At over 80 million strong, Millennials are a consumer market force today and will be even more important in the future. According to [1]Alloy Media, the college market alone is made up of a record 16 million young adults with collective economic power of over $300 billion, $69 billion of which is discretionary. Yet economic clout is only the the most rudimentary reason marketers should be paying attention to this cohort. Young adults today have greater inuence on consumer behavior than their enormous spending power even suggests.

Nearly 20 years ago, William Strauss and Neil Howe wrote a book that theorized a 22 year generational cycle based on repeating generational archetypes called simply "[2]Generations". They called these cycles 'turnings'. Children raised during a particular Turning share similar historical and cultural experiences, which results in their being like each other, and different from other generations. This was to my knowledge the first appearance of the word 'Millennials'.

One of the questions I hear a lot is 'What exactly is a Millennial'? I have addressed this a few times, before in this blog (see [2]"What's a Millennial? Why Do Marketers Need a Label?"). Just like the question 'what is a brand' there is no easy agreed upon answer, although I generally answer that I subscribe to the definition used by Pew Research that a Millennial is someone currently age 18-29, born after 1980.

In their October report, "[3]The Millennial Muddle: How Stereotyping Students Became an Industry", the Chronicle of Higher Education provides this scathing assessment of the 'experts' that have sprung up to discuss Gen Y:

The highly respected journal, [2]The Chronicle of Higher Education, just published two thought provoking articles urging educators to resist generational stereotyping. The first article, "[3]The Millennial Muddle", points out the contradictory positions of various Millennial 'experts' and invites college marketers and admissions officer to carefully scrutinize conclusions or prescriptions before acting on them. Subtitled, "How Stereotyping Students Became a Thriving Industry and a Bundle of Contradictions", this article is well worth reading, as an overview of the lack of consensus about Gen Y traits.

I am often asked when does Gen Y end and what comes next? Because they are still children, there is room for debate as to when Gen Z start(ed) and what it will be like. Some say it began as early as 1991, but I would say later { today's 18-year old looks like a Millennial to me. Some say it started in 2001 with 9/11, which would slam this group with a very unfortunate name.