As the concept of luxury becomes increasingly intangible in the networked age, brands are experimenting with digital to attract Generation Z says creative delivery exec, Elizabeth Holdsworth...

In the post-recession age of discreet anti-bling (think Kinfolk: rustic, white-filtered and highly Instagram-able lifestyle scenes), the idea of luxury is becoming ever more abstracted, and brands are experimenting with ways to position themselves as aspirational within the digital realm. How do you engage with a generation that has grown up online, visually fluent teens who are skilful digital strategists on Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr? Add to the equation that, until recently, this generation neither expected – or have ever had to pay for – online content.

Burberry’s Snapchat campaigns were an early stride in conquering the ethereal world of teen luxury. Since then Snapchat has morphed into the new catwalk. Meanwhile on Instagram, Calvin Klein’s #MyCalvins campaign rolls around in bed with a flawless Kendall Jenner and takes to the skate park with an open-shirted Justin Bieber. Because Facebook’s biggest growing demographic is 55+, teens are seeking refuge away from older generations on platforms that are exclusive to them. Snapchat has over 100 million daily active users, 71% of which are under the age of 25.[1]

Originally released only on Tidal, Kanye West’s seventh studio album, ‘The Life Of Pablo’, is a haphazard attempt to bring luxury consumerism to the digital world of teens, the Gen Z demographic who are less interested in glitzy material possessions than the allure of new technology and services. Fans could only listen to’The Life Of Pablo’ by signing up to the premium streaming service.

Launched in October 2014, Perez Hilton labeled Tidal as ‘the streaming service for millionaires’, where the music itself takes on the flavour of a luxury status symbol. This sense of exclusivity comes from the subscription fee itself and also from the service’s options and respective price points — differences in audio quality that will only be perceptible to those already owning high-end sound systems. Any difference between Tidal’s so-called Premium and HiFi services will go unnoticed by consumers who are most likely to be streaming on smartphones and listening though headphones.

Tidal’s subscriber numbers reportedly doubled in the two weeks following the release of ‘The Life Of Pablo’, but it seems the tide of exclusive streaming is yet to turn. The platform is still dwarfed by services like Spotify, and has also failed to keep pace with Apple Music, which emerged around the same time. Retracting the original plan of Tidal-only exclusivity, ‘The Life Of Pablo’ has since emerged on other music services, achieving much greater impact. However Tidal’s subscriptions look set to explode following the release of Beyoncé’s video album Lemonade, available to view by subscription only.

This isn’t about luxury sound. Teens don’t care about lossless, hi-fi audio. They care about what’s trending, being part of the peer conversation, keeping up with the world’s biggest artists. This is about aspiration, of belonging, selling a more abstract idea of luxury than ever before — a dreamy Instagram still of the Kardashian Klan reclining in white Calvins. If luxury brands want to connect with Generation Z, they need to learn a life lesson from Pablo and continue to communicate these moments digitally, while constantly being aware of the limitations – though growing potential – of the paywall.

[1] DMR, By the Numbers: 60 Amazing Snapchat Statistics.

Our Amsterdam office co-hosts an evening dedicated to exploring and understanding youth culture on November 25 (18.30pm-21.00pm)...

We’re teaming up with our friends at creative agency SuperHeroes for this, covering new cultural trends alongside themes such as tech, brands, media and advertising. There’s plans afoot to showcase a panel of young artists, entrepreneurs and video bloggers, too.

It’s all happening at Sarphatistraat 49 Amsterdam. Contact Lydia Jones if you’d like to come along.

Amsterdam scores high among millennials as a place to live, play and - even! - work. But what makes it so attractive to them? How do they socialise? Where do they go out? Crowd DNA exec Joey Zeelen shares a bit of first hand knowledge...

Living in Amsterdam

‘Venice of the west’ is what they call it, and everyone that visits Amsterdam agrees – it’s a city to fall in love with. Amsterdam – or A’dam for locals – the city of 17^th century architecture, with canals that make your heart skip a beat, and as many bars and restaurants as there are places to park your bike. But what is it like to actually live in the tourist capital of the Netherlands?

The Dam’s stunning appearance and village feel give it a really pleasant combination of big city allure and small city comfort. ‘Gezelligheid,’ a word that only seems to exist in continental Europe is perfect for grasping the day-to-day city vibe of Amsterdam. Gezelligheid means a convivial, cosy, fun, quaint, or nice atmosphere, but can also connote time spent with loved ones; the act of seeing a friend after a long absence, or general togetherness that gives a warm feeling. All of which emphasises the vibe of living in Amsterdam and what makes it so attractive to millennials.

