The press continually implies that Millennials are a homogeneous group of approximately 19- to 34-year-olds. Nothing could be further from the truth. No, not all Millennials are singles living in their parent’s basements. No, they aren’t all foodies. No, they aren’t all singles and childless couples who go out and party a lot.
Defining consumers by age is a big mistake. It is much more meaningful to define them by multiple dimensions, including their life stage. A college student behaves a lot different than a early-thirty-something single with a job. A childless late-twenty-something couple behaves a lot different than a late-twenty-something couple with children. A single childless woman behaves a lot differently than a single mother with a child. In fact, having children significantly changes spending priorities, including entertainment.
When we look at the Millennial generation based on those with children, approximately half have a child. Depending on the parents’ ages, earnings and couple status, even that can be a very diverse group.
Don’t plan your location-based center or marketing based on some broad population demographic such as Millennials. To be successful, you need to be a lot more targeted than that.
About Randy White
Randy White is CEO and co-founder of the White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group. The 31-year-old company, with offices in Kansas City, Missouri, has worked for over 600 clients in 37 countries throughout the world. Projects the company has designed and produced have won seventeen 1st place awards. Randy is considered to be one of the world's foremost authorities on feasibility, brand development, design and production of leisure experience destinations including entertainment, eatertainment, edutainment, agritainment/agritourism, play and leisure facilities.
Randy was featured on the Food Network's Unwrapped television show as an eatertainment expert, quoted as an entertainment/edutainment center expert in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Times and Time magazine and received recognition for family-friendly designs by Pizza Today magazine. One of the company's projects was featured as an example of an edutainment project in the book The Experience Economy. Numerous national newspapers have interviewed him as an expert on shopping center and mall entertainment and retail-tainment.
Randy is a graduate of New York University. Prior to repositioning the company in 1989 to work exclusively in the leisure and learning industry, White Hutchinson was active in the retail/commercial real estate industry as a real estate consultancy specializing in workouts/turnarounds of commercial projects. In the late 1960s to early 1980s, Randy managed a diversified real estate development company that developed, owned and managed over 2.0 million square feet of shopping centers and mixed-use projects and 2,000 acres of residential subdivisions. Randy has held the designations of CSM (Certified Shopping Center Manager) and Certified Retail Property Executive (CRX) from the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC).
He has authored over 150 articles that have been published in over 40 leading entertainment/leisure and early childhood education industry magazines and journals and has been a featured speaker and keynoter at over 40 different conventions and trade groups.
Randy is the editor of his company's Leisure eNewsletter, has a blog and posts on Twitter and Linkedin.
