Speaker 1: On today's very special episode of The Break, we discuss
Speaker 1: how millennials are killing major industries. No, wait a second,
Speaker 1: I'm a millennial kind of Is that really fair or true?
Speaker 1: It may not be true, but we're looking at the
Speaker 1: reasons behind these fears and fads and seeing what's really
Speaker 1: going on in these industries. We'll see if companies are
Speaker 1: adapting or falling into extinction, and we'll tell any misconceptions
Speaker 1: to get off our lawn. This is Millennials killed the Brink.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Brink. I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Ariel Casting,
Speaker 1: and today we're talking about millennials, of which I am
Speaker 1: technically one, though I claim that I'm actually a zennial,
Speaker 1: which is someone born between three where you're old enough
Speaker 1: to remember a childhood without all of this technology, but
Speaker 1: you're young enough to have adapted really well to it.
Speaker 1: I'm a gen xer, and I don't know what this
Speaker 1: strange machine is in front of me that you call
Speaker 1: a computer. No, I'm I'm a gen xer and I
Speaker 1: cover technology for a living, so I reject that notion.
Speaker 1: But the reason why we wanted to do this is
Speaker 1: because it has become a meme a meme being one
Speaker 1: of those ideas that gets passed around quite a bit
Speaker 1: that millennials are killing X. It's kind of an ongoing
Speaker 1: joke now, but it's a joke now because there were
Speaker 1: strings of articles and videos in etcetera that all had
Speaker 1: this kind of approach saying this young generation is dooming
Speaker 1: said business slash industry, slash chain, whatever it may be.
Speaker 1: And why is that? Why are the young people so
Speaker 1: anti business and so anti X that they want to
Speaker 1: kill it? Yeah, And we were looking at all these
Speaker 1: different individual businesses we wanted to talk about on the
Speaker 1: brink and realize they all had this common thread. So
Speaker 1: we decided to do this kind of giant jumble piece
Speaker 1: of amazing nous um and to just find out, like,
Speaker 1: is there anything to it, and can we draw any
Speaker 1: sort of broad generalized conclusions and and that sort of thing,
Speaker 1: and looking into it, I certainly think there are broad
Speaker 1: conclusions that we can come to. Though everybody's an individual
Speaker 1: and everybody has different thoughts and opinions and motivations. They
Speaker 1: come from different life experiences, etcetera, etcetera. But one common
Speaker 1: thing is that millennials all grew up during the Great Recession,
Speaker 1: and so a lot of people attribute their desire to
Speaker 1: spend less money to that because they look at their
Speaker 1: childhood with economic uncertainty and don't want to fall into
Speaker 1: the same pitfalls and traps and hardships. And in some
Speaker 1: cases it's literally that they don't have the discretionary income
Speaker 1: that older generations had at their same age. So what's
Speaker 1: happening is you've got certain older generations, the baby boomers
Speaker 1: primarily Gen xers. We're just watching what happens at this point,
Speaker 1: but but baby boomers in general, we're saying, you know,
Speaker 1: when I was their age, I had already put a
Speaker 1: payment down in my first house and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Largely that is true, but it seems to make the assumption,
Speaker 1: or it does make the assumption that people in this
Speaker 1: millennial generation are experiencing the same sort of parameters that
Speaker 1: the Baby Boomers were, and that's not true. The thing
Speaker 1: that I think really kind of got the backlash against
Speaker 1: this whole millennials killed. The ex meme Going was an
Speaker 1: issue of Time magazine that came out on May nine,
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen. The cover story it shows a a
Speaker 1: young woman who's taking a selfie and the title on
Speaker 1: the cover of this Time magazine is the Me Me
Speaker 1: Me generation. Millennials are lazy, entitled narcissists who still live
Speaker 1: with their parents. Why they'll save us all. And understandably,
Speaker 1: some younger people took exception to being painted with so
Speaker 1: broad a brush and the implications that go along with it,
Speaker 1: the idea that they're all lazy narcissists. Certainly so obviously
Speaker 1: armed with the tools of the internet and technology, they
Speaker 1: did what any upset group would do. They took it
Speaker 1: and photoshop the heck out of it, and then they
Speaker 1: were like a thousand parody covers. They were making fun
Speaker 1: of Time for this, and they said, well, you know this,
Speaker 1: it comes across as being tone deaf, it comes across
Speaker 1: as elitist. It's making assumptions that we happen to have
Speaker 1: the same things at our disposal that previous generations had,
Speaker 1: which is not true. And then we started to see
Speaker 1: more of the compilations, like the various articles that said
Speaker 1: here are all the examples of millennial killing the X.
Speaker 1: There were magazines and periodicals that would just run these
Speaker 1: compilations to point out the absurdity there. Yeah. Now I
Speaker 1: will say that there are certainly businesses that are not
Speaker 1: making as much money with the millennial generation as with
Speaker 1: previous generations, and they tend to if you look at
Speaker 1: a broad range of these articles, they tend to be
Speaker 1: the same throughout all of the articles. But that's kind
Speaker 1: of how business works. You make a product until that
Speaker 1: product is no longer wanted or needed, and then you
Speaker 1: adapt to the new market. Yeah, you can't just assume
Speaker 1: that once you make something, that something is going to
Speaker 1: be your meal ticket forever and ever and ever. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a look at some of the more
Speaker 1: nuanced elements of this whole meme and why things are
Speaker 1: the way they are, and also maybe even have a
Speaker 1: couple of comments about whether or not some of these
Speaker 1: supposed things that millennials are killing, maybe maybe it's not
Speaker 1: so bad. Maybe they deserve to die, is what we're saying.
