4 Unusual Ways Millennials Are Different From Boomers

Advisors have been doing a lot of thinking about millennials, the generation born between 1980 and 2000.

As the largest age cohort in the U.S. — 92 million, compared with 77 million boomers — they constitute the next big group of prospective clients. Some might even be able to meet your minimums now. One way of thinking of millennials, a new report suggests, is that they’re more likely to be renters, not buyers — of big-ticket consumer durables like homes, yes, but also of cars and other goods and services.

Some naysayers (ThinkAdvisor blogger Bob Clark comes to mind) suggest that millennials don’t have the assets, yet, to be the focus of advisors’ marketing efforts, and that younger people may be less prone to actually accepting your advice, yet, making them bad clients even if they had the money to meet advisors’ minimums. However, the consensus is that advisors shouldn’t ignore millennials whose digital nativism and social-networking nature will make them harder to reach using current advisor marketing methods. (How many people under 60, for example, attended your last ‘seminar’ at the local library or restaurant?)

A comprehensive, interactive infographic from Goldman Sachs delivers some unique information on the generation and may prompt some thought among advisors who want to reach this group. Based on a meta-analysis of multiple surveys, Millennials: Coming of Age also provides some insights into how the social changes precipitated by this group may lead to corporate change. (The Goldman infographic is part of the firm’s “Our Thinking” series of white papers. A recommendation: read its Internet of Things (IoT) report.)

Keep reading for four major differences between millennials and boomers, according to the Goldman report:

1. Renters, Not Buyers

As one example of how millennials may be more renters than buyers in some areas, take automobiles. In a 2013 survey, Goldman asked millennial responders “How important is it for you to own the following?” On cars, 15% said it was “extremely important,” and 25% chose the response “It’s important, but not a big priority.” However, 30% said they do not intend to buy a car in the future, while 25% said “I might purchase one if I really need it,” but are otherwise indifferent to the notion. What message does that send to car manufacturers, or perhaps more accurately, to car dealers? What does it say about the rise of Uber and Zipcar?

In other areas of consumer behavior, take vacation rentals and music listening. Boomers might be proud of their CD collections or even vinyl records, but few 25- to 34-year-olds buy CDs (ask the record companies, if you can find anyone still there to answer your call). While boomers may fondly recall backpacking across Europe and staying in cheap hostels, Airbnb has changed the conversation, putting even recent disruptors of the travel business like online travel consolidators at risk.

Just yesterday, for instance, Priceline Group’s stock (PCLN) fell to a 12-week low after getting a downgrade from Deutsche Bank. MarketWatch reported that Deutsche analyst Lloyd Walmsley was concerned that Priceline’s internal operating efficiencies had peaked, but Walmsley also warned that Priceline’s competition, specifically Airbnb, is being underestimated. “Google Trends…shows growing direct queries for Airbnb (awareness), and we see more loyalty with Airbnb’s model,” Walmsley said, “than ‘traditional’ online travel agents.” 

Going back to the Goldman report, millennials’ “renter not buyer” preferences goes for homeownership, too. Two surveys of 25- to 34-year-olds by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, separated by only eight years, asked how many chose to rent their homes rather than buy. In 2008, 52% said they preferred to rent; by 2013, that number had risen to 60%.

Economist Jeremy Rifkin’s conclusion cited in the Goldman study? “Twenty-five years from now, car sharing will be the norm, and car ownership an anomaly.”

2. A Different Definition of Health