Emerging Markets for Natural Products Part 1: Marketing to Millennials

Vitamin buyers have long identified their primary shoppers as 35- to 55-year-old females. And while it’s tempting to target the biggest sandbox in the playground, natural products manufacturers are now turning their attention to less saturated markets. One such market is the Millennials, the generation of more than 50 million people who span the ages of 18 to 29.

A lot has been said about how Millennials are “brand-averse," that they’ve been inundated with marketing messages since the day they were born. And while it’s true that Millennials are constantly finding new ways to avoid watching yet another boring ad (who wouldn’t?!), read on for ideas of how natural products’ marketers can adapt to the needs and concerns of the newly-arriving Millennial generation.

Tell me a story

Millennials are story tellers. The definitive report on Millennials by the Pew Research Center, a nonprofit public opinion research group, emphasizes that this generation lives in a socially interconnected world. The paper entitled “The Millennials: Confident, Connected, Open to Change," reports that 75 percent of Millennials have embraced social networking and desire ongoing dialogues through social media channels.

Implication: Tell Millennials a brand story that they can easily pass on to their friends through social media channels. Better yet, tell your story through a video, 3-D animation, mobile app or cartoon.

Limited editions please

American psychologist Nathan Brody calls Millennials “the entitled generation." Easy access to, well, just about everything has marked their younger years. As consumers, this generation is steering clear of big brand bland; instead, they’re honing in on smaller brands and products with limited edition life cycles. This is great news for small start-up brands; companies large and small might consider marketing strategies with goals that are cyclical in nature. The Hartman Group 2010 research report calls Millennials “playful in their snack selections, resulting in impulsive purchases from limited-release flavor combinations (Doritos Mystery Flavor) to global flavor profiles (Thai chili and kaffir lime)."

Implication: Marketers of functional beverages might do well to follow Mountain Dew’s lead: give Millennials limited-edition flavors, let them vote on their favorites, then deliver on the chosen one. (Get more about “Dew-mocracy" from Mountain Dew here.)

Skin your brand

Millennials don’t like to be interrupted by ads when having a conversation with their pals. So how do marketers send a branded message while still respecting their audience? They skin their brand. A great example of skinning is the online music site, Pandora.com. Pandora allows listeners to continue listening to their music relatively uninterrupted while displaying the “skin" of the brand as the background of the page. Whenever a user interacts with the site (to click a thumbs-up or thumbs-down or change the station), the background changes and a new brand skin is displayed.

Implication: Find ways to represent your brand that don’t interfere with the consumer’s primary experience.

Make me feel good

In their book, “How Cool Brands Stay Hot: Branding to Generation Y," Joeri Van den Bergh and Mattias Behrer claim that “happiness seems to be the emotion that has the largest impact on brand leverage" for Millennials. Whether or not this influenced Coke’s “Open Happiness" campaign can be debated, but Millennials’ desire to feel good and connect with brands emotionally are two the generation’s defining characteristics.

Implication: Regardless of whether your product is for joint health or brain health or some other condition, your brand experience should evoke emotion. Surprises and stories are two good ways to go.

This is part 1 of a 3-part post. Coming up: Marketing to Children.