Millennials Mostly Talk About Brands Offline.

Online recommendations might be as influential as in-person ones, but the vast majority of word-of-mouth (W-O-M) impressions about brands occur offline, at least among Millennials (18-34). That’s according to new figures released by the Keller Fay Group, which show that some 84% of Millennials’ word-of-mouth impressions about brands take place offline – with 71% the result of face-to-face conversations (versus just 3% over social media).

Not surprisingly, digital media acts as more of a W-O-M driver for Millennials than for other adults, referenced in 25% and 19% of impressions, respectively. (Of note, social media takes a backseat to brand websites and internet ads within the digital media category.)

Second to digital media is TV, referenced in 17% of Millennials’ brand word-of-mouth conversations and 18% of all other adults’ (aged 35-69), suggesting that TV remains a force with this cohort even if they’re watching less than older generations.teenagers online

Understanding how and why brands are discussed in Millennials’ conversations is particularly important given research suggesting that word-of-mouth has a high degree of influence on Millennials’ purchase decisions and tends to act as a bigger influence on consumers than any paid or owned media.

A Key Ingredient for Creating Start-Ups: Young People

The presence of young workers appears to be necessary for the creation and growth of new firms, particularly in industries where young people have key technical skills, say Paige Ouimet of the University of North Carolina and Rebecca Zarutskie of the Federal Reserve Board. For example, in the electronics industry, a 5% increase in the share of youth in the population leads to a 1-to-2-percentage-point increase in the rate of new-firm creation, according to the researchers’ analysis of U.S. Census data.
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SOURCE: Who works for startups? The relation between firm age, employee age, and growth