April has been a fun month for us here at Abacus. For the last 30 days we have been sharing our findings from Canada’s largest reoccurring study on Millennials, The Canadian Millennials Report. In our first week we learnt that housing affordability, access to good jobs, and student debt are the major concerns that are keeping Millennials up at night. Unlike their parent’s generation, where healthcare and the economy trumped their list of personal fears Millennials are hard pressed to find an affordable roof over their heads while their student loans and uncertain employment future has take its toll on their inherent optimism.

We also talked about the rising political power of Millennials. Millennial voter participation rose by 20 per cent in the last federal election and carried the Liberal Party to electoral victory. There’s no surprise why Prime Minister Trudeau appointed himself Minister for Youth. This follows trends in the UK where Labour experienced a huge upswing in support disproportionately coming from Millennials. Also in Italy with the rise of the Five Star movement, and it echoes the youth mobilization of the 2008 Obama Presidential campaign. Millennials have a different set of priorities than previous generations and they respond to different calls to actions, (e.g. more positive and direct). As they become the majority of the electorate, partisans will have to fight on a new battlefield for Millennial favour.

In week two we looked at Millennial concepts of identity. One thing we particularly examined was the Millennials’ perceptions of their own generation. The majority of Canadian Millennials are familiar with the term that describes their generation. Interestingly, the words they used to describe the Millennial generation were far from pleasant, “entitled, needy, and lazy”, were just some of the most popular words they used. And even more interesting, was that the majority (54%) of Canadian Millennials think that these words accurately describe their generation. So while most Millennials will answer to their generational name, they might not appreciate the negative connotations associated with it.

One of our pieces in week two got a little nerdy. You see, rare does a week go by where someone doesn’t ask us about the legitimacy of the claimed  significant differences between generations. So our CEO David Coletto, took to the cyberspace to explain the environmental and statistical differences of the Millennial generation. What we found that there are some relationships that don’t make sense unless you factor in generation. From news consumption habits to home environments, a Millennial, Gen Xer, and a Boomer have differences that can’t be explained away by life stage. If you don’t want to get blind sided by generational change, this one is a must read.

In our third week we shifted our focus to Millennials and technology. We looked at why Millennials stay loyal to new tech brands but so willingly break ties to news providers and even financial institutions. It turns out, that if you put in the effort and speak to Millennials where they are, it doesn’t matter if you sell burritos or iPhones, loyalty is accrued. Nevertheless, Millennials do seem to cling to the fresh new Silicon Valley start-ups with an unusual persistence. We also took a look at the halo effect that surrounds the Valley and the residence within. Despite contributing, in some cases, nearly half as much as the old economy firms to charities and humanitarian work, Millennials still perceive the Amazons, Apples, Googles, and Facebooks of the world (even despite Zuckerberg’s recent row) as almost twice as ethical. Although we discussed a number of reasons, simply being the newest player on the block might just be the key to their success.

These were just some of our findings and if you would like to review all that Millennial Month has to offer, visit our main site. While Millennial Month might be over we will continue to research and report on generational change and technological disruption. The next wave of the Canadian Millennials Report will launch in May 2018. The Report is Canada’s largest reoccurring study of Millennials, providing insight on their use of technology, financial situation, political priorities, and societal outlooks. If you are interested in the Report, don’t hesitate to visit the Canadian Millennials Report site where we house all things Millennial.

And while you’re here, why don’t you check out our work on ONPulse. If you want thoughtful up-to-date analysis and the most accurate data on the upcoming Ontario election you are going to love ONPulse. A partnership with Summa Strategies, Spark* Advocacy, and Abacus Data you’ll be in the know before anyone else about the nuances of the Ontario political environment.

At Abacus Data we take understanding the next generation seriously. We are the only research and strategy firm that can help your business or organization respond to the unprecedented threat of generational change and technological disruption. If you want to know how your business or organization can succeed in the Millennial Marketplace Contact us to learn about our array of bespoke products and services that can make you an industry leader.

On our Canadian Millennials site we previously wrote a post on the #Selfcare phenomenon that has seized the Millennial generation -if you haven’t had a chance to read it I highly recommend you check it out. That post and your conversation got us thinking about how Millennial views on health and healthy lifestyles are unique as compared to other generations. Millennials, like every generation before them, have their health quirks and fads. From jazzercise to going paleo, the human race has tried everything to stay in shape. Today we will be looking at how Millennials integrate technology into their lifestyles in the hopes of becoming healthier.

With the advent of wearable technology and their corresponding applications it has never been easier to incorporate data into your regular workout routine. In the past, you needed the budget and resources of an elite Soviet athlete to get the level of statistical insights we now might consider trivial, not to mention all that clunky machinery.