Speaker 1: There's one in particular, I think that you're thinking of, Oh,
Speaker 1: there's there are a couple are on the chopping block,
Speaker 1: but there's one in particular. And so we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: also about the fact that millennials, you know, they they
Speaker 1: have a limited amount of money, they're getting pickier about
Speaker 1: what they spend that money on. It doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: they're spending the money more wisely. They may not. They
Speaker 1: may spend it on things they're not so wise but
Speaker 1: are important to them. Yes, although I will say millennials
Speaker 1: are saving more as their generation than previous generations were,
Speaker 1: so they're they're saying, I'm not making a lot of money,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to put more aside to savings to
Speaker 1: tie me over. And we're also going to bust some
Speaker 1: myths through the whole thing, not just of the millennials
Speaker 1: are killing the X like it's some sort of malicious attack.
Speaker 1: We're also going to chat about how some of these things.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe it was a little premature to say
Speaker 1: that millennials were killing this industry, like I'm thinking specifically,
Speaker 1: like the automotive industry, which seems like there might be
Speaker 1: a bit of an uptick. But we'll get into that.
Speaker 1: So there are a couple of other things we can
Speaker 1: say about millennials, sort of generalizations besides the money stuff,
Speaker 1: like the idea that as a generation, they end to
Speaker 1: think of themselves as being very health conscious. Yes, sometimes
Speaker 1: that's proven true, and sometimes I think it's a little
Speaker 1: short sighted. Broad generalizations are really hard to make but
Speaker 1: they also are more socially aware. Yeah, although they may
Speaker 1: not be necessarily super active socially. Sometimes that social awareness
Speaker 1: comes in the form of tweeting and posting and not
Speaker 1: much action. Idealistically, they're socially aware. And then also they
Speaker 1: have been known to be, or have been stereotyped to
Speaker 1: pick up technology quicker. They may not have a deeper
Speaker 1: understanding of the technology either. There have been some studies
Speaker 1: of kids who grew up with technology all around them,
Speaker 1: but they had sort of a very shallow, broad understanding
Speaker 1: of how to use the technology, but beyond that you
Speaker 1: couldn't go very deep with it. And I've certainly encountered
Speaker 1: this is anecdotal, so anecdotal evidence is not very worthwhile.
Speaker 1: But it's fun. It is fun. But I've certainly encountered
Speaker 1: young people who didn't have a very comprehensive understanding of
Speaker 1: things like web search, Like they knew how to search
Speaker 1: for stuff, but it was very surface level and if
Speaker 1: they didn't immediately hit whatever it was they wanted, they
Speaker 1: gave up pretty quickly. And again that's anecdotal, and it's
Speaker 1: based on a handful of experiences. I cannot make a
Speaker 1: broad generalization over an entire generation based on that, although
Speaker 1: I really want to because I'm old. You know what.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, though, as a millennial, I tend to
Speaker 1: stereotype millennials. I've been really bad about it in the
Speaker 1: past when I look at trends and wanting more like
Speaker 1: immediate content and instant gratification type stuff with videos as
Speaker 1: opposed to personal interactions, like I stereotype as a part
Speaker 1: of my own generation. I stereotype my own generation. I
Speaker 1: wonder how much of these generalizations also play into things
Speaker 1: like relying more and more on Internet for your interpersonal connections,
Speaker 1: which makes you perhaps less socially adept, and moving through
Speaker 1: real world social situations that sort of thing. Like a
Speaker 1: lot of these things I think end up being the
Speaker 1: realm of armchair psychology, which doesn't really have that much
Speaker 1: value to without actual evidence backing it up. But we
Speaker 1: are going to go through and talk about some of
Speaker 1: these doomed businesses and categories in just a second. But
Speaker 1: in order to save a business, we're gonna take a
Speaker 1: quick break and thank our sponsor. All Right, Darriel, hit
Speaker 1: me tell me about some of the food related topics
Speaker 1: that millennials are supposedly slaughtering wholesale. Okay, So here's the thing.
Speaker 1: More than any other industry, when researching this one, really
Speaker 1: looking into millennials killing different things, the food industry seems
Speaker 1: to be getting hit super hard. Casual dining, cereal, beer, light, yogurt,
Speaker 1: American cheese, man A's, diet Coke, McDonald's, like, all of
Speaker 1: these things are supposedly being killed by millennials. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go a little bit into some of those, and
Speaker 1: I guess so will you with me? Casual dining, so
Speaker 1: like Applebee's and Wild Wings and things like that, they
Speaker 1: were not attracting millennials. Goodbye Ruby Tuesday, who could hang
Speaker 1: a name on you? They just they just weren't getting
Speaker 1: the same sort of traffic. They were saying that they
Speaker 1: were starting to see dramatic drop offs, and in fact,
Speaker 1: some restaurants like Applebee's specifically said that in their effort
Speaker 1: to try and attract a demographic that didn't have interest
Speaker 1: in going to their restaurants, they hurt themselves further by
Speaker 1: ignoring kind of they're tried and true clientele. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think the problem here is that millennials of such
Speaker 1: busy lifestyle, some of them work multiple jobs to make
Speaker 1: ends meet, right, they prefer to cook at home or
Speaker 1: order delivery, or eat at a faster service restaurant, something
Speaker 1: like a Panera where you order and you get your
Speaker 1: food quickly, something in between McDonald's in a casual timing establishment.
