Millennials And Why This Marketing Term Is Confusing

I recently wrote about Millennials to clarify some myths about this demographic group.  Now, upon reading Nielsen’s “Q4 2015 Total Audience Report” I realize that the term Millennials, when used to represent a monolithic group is completely wrong. I wrote that Millennials range in age from 15-35 years old and these years are transformative in the life of a person. It spans adolescence to parenthood for example. Therefore referring to all this age group as one monolithic group does not make a lot of sense from a marketing perspective.

Nielsen’s report, lends credence to what I am saying.  Nielsen segments Millennials into three groups based on their life stages:

• Dependent Adults (living in someone else’s home)
• On Their Own (living in their own home without children)
• Starting a Family (living in their own home with children)

Nielsen then tracks their media consumption and use of technology and notice significant differences within Millennials based on their life stages.    Here is a summary of their findings:

For example, there is a huge difference in the use of Netflix and other similar subscription-based video on demand services.   On Their Own Millennials use this service significantly more than the other groups (78% vs.  64% for Dependent Adults and vs. 58% for those Starting a Family).   And you can see that TV and Radio consumption as well as Usage of Digital Devices also vary based on your life phase.

So my whole point is why do we continue using the term Millennials? – there is ample proof that lumping a 15 year old with someone who is 34 and married is very different.