FINDING Z:

Consumers today feel no responsibility to act their age. That means the old generational designations apply less and less, and brands need to respect and respond to that by being much more open-minded about who they’re targeting and why. Instead of isolating down into Millennial or Gen X or Boomer, a better approach is to focus on what consumers are motivated by rather than communicating to a checklist of characteristics. Increasingly, the brands Milk works with are talking with consumers that span the traditional generational boundaries, and take an open-minded view of who their customer is. They communicate based on personality and needs rather than pre-set age-based clusters.

The work of leading psychologists like Michal Kosinski – whose psychometrics research shows that factors such as openness to new experiences, conscientiousness and neuroticism count more than age or life stage in influencing behaviour – reveals a new way to approach brand marketing. Stop thinking about the demographics of targeting, and focus more instead on the feelings you want to motivate. If it’s sophisticated social algorithms that drive consumers, then winning and retaining attention in a crowded marketplace requires understanding of those factors. Milk’s approach to this has been to look to the way brands we work with align with people’s habits and attitudes, how they fit into the cultural noise that influences people, and how those brands provide ways for people to express themselves or their unstated needs.