Speaker 1: And you are seeing some millennials who are finding success
Speaker 1: in their careers. Those millennials, many of them are gravitating
Speaker 1: towards what they would consider like foodie kind of experiences.
Speaker 1: So in those cases, they're saying, if I'm not making
Speaker 1: much money, I don't want to go to an Applebe's.
Speaker 1: It takes too much time and it's too expensive for
Speaker 1: the quality of food that I'm getting. That's that's kind
Speaker 1: of their argument. And if I am making the money,
Speaker 1: I want to go someplace better. Yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: go to someplace that isn't a chain, that's unique and
Speaker 1: what feels to me like a good spending of my money.
Speaker 1: That also seems to be something I've noticed as well,
Speaker 1: that there's a kind of a common theme and a
Speaker 1: lot of these where millennials as a generation tend to
Speaker 1: be categorized as people who want to support smaller businesses
Speaker 1: as well as opposed to larger companies and chains. Well,
Speaker 1: it leads to a better experience. That is what millennials
Speaker 1: are about. They'd rather have the experience than some sort
Speaker 1: of physical and so going to a unique restaurant is
Speaker 1: a unique experience. It's not going to Applebe's every Tuesday. Now,
Speaker 1: this is weird because I'm looking ahead at our notes
Speaker 1: right here, arial and you're telling me that they're not
Speaker 1: just killing industries. Millennials are serial killers. They are Millennials
Speaker 1: say that it's not convenient for breakfast, oh that kind
Speaker 1: of cereal, And I wrote in my notes blasphemy, because
Speaker 1: I really enjoy a bowl of Cheerios or Cinventos crunch.
Speaker 1: To me, cereal is best eaten after you've had dinner.
Speaker 1: It's the late night's next. But I do I do
Speaker 1: tend to eat like two or three bulls at a time,
Speaker 1: probably tell waist nine. Anyhow, And they are having an
Speaker 1: effect on the cereal industry. Between two thousand fourteen, there
Speaker 1: was a five percent drop in sales. And some of
Speaker 1: this could be tied in again to that perception of
Speaker 1: millennials being health conscious, right, yeah, yeah, they don't want
Speaker 1: all the sugar in the carbs, although you know they
Speaker 1: can always go to grape nuts. I've often thought, how
Speaker 1: can I eat some cardboard for breakfast? You know, there
Speaker 1: are lots of foods I've tried as an adult that
Speaker 1: I didn't like as a child that I now like.
Speaker 1: Grape nuts I tried. I haven't figured out how to
Speaker 1: eat them yet, That's what I'll say. So the next
Speaker 1: one is the beer one, which I thought was interesting
Speaker 1: because I don't drink. I don't drink alcohol, so it's
Speaker 1: all foreign to me. But I had never really thought
Speaker 1: of millennials as being sort of beer a verse. It
Speaker 1: turns out that in large trends, they tend towards wine
Speaker 1: and liquor as opposed to beer. Yeah, and as a generation,
Speaker 1: they drink less than previous generations. That being said, I
Speaker 1: do have a lot of friends who are really into microbrewing,
Speaker 1: and in fact, that leads me to a point that
Speaker 1: I thought was interesting, which is that I always associated
Speaker 1: millennials with especially certain millennials, with like the hipster movement,
Speaker 1: and that hipsters and millennial hipsters really brought PBR. Perhaps
Speaker 1: blue ribbon beer into a new renaissance in a way,
Speaker 1: and perhaps blue ribbon beer is known as a a
Speaker 1: low cost light beer, and whether people were drinking it
Speaker 1: ironically or they were doing it because it was it
Speaker 1: was affordable. Yeah, you could get two twelve packs of
Speaker 1: pots Flue ribbon as opposed to a couple of beers.
Speaker 1: But then I was looking into a recent story that
Speaker 1: says that PBR maybe in danger of actually going away.
