“Organ­ic” isn’t just a buzz­word for mil­len­ni­als. Just over half of all mil­len­ni­als active­ly try to include organ­ic food as part of their diet, more than any oth­er gen­er­a­tion, and that pref­er­ence for some­thing nat­ur­al and “real” also extends to the way they con­sume dig­i­tal media.

The fact that mil­len­ni­als val­ue hon­esty and authen­tic­i­ty has been well cov­ered, and there also evi­dence that tra­di­tion­al print or tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing is less effec­tive at engag­ing mil­len­ni­als.

A report con­duct­ed by Elite Dai­ly, Mil­len­ni­al Con­sumer Trends 2015, fur­ther con­firms mil­len­ni­als’ eschew­ing of tra­di­tion­al media and adver­tis­ing, with a sur­vey of 1,300 respon­dents reveal­ing that mil­len­ni­als pre­fer to be influ­enced by the opin­ions of their friends (37 per­cent), par­ents (36 per­cent), or online experts (17 per­cent), over that of tra­di­tion­al media and adver­tis­ing.

In addi­tion, 58 per­cent of mil­len­ni­als expect brands to pub­lish con­tent online for before they make a pur­chase, and 43 per­cent con­sid­er the qual­i­ty of authen­tic­i­ty to be more impor­tant than the con­tent itself.

Authenticity Over Advertising

Mil­len­ni­als place the great­est reliance on blogs when con­sid­er­ing a pur­chase, with 33 per­cent con­sid­er­ing blogs to be the top media source, accord­ing to Elite Dai­ly’s report.

Less than 3 per­cent con­sid­er adver­tis­ing in TV news, mag­a­zines, and books to be the most influ­en­tial source in their pur­chase jour­neys. In fact, only 1 per­cent of mil­len­ni­als admit­ted that a com­pelling adver­tise­ment would make them trust a brand more.

In addi­tion, 60 per­cent of mil­len­ni­als said that they are often or always loy­al to brands that they cur­rent­ly pur­chase, sug­gest­ing there is a great deal of val­ue for brands who can win the loy­al­ty of a con­sumer.

With iOS 9 now allow­ing users to use ad block­ers, organ­ic search con­tent such as blogs and reviews may be one of the best ways to reach mil­len­ni­als in the research and con­sid­er­a­tion stages of a pur­chase. This part of the pur­chase jour­ney can be high­ly sig­nif­i­cant. For large pur­chas­es, such as a home, mil­len­ni­als can spend a great deal of time seek­ing out this con­tent, with 83 per­cent of mil­len­ni­als report­ing they begin research­ing a pur­chase up to six months in advance.

‘I‑Want-To-Do’ Moments

The moments con­sumers turn to search to make a query is “I‑Want-To-Do” moments, search­es that peo­ple make on the spur of the moment, any­thing rang­ing from “how to tie a tie”, to “how to make a cake”. This kind of usage is espe­cial­ly pro­nounced amongst mil­len­ni­als.

Accord­ing to Google, 67 per­cent of mil­len­ni­als agree that they can find a YouTube video on any­thing they want to learn. Google calls these micro-moments “the new bat­tle­grounds for peo­ple’s hearts, minds, and dol­lars,” because they present a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for brands to engage in a non-adver­to­r­i­al way:

“Most mar­ket­ing plans are ground­ed in tra­di­tion­al one-way media: Broad­cast from brands to large audi­ences. With­out sig­nals of intent, tra­di­tion­al media makes it impos­si­ble to know whether some­one actu­al­ly needs or wants your prod­uct. But when peo­ple ask how to do some­thing, that’s a need. That’s some­one ask­ing, ‘can you help me out?’ Dig­i­tal media let brands respond to those ques­tions and be there at the very moment some­one needs them most. Brands that suc­cess­ful­ly do this can win loy­al­ty and dri­ve sales to boot. In fact, near­ly one in three mil­len­ni­als say they’ve pur­chased a prod­uct as a result of watch­ing a how-to video.”

Engaging Millennials

Organ­ic search and con­tent will be a key chan­nel to win­ning the aware­ness, pur­chas­es, and loy­al­ty of mil­len­ni­als as it allows brands to respond to the needs of this audi­ence, whether that be with con­tent, infor­ma­tive videos, or arti­cles.

Mil­len­ni­als expect brands to active­ly con­sid­er their wants and needs, and are pre­pared to engage with a brand and pro­vide feed­back. Accord­ing to Elite Dai­ly’s find­ings, 42 per­cent of Mil­len­ni­als said they are inter­est­ed in help­ing com­pa­nies devel­op future prod­ucts and ser­vices.

For mil­len­ni­als, this kind of con­tent, which caters for moments they are seek­ing answers, is pow­er­ful as it ful­fils a gen­uine rela­tion­ship between a brand and their audi­ence. As the gen­er­a­tion grows and matures, organ­ic search and con­tent will pro­vide much more so than adver­to­r­i­al mes­sages, inspir­ing greater brand aware­ness and ulti­mate­ly loy­al­ty.