Rent

However, as Johan Cruyff, Amsterdam’s most famous citizen, would say ‘elk voordeel heb zn nadeel’ – for every up there is a down. Over the last seven years, since the economic crisis, the rent in the Netherlands has remained very stable, an average square meter in Holland costing €12.49 a month. In Amsterdam, though, rent prices have seen a massive increase since 2008, with the average square meter costing €20.18 a month in 2014. In the third quarter of 2014, a 100m2 apartment in Amsterdam cost on average €1,931 a month, while one quarter later this same apartment would cost €2,018. Everyone can imagine what this means for millennials that want to buy property… they don’t.

But houses that were impossible for us to buy are now also impossible to rent. Extraordinary rent prices attract fast moving millennials that don’t have children, people that are not interested in a long-term responsibility with the city. Take that together with a relatively high amount of expats and you see why Amsterdam can be an expensive place for most of generation Y.

Gentrification

Gentrification is rife and, though it normally gets criticised, in Amsterdam it gives birth to a lot of life in the city. In the last decade it’s turned into a heaven for hipsters, yups, and yucs (young urban creatives). A’dam’s characteristic centre is complemented with artesian coffee, smoked meat and barbershops. Amsterdam is turning into a city that satisfies every basic need of a self-respecting yup or hipster. But is that a bad thing? Not really. It’s found a way to make styled boutiques and food markets work particularly well with working class fundamentals. Amsterdam seems to have hit the spot in combining what young and old want into a pleasant yet sometimes dodgy environment. Dubious coffeeshops go hand in hand with craft beer popups and they operate next to each other without compromising the city’s integrity… and millennials love it. It is this new ‘dodgy hipster mix’ that makes the city so interesting to my generation. This is also what makes more and more young parents stay in the city instead of moving to child-friendly cities like Haarlem or Amstelveen. It is safe to say that Amsterdam has become a safe haven for middle/upper class generation Ys to do/buy/experience what they crave for the most.

Going out

The influx of wealthy generation Ys has made the city the most vibrant it’s been in years. Going out, eating and drinking have become more diverse than ever. Brooklynese-raw, Berlin-hip, and Copenhagen-clean rule the scene and bring style into the traditionally uniform hospitality establishments. Organic and fair-trade food is bigger than ever. Trendy wining and dining, gin-tonics… a lot of gin-tonics, is what makes the millennial clock tick.

In the last decade A’dam’s music scene has risen to an absolute height, with electronics as a front-runner. There probably isn’t a city in the world that has so many music festivals in and around its centre (many even speak of a festival overload). Fuelled by millennials, organisations like Dekmantel and Digital, clubs like Studio80 and Trouw, have given Amsterdam’s contemporary electronic music scene serious international allure. Not since the Roxy and iT in the early nineties has Amsterdam competed so decisively with the likes of London and Berlin.

A’dam’s gentrification has pushed some millennials to Holland’s IT city, Rotterdam, where the rent is cheap and where people ride a car instead of a ‘bakfiets’ (carrier cycle, the ultimate A’dam yup symbol). However, Rotterdam will never compete with the consistency of Amsterdam’s music and arts scene, and the cultural richness that most millennials live for. A’dam can be financially tough and seem like a hipster Valhalla, but at heart it’s a city shaped by generation Ys, where ‘gezelligheid’ rules the day and the night is more exciting than ever.

Meet the generation who'll become teenagers from 2023 onwards; who'll be living into the 22nd Century; and who'll be forming their identities in ways unknown to ourselves...

We’ve been exploring what the lives of so called Generation Alpha will be like of late. We can gas on about this topic for ages (and indeed we did here) but, if your time is short, here’s a nifty little video that explains plenty.

Crowd DNA's business and strategy director, Sarah Brierley, on how the financial services industry can tune up its offering to meet Gen Y and Z demands...

Comprising nearly a quarter of the UK population, millennials are a significant part of the financial services market. Crowd DNA’s expertise comes from a wealth of experience researching this dynamic audience for the likes of Channel 4, Converse, MTV, Sony Music, Red Bull, Twitter and, recently, a huge global study for Facebook.

We get social media, too. Our work has seen us examining the changing way that young people are using social media all around the world. We’ve started to see how these evolving behaviours are affecting attitudes and behaviours around financial services – an impact that will be ignored at a finance brand’s peril.

