Millennials eschew stuff of boomers
I’d seen the clickbait promo several times and tried to ignore it: “These Brands You Love May Soon Disappear Forever,” a feature from The MoneyWise e-magazine, Moneywise.com.
But finally — despite being a little change-weary and loathe to read about the disappearance of yet more items for which I harbor misty watercolor memories — I did click.
Seems that millennials “now have more spending power than any generation in human history” (wait, I thought they were broke from paying off student loan debt?) and therefore are changing the laws of consumer buying with their preferences, according to the July 17 article. Those changes are leaving some old societal brand favorites out in the cold.
Among them:
■ Budweiser. Yes, the beer that gave us clopping Clydesdales, clever jingles and some of the most memorable Super Bowl commercials ever. “Customers are demanding new and more exciting alcoholic beverages, and the industry has been more than willing to provide them. Craft beer production … hard seltzers, unique flavor blends and low-carb, low-sugar alcoholic drinks” are what the mils want to swill. OK, well good luck with Craft Beer Clydesdales.
■ Harley Davidson?! Says here that the young ’uns have turned to ride-hailing apps and public transportation, which means the brand could go obsolete. “Global asset management firm Alliance Bernstein predicts motorcycle ridership will continue to fall over the next five years.” Uh-uh, Alliance Bernstein and Moneywise! You better rewrite the story! Hey, look, we just got a big new Harley-Davidson dealership facility in Little Rock! Somebody start Harley appreciation classes for millennials — now!
■ Jell-O. “Jell-O may be iconic, but it’s one of those products you’re almost surprised to see in the supermarket,” reads the story. I’ve never been a fan or understood the attraction of insubstantial, quivering stuff calling itself dessert when muchmore hefty cookies and cakes were in existence. But Jell-O is trying to hang in there: It introduced edible slime for youngsters who go for grossness. Yeah. That oughta leave cupcakes and Rice Krispies treats slithering — er, shaking in their boots.
■ SlimFast. The diet meal-replacement shake is losing favor, Moneywise says, because folk want fresher food that’s lower in carbohydrates.
As someone who chugged so many SlimFast shakes back in the day that I’d be eligible for benefits if there were a Slimfast Veterans Administration entity, I’m proof that it wasn’t exactly a magic bullet for weight loss. Neither was it a magic bullet for my boss, who’s thin but admits that she once chugged SlimFast as a drink to go along with full, solid meals.
■ Wheaties, the cereal. The younger folks have places to go and therefore want food on the go, so they’re opting for breakfast burritos and smoothies
rather than cereal whose packages bear photos of famous athletes. But Wheaties’ celebrity-image-on-packaging concept lives on — via, ahem, bags of snacks bearing images of rappers. Move over, Mary Lou Retton: Say hello to Fetty Wap!
■ The Apple iPod, and I-thought-it-was-long-goner. The reason for the iPod’s demise is obvious: Apple ate its own young by coming up with the iPhone — the Swiss army knife of electronics. The last iPod I even saw was the then-ancient one Denzel Washington played in the dystopian-future film The Book of Eli. He would have gotten so much better sound if he’d had
an ancient iPhone X.
■ The Chevrolet Volt. “Sales of those passenger cars have been going downhill because American consumers would much rather get behind the wheel of SUVs (sport utility vehicles), pickup trucks and crossover vehicles.” Aha! This is where the millennials and the Baby Boomers come together!
■ Twitter, which is reportedly facing a few too many social-media competitors for its own good. “The platform has been getting a lot of backlash for ongoing issues of abuse and harassment among users,” according to the feature. “With this much bad press, people might not be tweeting much
longer.” Well, we know at least one person who’ll do his part to keep Twitter in biz.