Wearable tech like the Fitbit has been adopted by Millennials to optimize their exercise experience. It, with corresponding applications, informs the wearer of anything from how many steps they’ve taken to how many carbs and nutrients they have consumed. The modern-day personal trainer isn’t at the local gym but rather on your arm and in the cloud.

Alright, so knowing your heart beat per minute ratio is one thing but now what do you do with that? This is where the gamification of data makes things interesting. Gamification is a term first coined by Nick Pelling, a British computer programmer and technology philosopher. It refers to the incorporation of game-like elements into areas where they previously did not exist (Pelling: 2002). So data is great but what if you added daily goals, the ability to compete with your friends and family, and even obtain rewards for reaching certain goals? A study by PricewaterhouseCooper indicated that 64% of Millennials believed that they would be more likely to use wearable technology if it had some sort of gaming component to it (PWC: 2014). Additionally, 52% of Millennials in the same study said that they would use a wearable device if it had an in-app rewards feature (PWC: 2014). That being said, gamification has its limits. When asked if they would mind if their personal information was shared with friends and family on their behalf only 14% of Millennials said they would not mind (PWC: 2014). The other 96% were hesitant to share personal information without some level of control. Therefore, it is important to remembers that even though we might think of Millennials as these opensource digital natives, privacy is still a genuine right they value and they want to control the personal information they share, even in the context of a ‘game’.

Now, there are dozens of devices and hundreds of apps that are designed to track your exercise data and to improve your performance. Nearly every major sports retailer from Adidas to Nike to Under Armour has developed an exercise app of their own and has integrated corresponding technology into their apparel. So great is demand for wearable technology, specifically among Millennials, it is estimated that by 2018 the wearable tech sector will be worth between $6 billion (PWC: 2014) to $12 billion (Business Insider: 2014) globally with approximately 17% of the wearables market being devoted to health and fitness applications (Ogilvy & Mather: 2014).

Let’s take a look at two companies that are on the leading edge of this wave of wearable tech.

Orangetheory Fitness

Orangetheory Fitness combines the traditional experience of the gym with the personalization of wearable technology. Every gym-goer is paired with a Fitbit-like wristband which monitors their vitals as they participate in traditional gym circuit training. Orangetheory uses their clients’ personal data to create individual goals and exercise plans. Over the past four years the gym franchise has almost doubled every year. In 2016 alone Orangetheory opened one storefront for each day of the year.

Carrot Rewards

Carrot Rewards is an app the links to your smart phone. It records steps you take and sets goals to encourage healthy life styles. The major component of Carrot Rewards is that with every goal achieved the user receives points which can be redeemed towards monetary rewards. Developed by the Provincial Government of British Columbia in partnership with the federal government and other private partners it also acts as an information conduit for the province to relay pertinent personalized healthcare information to users directly. The information collected can also be operationalized to enhance healthcare delivery in the province based on the lifestyle insights the province gleans from user data.

Wearable tech has applications in both the private and public sectors and is successfully being used to enhance service deliver across fields. While the healthcare field is perhaps the largest wearable sector at the moment wearable technologies have the ability to revolutionize and enhance other sectors such as travel, entertainment, and administration and is set to perforate every area of our lives.

Millennials are embracing the world of wearable technology and the market place is happily obliging. All the trend lines are indicating and the markets are proving that Millennials will continue to adopt wearable technology into different facets of their lives. As Douglas Atkin, Global Head of Communities at AirBnB says, “In the distant future, we’ll forget the idea of engaging in technology at all. We’ll sallow it, absorb it, and wear it, without us really thinking we’re engaging it at all.”

Want to know more about Millennials views on tech? Check out the Canadian Millennials Report which is Canada’s largest reoccurring syndicated publication dedicated to understanding the views of Canadian Millennials. We survey 2,000 Millennials twice a year tracking their attitudes over time and their perceptions of current issues.

At Abacus Data we take understanding the next generation seriously. We are the only research and strategy firm that can help your business or organization respond to the unprecedented threat of generational change and technological disruption. If you want to know how your business or organization can succeed in the Millennial Marketplace Contact us to learn about our array of bespoke products and services that can make you an industry leader.

“Silicon Valley start-up”

Now tell me, after reading those words what was the first thing that came to your mind? Well, if you’ve been watching the news you probably thought of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg talking to the US Government House and Senate committees over allegations of misuse of user data. But once your mind travelled beyond that you probably reflected on Google’s playhouse/office space or Apple’s sleek cult of products. Generally, we have a vision of smart, innovative firms staffed by cool young people that are fantastically smart and build revolutionary products. They are generally ecologically conscious, treat people fairly, and give back to their communities.

When we ask Millennials to describe what an ethical company looked like, descriptions like the ones above were provided. So, it was no surprise that when we asked Millennials to rank a series of companies on how ethical they were that new economy tech firms held the top spots.

