Millennials (currently 24-39) have tremendous purchasing power… 

As a millennial myself, I know the stereotypes first-hand. 

They downplay the purchasing power of this generation. In other words, we’re not all eating avocado toast, watching reruns of The Office, making meme’s in our parents’ basements, ordering $12 cold brew delivery online, and playing with fidget spinners… 

Although sure, some of us are.

To better understand millennial consumer behavior in 2020 for multiple categories, our client Roth Capital conducted a proprietary survey leveraging MFour Mobile Research. 

This is actually their eighth annual millennial survey, which looks at spending patterns, data trends, as well as top brands across major consumer categories including apparel, home furnishings, health, beverages, healthy snacks, and even cannabis. This in-depth 209 questionnaire was completed by 2,500 U.S. millenial men and women. 

While, the meat and potatoes of the insights are kept for their own use, here are 10 surface-level statistics that they were comfortable with us sharing publicly...

• 73% of millennials are Amazon Prime members.
• 53% of millennials will pay 10% or more for socially responsible brands.
• 47% are more likely to purchase digitally native brands that begin in-store. 
• 74% of millennials own either a Yeti, HydroFlask, or Contigo reusable water bottle.
• 47% of millennials buy second hand items for sustainability and affordability reasons.
• 63% of millennials who buy online prefer to make returns in-store, and then 76% of those who return stay and shop after making an in-store return.
• Dollar Shave Club is the most used subscription, followed by Chewy, then Target.
• While millennials prefer traditional mattresses, Purple is more popular than Casper.
• Nike is the favorite brand in multiple categories including activewear, outdoor apparel, outdoor footwear, fashion footwear and climbing. Followed by Under Armour, The North Face, Adidas, Timberland, Vans, and Black Diamond.

It’s time to take millennial consumers seriously. 

David Bain, managing director, senior research analyst at Roth Capital Partners summarized it well when he said “Millennials will make up nearly three-quarters of the workforce by 2025 and are rapidly redefining consumer patterns … [The] study of millennial consumer behavior and preferences is an essential factor to projecting business earnings…” 

At MFour, we over-index on under-represented consumers such as millennials, Gen Z, Hispanics, and African-Americans, so you can get the accurate representation you need.

If you want to understand your millennial consumers, let's chat. 

USIM just won the Programmatic Agency of the Year Award.

Their data was powered by MFour. The award is for targeting active and prospective retail customers: something that was previously not possible in mass media.

And the targeting is working. The data has generated sales lifts averaging 10% to 15% — and as much as 50% — over normal targeted local TV advertising buys.

It all started when Rob Jayson, USIM Executive Vice President-Insights & Analytics, stumbled upon MFour's unique platform. Capable of providing an opt-in panel of mobile users, MFour gave Rob a way to track devices for media research purposes. He was intrigued.

MFour has nearly three million users, making its sample both big enough and stable enough to be used as a building block for refined analyses. So, USIM decided to use MFour's panel to create a geo-targeting methodology dubbed PureView. That allowed the firm to effectively create custom trading areas based on the actual travel patterns of its retail clients’ customers.

“The end result is a much more efficient deployment of programmatic and OTT and other media we can buy with geo tags that is much more efficient in driving traffic to stores,” Jayson explained when MediaPost first wrote about the innovation early last year.

For more information on the article, please view the original post, published by MediaPost.

Consumer insights professionals need to understand today’s consumers in their natural environments, and by now they know that means reaching them on mobile.

Recent readership statistics reported by the Assn. of Magazine Media affirm just how big and necessary the mobile ecosystem has become for anyone who needs to engage consumers. The study shows that mobile devices continue to achieve separation from desktops and laptops as U.S. consumers’ choice for magazine content.  

• The association's Brand Audience Report for March says that 32.2% of the month’s 553.6 million magazine readers arrived via mobile, up 8.5% year over year.

• Only 11.6% of magazine site visits occurred on PCs, down 8.9% from March, 2017.

