Brands need to mimic the characteristics of millennial-age consumers to curry their favor, according to research, The Reset Generation, conducted by media agency IPG’s Initiative group.
“Their expectations of brands are what they think people expect of them,” says Initiative’s US chief strategy officer Sarah Power. “They’re comfortable with brands trying to change who they are because, as a generation, that’s what they’re expected to do.”
One way a big brand is becoming this flexible is by partnering with AOL to start a “newsroom”, to make content that snags millennial males. Power says IPG client MillerCoors’ recently-announced “BrewPub Newsroom” initiative, to reach men aged 21 to 34, will see 400 pieces of content produced by three full-time social curators for the brewer. The scheme extends to video, through Aol’s HuffBros Live, an off-shoot of HuffPost Live for the target demographic.
“It goes beyond content production,” Power adds. MillerCoors is the official beer of Aol –
when they have events, they’re serving MillerCoors.”
We interviewed Power at the recent Beet.TV summit on branded content, where she was a speaker. You can find additional videos from the event here.