“The Four,” Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple were all at the top of our list. And despite the negative headlines some of them get, Millennials are simply enamored with these companies and their technological marvels. Covered by slogans like, “don’t be evil” –Google, “the everything store” –Amazon, “move fast, break things” –Facebook, or “think differently” –Apple; people, especially Millennials, are willing to forgive slip-ups and mis-steps and perceive these companies as sterling ethical actors.  However, if we were to quantify ethicality, say by how much each company spends on their corporate social responsibility initiatives, we find that perception isn’t necessarily correlated with money spent. Looking at education initiatives for instance, the area that we have the best data for and an area that is prioritized by all of “The Four”, we find that none of them are in the top ten education spenders. Those positions are held by: Banco Santander ($197m), IBM ($144m), Telefonica ($130m), Exxon Mobil ($116), Target ($95m), GlaxoSmithKline ($87m), Microsoft ($87m), Toyota Motor ($84m), Rio Tinto Group ($82m), Wells Fargo ($82m), as calculated by UNESCO and the Varkey Foundation.

This halo effect isn’t new nor is it a simply Millennial trait. Looking back a little over a century ago, we can find the same halos surrounding the early American industrialists like the steel enterprises of Carnegie and the assembly lines of Ford, and textile mills of east coast. These now “old economy” firms were once new, and generated similar excitement to our present-day technological titans. Carnegie’s steel mills were known for their hellish working conditions, Ford was known for his skimpy wages, and the mills were a congress of child labour. Yet, they were shiny, new, and an ocean removed from most critical Europe (not that conditions were any better there).

There is a quote from Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, in which he describes the 3 rules of human reaction to technology.

“Rule 1: Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural
part of the way the world works.

Rule 2: Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and
revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.

Rule 3: Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”

This colloquialism, pretty well describes the generational difference in company perception. Even within the Millennial cohort we see that those born before 1990 have a slightly less paradisiacal view of these companies, scoring them on average 3 points less ethical than those born after 1990. And this inflection point coincides with those who can remember a life before the internet and those that can’t. To the younger half of Millennials, Facebook is all they have known, its actions that Boomers take so much offense to barely registers on the Millennials’ radar. To them, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google are operating how they’ve always done. They are part of the natural order of things and their rhetoric and organizational culture acts as the baseline for how Millennials expect companies to act. These halos, fade with time but generally seem to follow generations as they get older. So will these silicon angels fall from grace? Save a major scandal, probably not. But will these halos fade? Most definitely. New becomes old and innovative becomes archaic these tech start-ups are enjoying the usual favour of all new companies without a history. Millennials who have grown up with them enjoy them because the make modern life possible, just as the steel mills and textile factors of the last century made modern life useful. The next generation will have its darlings, and well see how these Millennial companies fair in the eyes of the next generation.

The majority of this data came from the Canadian Millennials Report which is Canada’s largest reoccurring syndicated publication dedicated to understanding the views of Canadian Millennials. We survey 2,000 Millennials twice a year tracking their attitudes over time and their perceptions of current issues.

At Abacus Data we take understanding the next generation seriously. We are the only research and strategy firm that can help your business or organization respond to the unprecedented threat of generational change and technological disruption. If you want to know how your business or organization can succeed in the Millennial Marketplace Contact us to learn about our array of bespoke products and services that can make you an industry leader.

We often hear how Millennials are disrupting traditional powerhouse brands with their serial disloyalty. For example, where the traditional choices might be Coca-Cola or Pepsi, Millennials are saying, “Neither, I’ll take the ethically brewed, organic kombucha that’s made at my local co-op.” This has been repeated in industry after industry, from financial advisors to publishing houses Millennials and the new technologies of today are leaving wounded multi-million dollar titans in their wake. There is however, one industry where Millennials show the loyalty once garnered by the acolytes PAN-AM or Marlboro. Brand loyalty can still be found today in the mobile phone industry.

There may be many reasons why Millennials have maintained their loyalty to their cellphone brand but they all have their foundation in the tumultuous period of the Mobile Phone Wars of the early 2000s.