Speaker 1: And the reason is that Miller Cores, which is the
Speaker 1: company that brews, packages and ships PBR. PBRs its own
Speaker 1: little company, but Miller Cores does all the brewing, packing
Speaker 1: and shipping for him. They're looking at possibly shutting all
Speaker 1: that down in favor of their own Miller Light brand
Speaker 1: so that they can make that the kind of flagship
Speaker 1: light beer. And that's got a lot of the PBR
Speaker 1: folks in a tizzy. Meanwhile, a lot of those same
Speaker 1: hipsters who had previously elevated PBR are now moving towards
Speaker 1: microbreweries and these sort of craft beers, and again it
Speaker 1: gets kind of into that small business and ex burience
Speaker 1: level along those lines of healthier and maybe that's why,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe that's why millennials drink less. It's
Speaker 1: a lot of calories, even even light beer. American cheese
Speaker 1: and mayo those are both things where people want something
Speaker 1: that's a little bit more real and a little bit
Speaker 1: more substantial. American cheese is very processed, mayonnaise is considered
Speaker 1: very processed. You can't get good homemade or alas and
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, but they'd rather spend their money
Speaker 1: on something that's a little bit more real food. That
Speaker 1: being said, even though they trend toward healthier options, they
Speaker 1: aren't necessarily trending towards loclorie because both diet coke and
Speaker 1: light yogurt have taken a hit. Yes, in the case
Speaker 1: of light yogurt, the analysis I saw is that perhaps
Speaker 1: they're tending more towards the more natural yogurts, like the
Speaker 1: Greek yogurts and stuff stuff that's viewed as being higher
Speaker 1: and things like protein and yes, so they're not so
Speaker 1: much worried about calories as they are nutritional content. And
Speaker 1: with diet coke, you know, you've got these people who
Speaker 1: are trying to give up sodas, and diet coke was
Speaker 1: supposed to be the alternative to drinking a high sugar soda,
Speaker 1: but then the fake sugars at diet coker using we're
Speaker 1: getting a really bad wrap and Sena's unhealthy, so people
Speaker 1: weren't drinking that either, and that really hurt Coca Cola.
Speaker 1: They're diet coke sales dropped like yeah, and it's one
Speaker 1: of the things they sell a lot of his diet
Speaker 1: coker dependent, especially especially here in Atlanta. Yes, and then
Speaker 1: when we get into other categories like real estate, that's
Speaker 1: where we see the thing about how you know, baby
Speaker 1: boomers say like, I just don't get them. I mean,
Speaker 1: at their agent would have had my starter home, I
Speaker 1: would have already been moved into a house, and millennials
Speaker 1: are like, we would rather rent longer and save up money.
Speaker 1: And then by not a starter house but a house, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, when you think about it, I bought what
Speaker 1: would be considered a starter house. My starter house is
Speaker 1: pretty dirt and nice. But there was a while there
Speaker 1: where the housing market was real bad. If you bought
Speaker 1: a starter home that was just okay, I'm sorry, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: to touch such a sore spot for you. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go into it. But if you bought a
Speaker 1: house that was just okay, expecting to sell it in
Speaker 1: a few years, and then that housing market crash happened,
Speaker 1: you're stuck with this house you don't like I'm very familiar,
Speaker 1: and you can't. It's hard to get something better if
Speaker 1: you're dealing with student debt and all that. So I
Speaker 1: understand how people might wait to get the thing they
Speaker 1: want as opposed to getting something that is just a placeholder.
Speaker 1: And that kind of leads us over into the retail
Speaker 1: world as well, where we've already kind of touched on this,
Speaker 1: how millennials sort of go towards the small business the experience.
Speaker 1: They don't want some sort of homogenized, giant, faceless corporation
Speaker 1: kind of experience. They'd rather go someplace where it's charming
Speaker 1: and you can actually get to know the name of
Speaker 1: the people who owned the place, and that you know,
Speaker 1: you might find stuff that's outside of the ordinary there.
Speaker 1: And the one in retail that is the one item
Speaker 1: over all others that I'm like, good if millennials kill
Speaker 1: it would be the diamond industry. I was thinking, you
Speaker 1: might say, the bar soap industry. No diamonds. Diamonds. So
Speaker 1: for the few people out there who may not be aware,
Speaker 1: diamonds are actually not rare at all. They're They're plentiful,
Speaker 1: whether you're talking man made or natural. There are more
Speaker 1: than enough diamonds. However, you have essentially one company, two beers,
Speaker 1: that has a stranglehold on the world supply of diamonds,
Speaker 1: and so this company can choose when to start making
Speaker 1: some of them available for purchase, and by controlling the supply,
Speaker 1: they can help control the demand unless there's no demand.
Speaker 1: And again, millennials are a little more frugal with their money.
Speaker 1: They're not willing to put in that a large investment, especially.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of them are also kind of
Speaker 1: savvy as to how the diamond industry works. Yeah, certainly.
Speaker 1: And you know what, here's the thing later in our notes,
Speaker 1: will get to it to Beer is aware of this, yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're putting into motion plans to try to get
Speaker 1: some of that market back. But I mean, the other
Speaker 1: thing is on millennials wants something unique. They don't want
Speaker 1: just to solitaire on a single band. Yeah, So they
Speaker 1: are often opting for non traditional engagement and wedding rings,
Speaker 1: and so they're looking at other stones, They're looking at
Speaker 1: other designs. We both know people who have had engagement
Speaker 1: and wedding bands that are very different from the norm,
Speaker 1: including getting them tattooed on their fingers. So it's definitely
Speaker 1: something that is an indicator of a general sense. No soap,
Speaker 1: I didn't really care about that one so much. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't like bar soap because it tends to make
Speaker 1: my skin feel drier. Now, you know that might just
Speaker 1: be because I'm cheap and I by cheap brands. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, millennials think bars of soap tend to be
Speaker 1: Germany and they'd rather not share them. It's self cleaning.
Speaker 1: Other industries in retail that are taking a hit things
Speaker 1: like home depot again because people aren't buying houses early on,
Speaker 1: so I think that one might be premature, right, No
Speaker 1: one might come around in another, you know, five to
Speaker 1: ten years department stores because again, people want the smaller
Speaker 1: shot napkins. Yes, this is one where I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: I like my napkins. I have a little napkin holder.
