Bling it on

Overview

Millennials are already an influential and growing part of the premium consumer market but will shortly be the dominant segment. We surveyed 1000 millennials from the US, UK, Italy and China to understand what influences their premium buying habits and what this could mean for companies seeking to succeed in premium markets and engage with millennials.

The findings show that this critical group of premium product consumers present entirely new challenges for brand companies in terms of communication and customer retention.

Key findings

• The millennial mindset is self-directed. Millennials are more likely to buy for themselves than to impress others. They hear what influencers say but may not follow them. 
• Millennials are information-rich, but there is no preferred channel of information and influence. Millennials say they make buying decisions based on information from multiple sources, traditional magazines, to videos, websites and blogs. 
• Markets differ: there is no global millennial solution when it comes to brand messages. Social media is the most important communication channel for most markets, but not in China. Experience and personalisation is important, but particularly in the US.
• Levels of brand loyalty also differ market by market. The more mature the market, the less brand loyal millennials are likely to be. 
• Sustainability and ethics are not particularly strong influencers for millennial luxury buyers. A high propensity to pay a sustainability premium for most products does not apply to luxury in the same way as it does in mass products. 
• Quality and uniqueness are the most important factors in drawing millennial consumers to luxury products. Heritage and aspirational qualities are less important.