Secrets for Marketing to Millennials
Want to satisfy a Millennials’ appetite for experience? I give you two words, Big Food.
Barton G knows how to get to a Millennial. Their over-the-top food presentations make you want to take a picture. Barton G is a company that serves experiences. Their two restaurants provide customers with food encounters like no other featuring larger-than-life props with dishes that are the perfect photo opp. How can you help not taking a picture of a plate of Samurai Tuna served with real samurai swords? Or a dessert that is Marie Antoinette’s headdress made from cotton candy and cake?
These ginormous food props make for an experience. You just have to take a picture, post it on social media, share and dare others to do the same. It’s brilliant. Another experience- oriented restaurant that is constantly on Instagram is The Sugar Factory. Personally I know few who have been there, although many recognize it because of their notoriously, eye-catching photos on social media. It basically looks like Candy Land. We Millennials are driven to experiences like this, and social media has become the new repository for them. Through social, we can actually see what we are getting ourselves into.
Let me take this idea off the plate. The concept behind showcasing food or specific restaurants and bars exemplifies how Millennials jump on experiences rather than products. Not only are we eager to try new things, but we want to be able to brag about them with interesting content we can post on our personal social media accounts. Marketers who grasp this are already supplying us with that attention-grabbing content showcasing their products. And mobilizing us to deliver their messages.
As Millennials, we love to constantly show others where we have been. If we do end up at that fabulous restaurant with the cocktails made from diamonds, then we have granted ourselves bragging rights to share the photo on social media. The purpose of this is to show people what a wonderful experience we had and that our life is, in fact, interesting.
The point of all of this is that we, as Millennials, value experiences we can brag about. Marketers should know that for Millennials, a good experience is more valuable than a tangible product. When marketing to us, think of content you would share. Make a journey out of your product. Instead of telling us you have a sale on a paddle board; take us down the Amazon on that paddle board. That’s something I’d share.
#MillennialPrinciple
Danielle Murray heads the Millennial Principle team.
