Millennial is a term being bantered about that many non-millennials don’t understand. Jeff Fromm understands it and he’s on a mission to help others learn what the term means and why those regarded as millennials are important.
Fromm, a member of Congregation Beth Shalom, is the executive vice president at Barkley, the largest 100 percent employee-owned advertising agency in the United States. He is also considered one of the country’s top experts on millennials. He’s been interviewed about the subject for the Wall Street Journal and has been mentioned in Time and Forbes magazines as well.
Just last month Fromm’s new book, “Marketing to Millennials: Reach the Largest and Most Influential Generation of Consumers Ever,” was published by the American Management Association. Co-written by Christie Garton, the book is available at amazon.com and Barnes & Noble — both in stores and online.
Fromm will speak about millennials, and sign copies of his book, from 8 to 9:30 a.m. Friday, July 19, at the Jewish Community Center. The event is free but reservations are requested by calling the JCC front desk at 913-327-8000.
So exactly what is a millennial?
Fromm explains it’s a person who was born in the late ’70s all the way to the year 2000. There are more than 80 million millennials in the United States today. That generation currently accounts for 21 percent of the discretionary buying power in the United States and that percentage is expected to continue to rise.
Fromm, 47, who has spent his entire career in advertising, said millennials are very influential in the world today.
“They are changing every industry and non-profit,” Fromm explained. “This is not a Jewish phenomenon. It’s an everybody phenomenon because they have a huge thirst for adventure and they like to try and test and experiment.”
Millennials are so important, Fromm believes, that if businesses and organizations continue to act and communicate in traditional ways they will not be embracing this particular consumer group.
In fact he said the influence of millennials is changing our economy, which he calls a “participation economy.” In this type of economy, Fromm said millennials want to co-create the customer journey by which they are going to receive these products.
“They also want to co-create the marketing and social media by which we are going to communicate with them. So they want involvement and engagement activities that historically have not been part of products and services in the past.”
In other words, he explained the new definition of brand value is functional plus emotional plus participative benefit divided by price.
“The old definition did not have participative methods in the numerator,” he said.
His said non-profits — both Jewish and non-Jewish — are struggling these days because millennials want a vote and a voice in how things are done in these organizations. He once again goes back to the point that they want to participate and co-create.
“If you are the Jewish Federation and you want to embrace millennial trends, let them direct the dollars to the charity of their choice. If you are a congregation, let them be involved in the creation of the programming,” he suggested.
He believes it’s important to understand various social media trends that attract millennials, because it’s not just millennials these trends attract. In fact Fromm believes those organizations that ignore these trends and the participation economy impact of millennials will not survive.
“It’s not just 80 million people, which is a huge number, it’s that they are going to influence the folks who are 39-year-olds who are not millennials but who are following trends and want to be involved and engaged,” he said.
This book came from two research projects Fromm conducted on millennials. The first was completed in 2011 and the second came out the end of June. The complete research can be accessed at http://barkley.s3.amazonaws.com/barkleyus/AmericanMillennials.pdf.
He said the book is for anyone — a business owner, marketing person or lay or staff non-profit leaders — who wants or needs to understand who millennials are and what they need.
“This book will help them understand the trends and be able to adapt and thrive versus not understand and not thrive,” Fromm said.
“It’s for the 40-, 50-, 60-year-old business book reader who wants to understand how they can continue to achieve while dealing with a generation of people who are way different than them,” he said. “The differences are very significant. For example I didn’t grow up texting girls who I want to date or using Twitter.”
He pointed out that millennials are two and a half times more likely to adopt new digital, social and mobile technology.
“But we don’t see organizations delivering sermons to millennials in 30-second units or 1-minute units or 6-second vines (a vine is a 6-second video),” Fromm said.
The book, Fromm continued, is even for people “who are just in the workforce trying to understand colleagues who are 20 or 30 years younger and wonder why they do all these things that they don’t understand.”
Fromm’s co-author is a former USA today writer. He said by adding her to the team they were able to put together a book with the best possible story with the best possible marketing strategy.
“She’s great at storytelling and I’m great at marketing strategy so it’s a great book,” he said.
In addition to this new book, Fromm regularly writes a blog — millennial marketing.com — where people can get ongoing information about millennials anytime. The blog is at http://millennialmarketing.com/.
Fromm will not profit from the sale of the book because he did it using some of Barkley’s resources. But he does hope people who read the book — and the businesses and organizations they are associated with — will profit and grow from it.
“I’m hoping that people will learn new techniques that will allow them to thrive in their lives or develop new ideas. I know non-profits likes synagogues want to increase their membership so I’m hoping that they can adopt new ways of thinking that will allow them to attract people that are currently not participating. There are new frameworks in the book so I would encourage them to consider the new frameworks as ways to re-energize.”