Millennial disconnect

Financial independence is among the most important future goals of young people today – second only to being happy. In fact, millennials rank financial independence higher than being part of a loving family, having a close circle of friends and discovering their interests & skills.

Hand in hand with financial independence is of course the use of financial services. But it seems that financial services brands are struggling to connect with young people – a recent survey by BNY Mellon and the Saïd Business School found that 58% of UK millennials believe they haven’t seen products targeted at people like them; they’re also more likely to turn to their parents for financial advice (48%) than their bank (24%).

So where does this leave brands?

We’ve examined millennials’ changing social media habits and come up with five implications for financial services brands wishing to engage this young audience:

1. Utility apps

There’s been a huge rise in simplified single-purpose apps in social media and beyond – in fact, many larger apps are breaking up their functionality into smaller single-purpose apps (think Facebook’s Messenger or Instagram’s Hyperlapse).

What single-purpose apps can your brand provide millennials? The key to success here is offering an incredibly useful function as simply and effectively as possible – so the app becomes a frequently-used ‘must-have’.

2. Everything is gamified

Being ‘always on’ breeds a culture of instant gratification among millennials, and products like Facebook and Candy Crush go a step further, using a clever system to hook users into habit-forming behaviours. The theme here is reward: millennials have grown to expect rewards – whether implicit or explicit – for everything they do.

How can your brand make millennials feel rewarded? – for engaging with you, for desirable behaviours (eg saving), for loyalty, and so on.

3. Selective sharing

Millennials have become selective in their sharing, using simple, single-purpose apps to communicate with carefully-curated groups. They will follow/friend/speak to some brands on social media – but not all of them, and financial services brands in particular need to be careful how they engage with millennials on social platforms.

But despite the caution required, social media is a vital platform for financial services brands targeting millennials: it’s where friends share experiences (good and bad), advice and recommendations for anything and everything. Millennials can be powerful advocates but formidable detractors too. Brands need to do their best to ensure they’re being discussed positively online.

How can your brand identify and leverage its millennial advocates online? How can you best communicate directly and indirectly with millennials online?

4. Meet the parents

Millennials turn to different ‘experts’ for different problems and decisions.

Unlike for many categories, such as fashion, where friends and social media rule, parents are a key influencer for young people making personal finance decisions.

So in addition to communicating to millennials, financial service brands should find ways to help parents advise their children. Ask yourself two questions:

• What messages do millennials need to hear from your brand?
• How you can best equip parents of millennials to guide their children to your brand?

Visual vocab

Communication among millennials is shifting to a vocabulary that relies on imagery over text. Using images to communicate is speedier, easier, more impactful and ideal for the mobile phone screen; images cross language barriers, they are more likely to get positive responses on social media and they’re easier than words to ‘get right’. The rise of Instagram, selfies, emojis, Snapchat and Vine all reflect this trend.

So young people now think in terms of showing, not describing. How can your brand adapt to millennials’ communication preferences? How can you tell your brand’s story visually and in a mobile-friendly way?

Young people came out and voted in impressive numbers at the general election but, as Crowd consultant Milly Derbyshire reports, engagement and proactivity is finding other forms, too...

The votes are counted, the verdict’s out – the election result that no pollster predicted – an all out Tory majority. But that wasn’t the only surprise on election day. Despite forecasts that young people would yet again be the most politically disengaged, and fail to vote in significant numbers, initial reports have suggested a higher turnout that ever before – as high as 65%, a huge jump from the 40% average in the previous three elections.

So how did they vote?

It looks like they opted for left wing Labour over the right wing Conservatives, were a lot less likely to vote for the immigration and EU focussed UK Independence Party and much more likely to vote for the Green Party. Not surprising considering Labour had pledged to reduce tuition fees and cap private rents, the Greens cater to a more youthful, idealistic commitment to the environment, and young people might not consider immigration and the EU as much of a problem as their parents. But compared to the overall outcome, it’s clear that the increase in youth participation is still a drop in the ocean that holds little sway in affecting the final result. With seemingly little power to affect the election, and despite electing a 20 year old MP, we’re witnessing alternative ways of young people channeling their energies in order make their voices heard and their ideas a reality. Politically, economically, socially, they are restless, hungry and open to new paths to success and change.

