Helping the millennials turn into adults

‘Adulthood” and “adulting” are two very different words. By no means is this a revelatory, but rather, a necessary distinction for today’s millennials-going-on-grown-ups.

Adulthood is a passive at worst — and welcome at best — life stage transition. Adulting, however, is a choice; decisions, commitments and a way of life that are consciously adult. The verb “to adult” only really made clickbait headlines in 2016, right about the time brands were salivating over elusive millennials — before they turned to the more elusive Gen Z. It is no coincidence.

Millennials have been associated with an indefinite state of emerging adulthood — an in-between, late 20s see-saw game between responsibility and instability. The aftershock of the 2008 financial crisis, from inflationary pressures to geopolitical instability, had greatly impacted the current and next generation of adults.

Value-for-money consciousness gave way to peer-to-peer economies, ubiquitous connectivity and exposure, commitment issues, and to rent-not-own mindsets; in other words, a countermovement to adulthood as we know it.

In developed economies, a Euromonitor report notes, lightweight-living became the norm among more value-conscious millennials. In contrast, their developing economy counterparts, “much wealthier than their parents and grandparents”, are overcompensating with purchases their predecessors could not afford.

Both converge on one reality: nowadays, adulting is hard. Millennials, who are expected to take on the roles of parents, professionals, homeowners and investors, are very much aware of this. And not necessarily in the best of ways.

The Mena region — a hybrid of underdeveloped, latent economies, and larger economies undergoing a transformation from oil — is a prime example. To put things into perspective, the World Bank estimated youth (15-24 year-olds) unemployment rates at 34.7 per cent in Saudi Arabia, and at 34.4 per cent in Egypt in 2017. In tandem, a significant part of Mena youth, connected and exposed more than ever before, is starting to disintegrate from traditional and societal pressures and delaying lifetime commitments.

The baseline is the same for emerging adults across the globe; times are tough. Publicis Media’s latest report — titled: Where Are the Grown Ups: Adulthood vs. Adulting — canvassed youth in the US, UK, Australia and Brazil to understand just how hard reality is hitting the next adults. The answer is, very hard; 58 per cent of respondents aged 35-plus years old are self-proclaimed “kidults”. At least 63 per cent of respondents aged 25 and above do not “feel” like adults.

When it comes to their shifts on social constructs and outlook on life, 74 per cent of respondents do not agree that marriage is permanent, and 40 per cent do not believe they can support themselves with a traditional 9-to-5 job.

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After all, the ‘googling’ generation had its life skills shaped by the internet, and it wants to be rewarded big and fast; 28 per cent of Gen Zs expect to make it before they hit 20, but 78 per cent agree that they grew up too fast — with, seemingly, little guidance, as 70 per cent of them believe their parents “have a hard time giving them advice about the future”.

The result is a confused state of overconfidence and self-doubt; more than 84 per cent believe they are more mature and self-sufficient than their peers, yet 41 per cent feel incompetent in basic life skills, and 35 per cent believe they cannot make it a week on their own.

Yet, these very generations are in need of support systems that used to come with marriage and job security. This need gave birth to the sharing, inter-dependent economy of today, hiring out most of their daily life’s responsibilities and errands. Theirs is a self-serving, digital-dependent economy where people — and particularly parents — hold less influence on their information and decision-making.

Where is the opportunity for brands? First and foremost, by reconciling empathy with cognitive dissonance of kidults. In marketing, it is as old and simple as push-and-pull strategies: declutter their brand environment by simplifying their decision-making process from the get-go.

Rethink influencer strategies from viral and entertaining to useful; avoid “social media by default” strategies for adulting content; focus away from clickbait to knowledgeable content; recognise the shift away from independent to inter-dependent economies. In that, fill the trust gap left by fading sources of influence — namely, parents — and untrusted big corporates.

■ Vanessa Khalil is Research & Insights Senior Executive at Publicis Media Analytics & Insight.