Reverse Crowdsourcing: How Millennials are using brands to make sustainability happen
Millennials are savvy. They get how the world works. Shelton Group’s latest special report explains how the most sustainably minded generation can also be one of the least likely to participate in simple daily actions that promote sustainability.
Since they represent the largest living generation of Americans (estimated at 29% according to the Census Bureau), any discussion of Millennials runs the risk of over-simplifying and under-rating them. How do you accurately generalize about such a big proportion of the population?
Millennials may puzzle previous generations, but here at Shelton Group, we recognize Millennials as being much like other generations, just with better tech and maybe a little more moxie. Millennials were lucky enough to be born at a point in history when science and technology transformed everyday society. Remember when phones went to a building instead of a person? For Millennials, cell phones have always reached people, not places. Millennials’ ever-present tech, from cell phones to social media, has allowed them to do what every generation has wanted to do: expand connections with others.
In our most recent study, Millennial Pulse, we see that Millennials are leveraging their resources in a way that may surprise you. In short …
You may think you’re crowdsourcing their intellects or their ideas, but did you realize Millennials are crowdsourcing you?
Millennials have figured out how to reverse crowdsource brands and companies to get done what they can’t get done by themselves. In other words, their form of environmental activism is not to take a lot of individual actions. Instead, it’s to consciously, conspicuously buy from brands and companies that they deem are doing the right thing for the environment.
This is a real opportunity for brands and companies to do some good while garnering the loyalty of the largest age cohort. Millennials get that big brands have the leverage they lack – the leverage of sheer size. And while 72% remain neutral to skeptical about the information brands say to them about the environment, 43% could name a brand they trust when it comes to what brands do for the environment and social/business practices. Millennials really do care about the environment, and they back that up with their purchase behaviors.
But here is the paradox.
They aren’t likely to do the little things associated with sustainability – bringing their own bags shopping, adjusting the thermostat or recycling papers. They have bigger ideas for a bigger impact.
Nearly two-thirds of Millennials look to companies to solve problems they feel they can’t address (or would rather not have to). Millennials are crowdsourcing you to accomplish their sustainability goals. If they truly trust your environmental and social/business practices, 90% say they will buy from your brand, and 95% will recommend your brand to their friends.
Download our latest report and learn how your brand can grow the trust needed to gain Millennials’ loyalty. After you read the report, let us know what you think – and how you’re going to leverage the insights for action inside your company.
Holy spin job. I’ve seen articles highlighting this exact same phenomenon of millennials not taking individual steps to mitigate their environmental impacts as proof of their sense of entitlement. Why again is it a good thing not to be sustainability conscious? Because millennials like to buy stuff?