Speaker 1: It's nice because people are attempted to take just one
Speaker 1: at a time, as opposed to like an entire roll
Speaker 1: of paper towels. No, I do paper towels. Um. I
Speaker 1: have paper towels stationed in strategic spots throughout the house,
Speaker 1: and you just go from room to room, ripping off
Speaker 1: paper towels and wiping stuff down. Yeah, but between the
Speaker 1: fact that paper towels are more multi use and more absorbent,
Speaker 1: and millennials are eating out more, ordering in more so
Speaker 1: they're getting napkins delivered with their meals. They don't have
Speaker 1: to buy them. Napkins are kind of a little bit
Speaker 1: shaken in their boots. And then when you get down
Speaker 1: to vehicles, like we said, uh, the cars thing for
Speaker 1: a while, there were a lot of articles I remember
Speaker 1: these distinctly from a few years ago, all these articles
Speaker 1: about how millennials weren't buying cars for various reasons. Either
Speaker 1: they could not afford the car, they couldn't afford insurance
Speaker 1: for the car, they couldn't afford place to park the car,
Speaker 1: all of these different reasons, and that the auto industry
Speaker 1: as a result was going to be in big trouble
Speaker 1: because there was going to be a big drop in sales,
Speaker 1: and that we would also see a rise in different
Speaker 1: industries that were related because people still need to get around,
Speaker 1: they just wouldn't be able to afford a car. And
Speaker 1: that also includes motorcycles, and millennials are killing the motorcycle.
Speaker 1: And we we did our episode on Harley Davidson did
Speaker 1: and one of the millennials killed the articles was about
Speaker 1: how younger people aren't really gravitating towards motorcycles very much,
Speaker 1: which you would think they would because it's technically a
Speaker 1: cheaper mode of transportation. Yeah, we still got to park
Speaker 1: the thing you do. I mean you can like park
Speaker 1: it in your bedroom. It'll be really dirty and gross
Speaker 1: and get your carpets dirty. But they're also killing the
Speaker 1: sports and fitness industry and theory. So wait, wait, their
Speaker 1: health conscious, but they're killing sports and fitness well traditional
Speaker 1: so they tend to like more unique fitness experiences like
Speaker 1: bar classes or rock wall climb or rock wall climbing
Speaker 1: or things like that. And so they aren't going to
Speaker 1: twenty four hour type gym's as much. They'd rather go
Speaker 1: to something that's a little bit more specialized and personalized.
Speaker 1: They're not doing things like playing golf. Let's say golf
Speaker 1: is less fitness and more just sport, right, or it
Speaker 1: may just be well, no, that's the center in me.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say what I think golf is.
Speaker 1: But yeah, not as much interested in golf. To be fair,
Speaker 1: I don't know that many Gen xers who are really
Speaker 1: big into golf either, but that might just be my
Speaker 1: own circle of friends. I mean, now, there are still
Speaker 1: a good number of millennials who do play golf, and
Speaker 1: you know, golf as a whole is also trying to
Speaker 1: take steps to appeal to a younger generation, and I
Speaker 1: think a lot of that also just depends upon opportunity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's opportunity, it's time. And golf honestly has this real
Speaker 1: big like cloud over it of being a very exclusive thing,
Speaker 1: very classist, and millennials tend to be more Now, there
Speaker 1: are lots of introverted millennials, you know, but as a whole,
Speaker 1: they tend to like more social type activities and something
Speaker 1: that's not all about excluding other people. If they're going
Speaker 1: to go out and be with other people, they want
Speaker 1: to be with other people. And then they're also not
Speaker 1: watching football is much they aren't ready for some football
Speaker 1: they aren't. I am I like football, honestly, couldn't care
Speaker 1: one wad Like you asked me about a specific player,
Speaker 1: I won't be able to tell you, but I enjoy
Speaker 1: watching it. But you know that's because a lot of
Speaker 1: millennials don't have cable, and cable is a traditional way
Speaker 1: to watch football and going to a game can be expensive,
Speaker 1: and as we've already made out, they don't necessarily have
Speaker 1: the money to do it well. We then also get
Speaker 1: on to the financial side. Arial you mentioned that millennials
Speaker 1: are putting aside more money, which is interesting because there's
Speaker 1: also this kind of prevailing thought that millennials have an
Speaker 1: inherent distrust in the banking industry. They do, and a
Speaker 1: lot of millennials don't ever go to a physical location, right,
Speaker 1: like a physical bank branch. Yeah, most of them go
Speaker 1: less than once a month, if at all, but they
Speaker 1: still have to put their money somewhere. So banks as
Speaker 1: a financial institution as a way to exchange money and
Speaker 1: less cryptocurrency gets really really popular. I don't think those
Speaker 1: are going to completely go away, however, our actual physical
Speaker 1: locations might. We might see more move towards credit unions
Speaker 1: things like that as opposed to your traditional banks. There's
Speaker 1: also the relationship between millennials and insurance, which is it's
Speaker 1: continuously part of the national conversation here in the United
Speaker 1: States because the nature of insurance keeps changing. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: they don't have a car, a house, they don't need
Speaker 1: property insurance, they don't have a family, they don't need
Speaker 1: life insurance. Health insurance is expensive, so they'd rather pay
Speaker 1: for it piecemeal and urgent care. And then the gas
Speaker 1: and oil industry is taking a hit because millennials just
Speaker 1: think the gas and oil industry is bad and they
Speaker 1: don't want to be a part of it. They don't
Speaker 1: want to work for it, they don't want to partake
Speaker 1: in it. Now again, if you've got a car, unless
Speaker 1: you've got an electric car or I guess maybe diesel,
Speaker 1: But that's still kind of yeah, that's still it's still great.
