Food Marketers to Promote Shelf-​stable Breakfast Food and Boxed, Prepared Dinners to Millennials

BY Rachel Cagle
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"Compared with Generation X and older generations, millennials are at the start of their adult buying journeys," reports Nielsen. "And as a result, this generation’s spending power is only going to increase over time. So while some of the buzz around this group’s digital savviness has faded, this group’s growing spending prowess isn’t something that marketers should lose sight of."

"But simply tracking this group’s spending capacity won’t be enough. That’s because U.S. millennial homes, which represent 26% of households across America, are the most racially and ethnically diverse of all generations: 20% are Hispanic (the most of any generation to date), 12% are African American, 7% are Asian, and 12% comprise a selection of other races."

"With their full growth potential yet to be realized, it’s important to note that millennials already spend more on fast-​moving consumer goods (FMCG) per trip than any other generation, with an average basket size of $57. Despite the big baskets, however, millennials spend the least in aggregate each year, with each shopper spending an average of $5,716 per year. That’s because they shop less often, making assortment at the shelf even more important. Gen X and baby boomers, for example, spend more each year because they make more shopping trips. That said, it’s conceivable that millennials will increase their shopping frequency as the needs of their families broaden."

As their family needs broaden, millennials may have to search around for new stores to purchase their newly-​needed FMCGs from. According to AudienceSCAN, within the last six months, millennials have used mobile devices to view a store or retailer's website (27.5%) and find a map or get directions to a retailer (35.8%). In that same amount of time, they've used click-​to-​call buttons or links to call businesses (15.7%) and, within the past month, 42.9% have used a search engine to research a product or service they were considering for purchase.

"Reflective of their entrance to parenthood, millennials are changing how they spend. Notably, they’re spending a greater amount of their income on baby care and family planning categories. As their families grow, they’re buying more food too. For example, millennials currently spend more than other generations on easy and convenient products for families. In addition to convenience, millennials show increased interest in new or emerging categories than their older counterparts. One way we see this come to life is in their spending on alcoholic cider, a category they spend 80% more on than the rest of the population."

"Index value can be read as: Millennials spend 76% more on lunch combination products than the total U.S. population."

Retailers can promote their vast array of millennial-​targeting FMCGs a number of ways. For starters, according to AudienceSCAN, 35.6% of millennials get most of their local news from the TV and 63.1% took action after seeing TV commercials last year. Within that same amount of time, millennials have taken action because of mobile/​text ads (54.6%), email ads (53.2%) and ads on daily deals websites (52.7%). They're also 51% more likely than other adults to be driven to action by ads in movie theaters and 41% more likely to react to billboards and other outdoor advertisements.

AudienceSCAN data is available for your applications and dashboards through the SalesFuel API. Media companies and agencies can access AudienceSCAN data through the AudienceSCAN Reports in AdMall.


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