Young people are increasingly politically engaged, not only in traditional systems of representation, but also by finding new channels to speak up. George the Poet is a great case in point. BRIT Award nominated and signed to Island Records, George consciously chose rap to communicate socially and politically motivated messages in order to tap into a young audience.

The political realm is not the only space where young people are actively disrupting traditional structures and norms. Our Youth Tribes work uncovered a thriving network of bedroom industries – young people carving out careers without leaving the confines of their room. Jettisoning the elitist world of unpaid internships or the corporate structure of the graduate scheme, young people are re-imagining routes to commercial success. People like the founders of Wavey Garms, an idea that uses the simple technology of Facebook to connect supply to demand in the world of vintage streetwear. Borne of a frustration at eBay, Wavey Garms created a simple alternative that’s found huge success.

And young people’s approach to education is seeing an overhaul too, unsurprising after the hike in tuition fees. Online, on demand education, like free coding education site Codeacademy, is giving young people the chance to learn in ways that better suits their needs, and budgets.

As the election turnout shows, young people are far from the apathetic group so often painted in the media. Not only did they turn out in higher numbers than ever anticipated on election day, but they are actively seeking ways to redefine how they can be part of, and change, society. How their impact will change in the future will be an interesting one to watch – considering the widely accepted notion that young people tend to stick with their voting preferences into later adult life, it seems likely that young people’s influence is only set to amplify.

Here's a short film (re)introducing the Channel 4 UK Tribes project, which now, amazingly, is nine flipping years old! This got an airing, alongside guest speakers (including presenter/author Rick Edwards), Laura from Crowd and various members of the Tribes Live community, at an event at C4 HQ this week...

Time to vote! But who for? And why? And will it count for much? Crowd DNA's Phoebe Checker explores how young people are responding to the election...

In December 2014 a BBC article claimed that there were three million young votes up for party grabs. The outcome of tapping into this demographic, it claimed? Winning the keys to Downing Street.

Since then, young people and politics has been one of many interesting election subplots. A surge of theories around if and how young people will be voting has seen us go from apathetic to averse, disillusioned to distrusting.

Effort has been spent to ensure engagement – from ‘child friendly’ political apps to policies and even parties aimed at young people. Yet, with the election looming, while the principle of democracy remains strong for young people, alliance to parties feels increasingly weak and frustration with the political system high.

Maybe voting was once simpler? When social economic groups were clearer and the political parties reflected this. Policies were differentiated across parties and discussion – where it happened – was limited to a handful of ‘big issues’. Your party was passed down from the previous generation too; family loyalties were strong and alliances often unchanged.

But the young electorate in 2015 have grown through different times. We’ve experienced the most socially liberal era in modern memory; we live in a multi-racial Britain with gender and sexuality choices openly discussed and expect to see this reflected in government that encourages all voices.

We’ve also had access to information like never before and are subject to the greatest consumer choice currently imaginable. Yet, when joining the political conversation, it’s frustrating to see such expectations are not met.

In a recent article in the Guardian, Matt Morely, CEO of Tickbox gets to the heart of this: “In the age of consumer identity, they [young voters] want to know how it [voting] affects them and their family… and that threatens the party-political way of saying, ‘you can’t just be against Trident, and not for or against anything else’.”

Political scandal and economic insecurity brought about (we’re told) by bad decision–making, greed and short-sightedness only further undermine an already faltering faith in the ‘system’ that stunts personal choice and opportunities for smaller parties through a disproportionate voting system. One of our UK Tribes members summed that up for us…

“I spoke to my MP in the street the other day when he was out campaigning and I was not encouraged. He is the embodiment of everything I hate about politics. He’s a safe-seat – Eton-bred – doesn’t-listen-to-the-people – turns-up-late-to-community-events-and-then-leaves-early – goes-to-a-school-and-just-talks-about-his-book – good-for-nothing charlatan. And he is my only representation. How is this democracy? How did my opinion mean anything? I will be voting in this election – not that it matters who I vote for.” Will, 23

Vote Swapping websites are becoming increasingly popular with those wanting to make their vote count – the website pairs people with residents of a constituency where their preferred party has a higher chance of victory. This is a step on from tactical voting, put in place to overcome the problem of wasted votes due to the UK’s first-past-the-post-system.

But the requirement of such a website, begs the question: in a modern, democratic society, why are we having to cheat the political system in order to have our voices heard?

For young people, as pioneers of their own democracy and latecomers to this political conversation it is easy to see why with just one day to go, the decision is still unclear.