Speaker 1: But I also see there's one other thing that millennials
Speaker 1: are trying to kill, and I what do millennials have
Speaker 1: against breasts? Um? You know, I don't know. I was
Speaker 1: gonna say, it's it's just a specific application and the
Speaker 1: application of breasts, yes, which is that they don't like restaurants.
Speaker 1: So these would be like Hooters and Twin Peaks, which
Speaker 1: at first I thought was a restaurant where they bring
Speaker 1: your food to you on a log, but it's not.
Speaker 1: I thought that too the first time I ever saw
Speaker 1: and I remember because our old office location used to
Speaker 1: be right down the way from where a Twin Peaks
Speaker 1: restaurant was coming in and I thought it was going
Speaker 1: to be a Twin Peaks theme restaurant. I was like,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. I bet the coffee will be amazing, and
Speaker 1: sold the excited and then I was very, very sad.
Speaker 1: But I mean as a whole, that's not the experience
Speaker 1: that millennials want to pay their money for. For one thing,
Speaker 1: these places are often also associated with at best average food,
Speaker 1: Like the food itself is obviously not trying to be
Speaker 1: the pole for these establishments. Also, according to your notes,
Speaker 1: the millennials seem to be searching less frequently for breast
Speaker 1: related terms on adult sites. Yes, so, like I said,
Speaker 1: mainly one application, but I don't know why. I guess
Speaker 1: I guess we could say that millennials are are savvy
Speaker 1: and that they will rarely fall into a booby trap.
Speaker 1: I try not to actually laugh, but I'm actually laughing.
Speaker 1: That was a terrible joke and I am ashamed of it,
Speaker 1: and I won't be surprised if our editor edited out
Speaker 1: anyhow So, now we've kind of gone through some of
Speaker 1: the biggest industries, or at least the most publicly facing
Speaker 1: industries that are kind of getting hit by millennials, the
Speaker 1: ones that are frequently cited in being quote unquote killed.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk a little bit about what these companies
Speaker 1: are doing to try to adapt and try to overcome
Speaker 1: their inevitable death after we take a moment to thank
Speaker 1: our sponsors. Now, one of the things arial that you've
Speaker 1: you've mentioned a couple of times now is that millennials
Speaker 1: as a group tend to value experiences over just physical products.
Speaker 1: That if the experience of purchasing something or going to
Speaker 1: have a meal, if that is a positive, that's more
Speaker 1: attractive to this. So I assume that means that there
Speaker 1: are more businesses that are starting to pick up on
Speaker 1: that and try to adjust to cater to that. They
Speaker 1: are they're also trying to cater to the fact that
Speaker 1: seven out of ten millennials have a fear of missing out.
Speaker 1: So if you can create the sense that this experience
Speaker 1: is a not to be missed one, and if you
Speaker 1: can somehow limit access to it just a little bit
Speaker 1: so that there is the possibility that if you don't act,
Speaker 1: you will never have that experience, you drive people to it. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit of a mind game, but you
Speaker 1: know it's not a bad thing. That's again how our
Speaker 1: markets evolve and we get new products and things like that,
Speaker 1: and entirely new businesses as well, not just products, but
Speaker 1: we can create opportunities. So if people see that there's
Speaker 1: an opportunity they can leverage based upon these behaviors, then
Speaker 1: really it's a pivot. You know, it's not so much
Speaker 1: that millennials killed X, it's that X needs to evolve
Speaker 1: into why and then it's gonna take off like gang bus. Yes,
Speaker 1: for instance, in the food industry, we've had businesses pop
Speaker 1: up like Blue Apron or Hello Fresh or sun Basket,
Speaker 1: any of these places where you can go and pack
Speaker 1: your menu online. You don't have to waste the time
Speaker 1: in the grocery store, which is hurting grocery stores. And
Speaker 1: then even if taking the time to cook your meal,
Speaker 1: you've cut your prep time down exponentially. So we're having
Speaker 1: food prep and food delivery services are coming into play,
Speaker 1: as well as Uber Eats, which instead of going out
Speaker 1: to McDonald's, you're getting actual quality, unique restaurant food brought
Speaker 1: to you. Yeah, and again, I'm not a millennial. I'm
Speaker 1: too old for that. But I use a food service
Speaker 1: similar to this. It's not one where I do the
Speaker 1: preparation but it is one where the meals are made
Speaker 1: fresh and they are made within certain caloric limits, and
Speaker 1: so that way I can get I know, I'm getting
Speaker 1: a good nutritional meal, but it's not going over my
Speaker 1: calorie limits. Yeah, but fast food is also trying to
Speaker 1: keep up with things like Uber Eats and door Dash
Speaker 1: and such by giving us healthier options and kind of
Speaker 1: more of a cafe feel. If you look around, you'll
Speaker 1: probably see a lot of these fast food joints around
Speaker 1: you getting all of these big updates, so you've got
Speaker 1: a more pleasant experience if you do sit and eat
Speaker 1: in and you've got some healthier options for you. I'm
Speaker 1: also seeing some new models of fast food like Blaze,
Speaker 1: the do it yourself pizza place, which is still a
Speaker 1: pretty it's a fast food service, but it's one that
Speaker 1: kind of markets itself as you get fresh ingredients, the
Speaker 1: pizzas prepared right in front of you, and then within
Speaker 1: like five minutes of you're ordering it, you've got it
Speaker 1: and you're ready to go. Yeah. Beyond that, things like
Speaker 1: what we're talking about, how cheese and Mayo were kind
Speaker 1: of getting a bum wrap. They're just having to look
Speaker 1: at what they're putting out and be more creative with it.