The war to end all wars:

Many have suggested that the loyalty these cellphone giants enjoy were hard fought for in what has come to be known as the “Mobile Phone” or “Smart Phone” wars of 2008-2012. In 2008 Nokia, Blackberry, and Motorola were the largest players on the block. They won their market shares in the late 80s during the cell phone revolution and now were enjoying the fruits of their economies of scale. Sitting on their laurels, these cellular giants watched as a newly rebranded computer company, Apple, unveiled a peculiarly named but highly stylized mobile device. On January 2, 2007 in San Francisco the iPhone was unveiled to the world and the unbeknownst to the lumbering behemoths the first lines of the mobile phone wars had been drawn. Over the ensuing 4 years these and other mobile and technology companies, including Google and Samsung, would be involved in upwards of 4000 legal injunctions involving no fewer than 2 841 disputed patents. To put that in perspective, that means 3 new suits or legal actions were introduced every day in the 4-year time period. And besides these legal battles consumers can remember the battle for our hearts and minds. How could we forget the creative and iconic advertisements of that era? Whether it be dancing silhouettes, clever Mac’s and our doting PC’s or subway fisticuffs with our mobile devices we were drawn to a phone provider like a fly to a light.

When the dust settled in 2013 Nokia had fallen, Motorola was acquired, and Blackberry became the sick man of mobile. And where these forerunners once stood California’s Apple and South Korea’s Samsung lay triumphant. Both attained the largest market share but of the two companies, one has experienced a loyalty envied by religious leaders and politicians alike. And at whose alter do Millennials bow before as apostles of the brand the most? Apple.

Both Apple and Samsung have their brand ambassadors. You ask a Samsung devotee and they will tell you that Samsung’s are for the unpretentiously smart worker. The technological professional that does not want to be bound by limiting operating systems and hardware silos. Apples followers will tell you that their ilk is a cut above the rest. Valuing both design and functionality, an Apple bearer is ahead of the trends and is more creative than your average joe-Android.

In our latest survey of Canadian Millennials—the Canadian Millennials Report is the largest reoccurring Millennial study in Canada—Abacus asked them about their mobile devices. Today, Apple holds 51% of the Millennial cellphone market. This is highest among young Millennials born in 1995 and later (31%) and lowest among Millennials born in 1984 and earlier (20%). Samsung controls around 35% of the market share where as the rest of the mobile phone companies are left to fight over the remain 14%. The gender breakdown of these brands is unique. The iPhone loyalist are more likely to be women by a factor of 1.5 where Samsung has a greater balance between genders, about a 50/50 split. The interesting numbers come up when we look at third-party cellphones like Google, Lenovo, or Huawei. The third-party market is dominated by older Millennial men (60% of the market) particularly those in their late 20s and early 30s. We were also curious to see if geographical location had any effect on brand adoption. Overall, phone preference across Canada is pretty much the same. Apple and Samsung dominate in most provinces except New Brunswick where there is a three way race between the big two and third-party companies. Although we can’t be certain why this is the case, there is the possibility that the relatively high price points of the big two make attaining them more difficult in the depressed Maritime economy making lower-priced third-party phones seem more attractive.

But moving past New Brunswick’s non-conformist phenomenon we found that there were other surprising differences between the company faithful. For instance, somewhat to our surprise, Apple’s acolytes were more likely to believe in God than any other company cohort (54%). Samsung believers are more likely to be atheist with 56% stating that they don’t believe in the Semitic interpretation of an almighty being. Third-party devote were just as likely as Samsung users to be atheist. We’re not reading too much into this one. While we’ll keep an eye out for a trend as we survey more Millennials later this year, to say that an Apple user is literally holier than thou…you know, there might actually be something here, catch up with us in the fall when we publish the next wave of our Canadian Millennial Report. At any rate we also found that Apple was the product of choice for Canada’s highly educated Millennials. Those who have completed post-graduate studies were the more likely to have an iPhone than a Samsung. Samsung is the “working man’s” phone being on average two points higher than Apple for those Millennials that have completed college or some university or have lower educational attainment. The same can be said for income. Millennials with higher incomes tend to prefer iPhones where as Millennials with lower incomes tend to prefer Samsung or in the case of those that make less than $35,000 per year, a third-party phone.

So, while Millennials haven’t clung-on to old-economy powerhouses like Coca-Cola or IBM they are willing to be loyal to firms that grab their attention. Less we forget the Coca-Cola vs Pepsi advertising wars in the 70s and 80s or the Colgate vs Crest in the 50s and 60s. Firms in the market that compete for attention will get attention, those that sit back and lay on their historic spoils are likely to be found along the way-side of modernity as the connections forged with older generations fade into distant memory. If firms want to be relevant to the next generation they need to compete for their attention and link their product to what’s important to Millennials.

The majority of this data came from the Canadian Millennials Report which is Canada’s largest reoccurring syndicated publication dedicated to understanding the views of Canadian Millennials. We survey 2,000 Millennials twice a year tracking their attitudes over time and their perceptions of current issues.

At Abacus Data we take understanding the next generation seriously. We are the only research and strategy firm that can help your business or organization respond to the unprecedented threat of generational change and technological disruption. If you want to know how your business or organization can succeed in the Millennial Marketplace Contact us to learn about our array of bespoke products and services that can make you an industry leader.