‘The New Mainstream’ study from Future reveals six diverse audience segments and personas that challenge the millennial stereotype.

In Brief

In order to challenge the way in which younger audiences are perceived, Future launched a youth panel. The insight identifies six segments in the market, their influences and how they interact, signalling that marketers and advertisers need to take action and move away from treating millennials as one homogenous group to avoid their targeting falling short.

In-depth quantitative research with a nationally representative pool of 2,000 18-34 year- olds – carried out by differentology on behalf of Future – marks the launch The New Mainstream initiative, challenging current perceptions of this audience.

Key Findings

• Contradicting current perceptions of this audience, family (67%) and financial security (49%) were found to be most important to them right now, closely followed by friends (48%) and career (41%). 

• Most take the viewpoint that their generation will be the first to be more financially worse off than their parents (68%) and almost half (48%) prioritise responsibility over pleasure, considering themselves to be mostly rational compared to hedonistic (42%).

• Many either feel settled down (45%) or would like to be (31%), with just 20% being content to not be. The majority of those aged 25-34 say they feel settled down (60%) compared to 31% of the younger 18-24 group. 

• Signposting their hopes for the future, the audience predict family (66%) and financial security (57%) will continue to be most important to them at ages 35-54, with owning their own property (49%), career (47%) and being in a long term relationship (47%) also forecast to be in their top five priorities.

• While this digitally savvy audience for the most part like to be constantly switched on to the online world (59%), 32% enjoy a digital detox to help them relax.

• The study identified six millennial audience segments, Troubled Traditionalists, Hashtag Heroes, Responsible Rebels, Urban Optimist, Sofa Surfers and, Crowdsourcing Consumers.