Speaker 1: So like we just got Mayo Catchup, which is not
Speaker 1: a creative name, but it's that nice combination of mayonnaise
Speaker 1: and ketchup that you usually do to dip your fries in.
Speaker 1: Now it's pretty mixed for you, which saves time. I'm
Speaker 1: so disturbed. And then you know, grocery stores are having
Speaker 1: to compete. I think Amazon recently bought Whole Foods and
Speaker 1: they've been talk about like people as grocery stores where
Speaker 1: you say the things you want and you pick up
Speaker 1: your basket and you write, or you just walk in
Speaker 1: and you literally just put the stuff in your basket
Speaker 1: and when you walk out, the whole system scans everything
Speaker 1: and you just get charged for whatever it was you bought. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you know. I think it's important to mention
Speaker 1: that companies are also focusing on the social aspect. So
Speaker 1: Newman's own is a big brand, YEP, and they're known
Speaker 1: for their philanthropic efforts. But a lot of young people
Speaker 1: didn't know that, Like they give away all of their
Speaker 1: profits charities, and a lot of young people don't know
Speaker 1: that a lot of people don't know who Paul Newman is. Right,
Speaker 1: he passed away several years ago. Yeah, and so they're
Speaker 1: trying to focus less on Paul Newman, the actor and
Speaker 1: more on the philanthropy. They're putting it out more front
Speaker 1: and focused because that will make more millennials want to
Speaker 1: buy it. And we talked a little bit about how
Speaker 1: millennials are putting more money aside in order to buy
Speaker 1: a home later in life, not buying it so early.
Speaker 1: They're also getting into a little, you know a few
Speaker 1: of the creative and sometimes unsustainable approaches to home ownership,
Speaker 1: like getting an RV and traveling around and you know,
Speaker 1: kind of having an almost nomadic lifestyle. It's an alternative
Speaker 1: to a starter home if you're looking for a good
Speaker 1: paying job and you don't know where you're going to land,
Speaker 1: and you have someplace where you can hook things up. Well, look,
Speaker 1: my folks own r V. Yeah, And when you go
Speaker 1: to these r V parks, when I visit them and
Speaker 1: there are ving and I'm at an r V park,
Speaker 1: there are people who do just live that lifestyle because
Speaker 1: it's cheap torent a plot, you know, and that usually
Speaker 1: comes with your utilities included. And if you buy an RV,
Speaker 1: sometimes your payments can be as low as like one
Speaker 1: hundred or two hundred dollars a month, which you know
Speaker 1: you're going to have maintenance, but it's still less expensive
Speaker 1: than renting an apartment in like Atlanta or owning a
Speaker 1: home and having to fix everything yourself. I also know
Speaker 1: that the tiny house movement is still something that people
Speaker 1: are interested in. I think I would go crazy within
Speaker 1: a week. I mean again, if you're more into experiences
Speaker 1: than stuff, Yeah, I like the experience of not knocking
Speaker 1: my head while I'm trying to get into the bed,
Speaker 1: which is fun because where we're recording may actually had
Speaker 1: a tiny house event. And you mentioned that de Beers
Speaker 1: was looking at some ways of marketing diamonds to try
Speaker 1: and attract millennials, who have so far been fairly resistant
Speaker 1: to the diamond industry. They have been. They're trying to
Speaker 1: show that they're trying to make the world better place.
Speaker 1: How I don't know, especially considering the incredibly problematic history
Speaker 1: of the diamond industry and and current practices even and
Speaker 1: they're trying to make diamonds seem more unique. Love has
Speaker 1: many facets, you know, unique settings. They're trying to give
Speaker 1: a digital marketplace that is easier to understand and quicker
Speaker 1: to do, where you can customize your rings, more stuff
Speaker 1: that shows individuality and authenticity, which you can certainly do
Speaker 1: with the diamond and jewelry if the underlying problem of
Speaker 1: how the diamond business works doesn't bother you, but it
Speaker 1: totally should. Moving on to transportation, so I mentioned ridesharing services.
