Millennials: different story

“I’m a creature of habit,” Earvin “Magic” Johnson told an enthused crowd at his

G2E keynote address.

“If you take care of me, that’s where I’m staying, and I stay at the same place every time. If I get everything I want when I come to that city, that’s where I’m going.”

But he admitted that marketing to millennials might be a different story.

“We’ve got to get ahold of millennials because they’re a little different,” he said. “They like it fast, quick and on their phone. They’re not like us creatures of habit.

They like to jump around. So you’ve got to really hone in on those millennials. They’re a different customer than you’re used to having.”

his million-dollar smile, Johnson described how he defied critics and built a franchise of movie theaters in poor neighborhoods and put food concessions in them that catered to neighborhood tastes.

Even when Starbucks executives said building stores that sold $3 cups of coffee in those neighborhoods wouldn’t work, Johnson put up the money to build and modified the menu, switching out scones for sweet-potato cake and putting Michael Jackson and Earth, Wind & Fire music on the sound system.

“We don’t even know what scones are,” Johnson joked.

Today, his Magic Johnson Enterprises empire invests in infrastructure projects, including work at Denver International and Laguardia airports, and his foundation funds thousands of dollars in scholarships.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702477-3893. Follow @Rickvelotta on Twitter.