The report also shows that, of the five most-read publications, three received their greatest audience share from mobile. And all five attracted far more readers on mobile than they did on PCs. Here are the comparisons:

• WebMD Magazine: 59.1% of 60.8 million March readers were mobile; 21% arrived via PC.

• Allrecipes: 60.7% of 46.2 million readers were mobile; 19.9% PC.

• ESPN the Magazine: 43.7% of 96.5 million readers were mobile, 25.7% PC.

• People: 36.8% of 78 million readers were mobile; 8% used PCs.

• AARP magazine: 14% of 49.4 million readers were mobile; 7.9% used PCs.

In fact, of the 116 titles for which the Assn. of Media Magazines provided comparisons, only five attracted more readers on PCs than on mobile: Automobile, Car Craft, Flying, Hot Rod and Street Rodder.  Prestigious titles in which mobile access dominated over PCs include The Atlantic, Car and Driver, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Esquire, Fortune, GQ, Money, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Smithsonian, Time, and Vogue.

Print readership + subscriptions to digital editions of print publications retain an overall lead, according to the study, at 51.3% of total magazine readership. However, that category continues to drop, with a 1.7% year-over-year decline compared to mobile readership's 8.5% rise. This suggests that established mag readers and, perhaps most important, new readers, are turning to mobile.

The key takeaway for market research and marketing is that following mobile consumers into their natural environment is crucial to growth for virtually any business. Which is exactly what MFour has been urging since 2011, when it pioneered mobile market research by introducing Surveys On The Go^® as the nation’s first all-mobile research app.

For insights professionals who are ready to dive into mobile, these are the questions that need fast, authoritative answers: 

• What are the best practices in mobile market research? 

• What are the most advanced capabilities for obtaining the most relevant, accurate and insights-rich data?

• What sample quality and representation should I expect?

• In going mobile, does gaining access to consumers mean having to dumb down my research and sacrifice data quality?

You can get all these answers and more by setting up a one-on-one demo that will focus on meeting your projects' specific needs with proprietary, mobile-only research products such as Path-2-Purchase™ Platform and MFourDIY^®. Just get in touch by clicking here.

Jade Bunke has joined MFour’s team as Director of Marketing. He brings years of experience in marketing science, driving brand differentiation and providing insights into consumer behavior. Jade has lectured widely to business and academic audiences, taught college-level courses in business communications, and is the author of “Seven Principles for Market Dominance: Business Insights for a Global Economy” (2010).

“We’ve worked hard to build our brand. We think Jade is the perfect person to protect and enhance it,” said Chris St. Hilaire, MFour’s founder and CEO.

Jade has a Masters of Business Administration from Pepperdine University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Classical Civilizations from the University of California, Irvine.

“MFour is leveraging advanced technology to shape the future of consumer intelligence in a mobile-centric culture,” says Jade. “It’s truly an honor to join such a forward-thinking organization.”

We made it into MR Web this morning for our press release on App Tracking & Mobile Device Targeting.

Check it out below:

MFour was featured in RFL Communications  for our use of fingerprint validation. Check it out below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sPePnRLp60

Here's your Friday roundup of 3 items from our blog to keep you up to speed on mobile research as you head into the weekend.

• Fingerprint Validation for Panelists
• Track Mobile Apps & Score Touchdowns!
• How You Can Watch TV Watchers

Here's your Friday roundup of 3 items from our blog to keep you up to speed on mobile research as you head into the weekend.

Whatever else you do, don't forget to check at the bottom for something to mobilize your spirits and get you humming.

Talking Technology With 1,000 Millennials

Trump v Clinton Mudsling Splatters MR

Follow Facebook's Lead...Into Mobile

And here's a Friday tune to send you smiling into your weekend.

To learn how you can harness MFourDIY™ and its sophisticated yet easy-to-use capabilities, tune in to one of our webinars. The next one, Wednesday, Oct. 19 at 12 p.m. PST, will  give you a good introduction. The title is “MFourDIY: Getting Started." To sign up, click here.