Marketing Wine to the Millennials
Read this carefully:
Today, a new generation entering young adulthood is exhibiting the same receptivity to wine that leading edge Baby Boomers did more than 30 years ago. And like the Baby Boom generation, their numbers are so great as to make their dominance in the market inevitable. They are the Millennial generation, and they offer the wine industry the kind of growth potential not seen in more than thirty years."
This passage comes from a report issued by the Wine Market Council’s 2003 Consumer Tracking Study final report. They are talking about the Millennial Generation, a group of consumers whose eldest members turned 27 last year. They are a group every bit as large as the Baby Boomers, that generation that changed everything about how we consume and market.
This is all very interesting, but what is critical to the future of wine is that this young generation is adopting wine at a rate equal to or faster than did the "leading edge of baby boomers", a group within a group that helped spin the wine industry into a huge growth spurt through their own adoption of wine and new wine drinking habits.
There is a lot of speculation in the marketing literature (and even among wine bloggers) on how best to capitalize on the Millennial Generation’s attitudes, desires and proclivities.
In a most general sense, Millennials have been defined thusly:
They were born roughly from 1976 to 1994
They are the most ethnically diverse generation to date
Many of them come from split families
They are green (environmentally friendly)
They are the most wired and technologically savvy generation yet.
They exceed 100 million
They are a third more than the Baby Boomers (More than twice Gen X)
They comprise 30% of the population
They are the largest, healthiest, and most cared-for generation in American history They are idealistic
They volunteer
They are patriotic
They want to go to college
They are cooperative team players
They accept authority
They Follow rules
They are optimistic
They are multi taskers
They’ve been advertised to since birth
They are not easily swayed or fooled
They don’t respond to a rational approach from marketers
They have grown up with slick ad campaigns and are turned off by brands that they feel are trying too hard to be "cool "
So, what does this mean to the wine industry and wineries? A great deal.
It means that if the wine industry can, as a whole, come off as smart, accessible, healthy and honest they will go a long way toward attracting this hugely influential generation to their ranks.
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