strength in numbers
64% of millennials use social media
while watching TV*
5% of millenni- als have clicked
through a banner
ad on their
mobile phone*
63% of millennials
say they only stick
with brands and
stores they know
they can afford**
95 million millennials were born
between 1982
and 2003***
*Marketing To Millennials: The Next Generation Of Purchasing Power, Forrester Research (June 14, 2011) **How America Shops Mega
Trends report, Moving On 2012 ***Morley Winograd, coauthor of Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation Is Remaking America
