Las Vegas reaches out to festival-goers at Coachella, booze-free events are luring in Millennials, the food pyramid gets Millennialized, and more links you can’t miss this Friday…
1. What Happens in Coachella Stays in Coachella
Last weekend the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival kicked off with plenty of brands looking to court the cool kid crowd. The Wall Street Journal described the three-day event as “filled with a marketer’s dream: throngs of influential, open-minded and ready-to-spend Millennials with plenty of time to kill.” We covered three from this year, including Sonic’s Instagram-worthy milkshakes. Don’t miss how Vegas visited Coachella to entice attendees with a new product that “captures the energy and excitement of Las Vegas.” Limited edition #WHHSH beer was created as an extension of the immensely successful “What Happens Here Stays Here” campaign by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, and was introduced at the festival. The beer is one of many upcoming products aimed to engage consumers beyond traditional tourism marketing.
2. The Food Pyramid Gets Millennialized
In Ypulse’s most recent monthly survey of Millennials and teens, we found out 13-33-year-old’s 20 favorite things to eat and drink. While Millennials are noted for their health-consciousness, when it comes to their absolute favorite foods, comfort reigns: Pizza came in at the top of the list, and dessert, burgers, and pasta made the top 10. Don’t miss Paste Magazine’s (not totally legitimate) Millennialized food pyramid, filled with the things young consumers cannot live without. Updated “to match the current generation’s $96 billion eating habits,” the pyramid covers trends like artisanals, bowls, and superfoods. Edibles and cocktails came at the top, highlighting some Millennials’ guilty pleasures: a “good crafted cocktails” and marijuana-laced sweets.
3. Live Streaming Comes to Billboards
The food entertainment market has been fueled by young consumers, and now live-streaming is introducing a whole new way for brands to get food in front of Millennials and teens. Live content provides immediacy and unedited authenticity, and Eater has written that “live streaming will transform the way we watch food TV.” Don’t miss another space live-streaming could impact: billboards. In honor of Earth Day, Recycle Across America streamed a celebrity photo-shoot on 500 digital billboards across America to spread awareness of recycling-related issues, like waste going into oceans. The streaming “Let’s pose for progress!” shoot, which was expected to generate three million views, featured celebrities like Kristen Bell, Alanis Morissette, and Bill Maher.
4. Sober is the New Drunk
We tell brands about the trends impacting young consumers, because those trends can be used as inspiration for new campaigns that appeal to their interests right now. It can be difficult for some to translate cultural zeitgeist into a successful marketing moment, but we covered four brands who did just that. Now don’t miss how brands are turning the clean living movement trend into events that are luring in Millennials. Juice crawls, booze-free music events, and sober day raves are appealing to the generation looking for more authentic experiences. As explained by one 26-year-old student: “I just feel like you have deeper conversations with people when you’re not distracted by drunkenness.”
5. Exposing the Lies of Social Media
It has become too easy for Millennials and teens to send out a version of themselves made just a little more perfect via filters, frames, and photo do-overs. Our Ypulse survey revealed that almost half of 13-33-year-olds agree that they try to impress people with the things they post to social media. The pressure to keep up with their online image, has left many yearning for more real representations online. Don’t miss the short film A Social Life, about a young woman “who’s living the life she’s always dreamed of… online.” In the pursuit for more likes, hearts, and thumbs up, she realizes that her identity has become a highly-curated brand.