Speaker 1: Those have obviously been doing quite well over the past
Speaker 1: several years. But like we said, the car industy treas
Speaker 1: not as in in such dire straits as was first
Speaker 1: predicted just a few years ago. No, no, because as
Speaker 1: millennials get older, as they do buy their homes and
Speaker 1: they do have families now. Interesting thing to note, even
Speaker 1: though millennials are getting married later and they're buying homes later,
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean that they're having children later. But that
Speaker 1: being said, as they do get all these things and
Speaker 1: all these pieces of their life fall into place, if
Speaker 1: that's what they're trying to achieve, then they find out, well,
Speaker 1: maybe my public transportation is not so great here, Maybe
Speaker 1: I don't want to have to wait for an uber,
Speaker 1: Maybe I do want my own car. And so we've
Speaker 1: seen a little bit of an uptaking cars. Although big
Speaker 1: surprise to me it's largely in like basic models and
Speaker 1: then SUVs and trucks. I would have thought that electric
Speaker 1: cars would be booming, but then electric cars tend to
Speaker 1: have a pretty expensive upfront costs, like like over the
Speaker 1: long term, you could argue that they could perhaps be
Speaker 1: more economical, but they didn't have a pretty high sticker
Speaker 1: price when you're first buying them. Yeah, like Tesla those
Speaker 1: cars not. No, I went and priced one recently just
Speaker 1: for the funzies of it. And also like along with
Speaker 1: the rideshare services and the actual slight uptick in car
Speaker 1: purchases among millennials, we've also seen the rise of sort
Speaker 1: of urban transportation solutions, like all the different scooter companies
Speaker 1: like Bird, which I mean you can't go anywhere in
Speaker 1: Atlanta now without seeing them everywhere. No, and and people
Speaker 1: just like they forget common courtesy like don't leave it.
Speaker 1: Don't leave it in the middle of the sidewalk. Put
Speaker 1: it on the side of the sidewalks so we can
Speaker 1: still see it. You're not hiding it behind a blush.
Speaker 1: But also bicycles. Bicycles do the same thing. In New York,
Speaker 1: you can rent a bicycle and take it from one
Speaker 1: place to another. And then they have people who they've
Speaker 1: got like incentives who can ride the most bike miles
Speaker 1: to bring their bikes back to a drop off or
Speaker 1: pick up location. And then motorcycles are trying to get
Speaker 1: back in the game. One of the reasons motorcycles was
Speaker 1: suffering is that they are not a very easy entry
Speaker 1: sort of a vehicle. You have to get a different
Speaker 1: license for it, you have to take classes for it,
Speaker 1: and they're pretty expensive compared to renting a bird scooter.
Speaker 1: So they're trying to make low cost, easy to pick
Speaker 1: up models. So I think we can kind of some
Speaker 1: up what has been going on here, and that's that
Speaker 1: it's not that millennials are killing industries necessarily. They may
Speaker 1: be changing some of you and for others, it's entirely
Speaker 1: all about them putting money aside until they can afford
Speaker 1: the things that they were otherwise putting off. So it's
Speaker 1: not so much they're killing, it's that they're biding their time.
Speaker 1: They're biding their time and then they'll pounce. And then
Speaker 1: these companies also need to bide their time or just
Speaker 1: really try to make their product more of an experience, yeah,
Speaker 1: and trying to make sure it's accessible. It is tough
Speaker 1: for me to lay any burden really on that generation.
Speaker 1: If you're talking about a generation that had experienced unprecedented
Speaker 1: levels of college tuition, if they were going after that
Speaker 1: college education, the student loans are no joke. And to
Speaker 1: get out of college and you're immediately in massive amounts
Speaker 1: of debt and you have that hanging over you. I
Speaker 1: don't think most people would think, how can I add
Speaker 1: to the debt that's already there? Yeah, Like I know
Speaker 1: for myself, I saw people who had acquired debt going,
Speaker 1: I'll be able to pay this off, and then something
Speaker 1: happened the recession, and then they couldn't and all the
Speaker 1: trouble that brought. And I'm like, I don't want to
Speaker 1: go into debt in the first place. YEA, as much
Speaker 1: as humanly possible. So no, I certainly can't blame them.
Speaker 1: And to be completely fair, they will blame gen Z
Speaker 1: for killing industries, which is the next generation Generation C
Speaker 1: and it will pass along, I'm sure from grandfather to
Speaker 1: father to son, grandmother to mother to granddaughter. Get a
Speaker 1: skip daughter your granddaughter. Your timeline is weird. I assume
Speaker 1: at some point we invented a DeLorean that can travel
Speaker 1: all through time, from aunt to cousin to nephew. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know what. That's enough. We're gonna wrap this up.
Speaker 1: So guys, if you have any suggestions or you have
Speaker 1: any comments, maybe you have your own point of view
Speaker 1: of the whole millennials killed the blank meme. I'd love
Speaker 1: to hear them and I went to You can send
Speaker 1: us a message at feedback at the Brink podcast dot
Speaker 1: Show and we will be happy to look it over.
Speaker 1: We look forward to seeing that. And remember you can
Speaker 1: just go to the Brink Podcast dot Show. That's our
Speaker 1: website where you can learn all about us and the site.
Speaker 1: You can also look back on the previous episodes and
Speaker 1: catch up on ones that you might have missed. We
Speaker 1: look forward to hearing from you. And I've been Jonathan
Speaker 1: Strickland and I've been aerial casting. I gotta go and
Speaker 1: get killed by some millennials. Get off my lawn s
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