Survey puts spotlight on millennials for marketers
MILLENNIALS, those born in the 1980s and 1990s, have captured the attention of the marketing industry all over the world.
With their fresh values and fluency in digital technology, millennials are very different from previous generations and notoriously difficult to reach with traditional marketing approaches.
Millennials are especially prominent in Asean countries, whose populations have a high percentage of young people. The data collected from six Asean countries - Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines - by The United Nations Economic and Social Council indicates that this group accounted for 32 per cent of the whole population in 2015, from 26 per cent in 1975.
Currently, the Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living ASEAN (HILL Asean), a think-tank established in Thailand in March 2014 by Japan’s second-largest advertising company, Hakuhodo Inc has announced findings from its latest research into Asean “sei-katsu-sha”. Entitled “Asean Millennials: One Size Fits All? A Generation Gap in Asean”, the presentation, HILL Asean’s third, unveiled differences in attitudes to life and work, interactions with digital technology, and more between the millennial generations.
However, given the dramatic social and economic shifts that have taken place in these countries in recent years, it is difficult to define such a broad age group as a single entity. Instead, for this study HILL Asean divided the generation up into those born in the 1980s and those born in the 1990s. Analysis of research into the attitudes of each group revealed gaps between them in the way they live and work, their use of digital technology, their shopping behaviour and more.
The Internet survey, conducted in September last year, received responses from 1,800 males and females born from 1970 to 1999 in six big cities in the region - Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh and Manila - with 300 samples taken from each.
Goro Hokari, regional strategic planning director of Hakuhodo Asia Pacific and director at Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living Asean, said millennials have captured the attention of the marketing industry worldwide.
"Millennials are very different from the other generations and they are also difficult to reach with traditional marketing approaches," he said.
Millennials in Thailand and other Asean countries, where populations have a high percentage of younger people, are difficult to approach due to social and economic shifts.
