How to sell to the young

如何打开年轻人的市场

A myth-busting memo for your boss

给老板的一份打破常规的备忘录

Dear boss—You have always tried to attract young and youngish consumers, and our consultants have always come up with new ways to label them. I don't need to remind you that “millennials” and, increasingly, “Gen Z” are our most important markets. Together they make up a majority of the world's population and a third of America's.

亲爱的老板，您一直试图吸引年轻的消费者，我们的顾问也总是想出新的方法来给他们贴标签。我无需提醒你，“千禧一代”和越来越多的“Z世代”是我们最重要的市场。他们占世界人口的大多数，占美国人口的三分之一。

The trouble is that coming up with rules to define a swathe of humanity is more art than science. It is liable to become an exercise in applying stereotypes; not every youngster is sipping kombucha in a Brooklyn warehouse. Luckily you have me, and I'm here to tell you that much of what is written about marketing to today's most prized consumers is a myth.

问题在于，制定规则来定义一部分人与其说是科学，不如说是艺术。这很容易成为应用定型观念的一种练习；不是每个年轻人都在布鲁克林的仓库里喝着康普茶。幸运的是，你有我，我在这里告诉你，关于面向当今最受重视的消费者营销的很多说法都是无稽之谈。

Start with the idea that, glued to smartphones, Gen Z barely notices the physical world and slavishly follows the latest hype from Instagram or TikTok. It's true that the days of marketing chiefly through television, newspapers and magazines are long gone. Yet social media has not just changed the ways in which people discover brands; it has undermined the power of marketing as a whole.

首先，沉迷于智能手机的Z世代几乎没有注意到现实世界，而是盲目地关注 Instagram 或 TikTok 上的最新宣传。的确，主要通过电视、报纸和杂志进行营销的时代已经一去不复返了。然而，社交媒体不仅改变了人们发现品牌的方式；它从整体上削弱了营销的力量。

Such is the ease with which digital natives can fact-check our dodgy marketing claims and swipe left on our ads that it is getting harder to build brand loyalty. Online, talk is cheap and prices are readily Googled. Surveys suggest that young Americans are among the most price-sensitive food shoppers. It doesn't help that they have accumulated less wealth than earlier generations had by the same age.

数字原生代如此轻易地就能核实我们那些不靠谱的营销宣传，并将我们的广告滑开，以至于建立品牌忠诚度变得越来越难。在网上，聊天很方便，价格也很容易在谷歌上搜索到。调查显示，美国年轻人是对食品价格最敏感的消费者之一。他们比前几代人在同一年龄时积累的财富更少，这也无济于事。

There is a similar temptation to think that physical shops no longer matter. Young consumers love their Amazon deliveries. It makes sense for our company to make sales via social media and ship directly to customers' homes. But what works best is the seamless combination of the digital and physical worlds.

还有一种类似的观点，即实体店不再重要。年轻消费者喜欢亚马逊的送货服务。对我们公司来说，通过社交媒体进行销售并直接送货到客户家中也很有意义。但最有效的是数字世界和物理世界的无缝结合。

Remember those online-only influencer-backed beauty brands like Glossier, which took the world by storm during the pandemic? It turns out that they struggle to get repeat business and have had to pair up with physical retailers lumbered with bricks and mortar. Remember that most Americans still buy their cosmetics at Walmart. If we want to succeed, we need to offer the best of both physical and virtual worlds.

还记得那些只在网上有影响力的美妆品牌吗?比如在疫情期间风靡全球的 Glossier。事实证明，他们很难获得回头客，最终不得不与实体零售商合作。请记住，大多数美国人仍然在沃尔玛购买化妆品。如果我们想要成功，我们需要同时在物理世界和虚拟世界提供最好的体验。

And don't assume that all young customers are DiAngelo-reading social justice warriors. Four-fifths of America's Gen Z consider a brand's sustainability and social impact before checkout, according to one survey. But considering something is not the same as surrendering to it. Gen Z cares less for consumer boycotts than its virtue-signalling parents.

不要以为所有的年轻顾客都是读过狄安杰罗著作的社会正义斗士。一项调查显示，五分之四的美国Z世代消费者在结账前会考虑品牌的可持续性和社会影响。但考虑某件事并不等于完全放弃。Z世代不像他们的父母那样关心消费者的抵制。

It is chiefly youngsters who buy cheap “fast-fashion” outfits to wear once and then send to landfill. And plenty of chains do well among young people without being woke. Just look at Chick-fil-A, which is America's most popular restaurant among teenagers, according to another survey, despite its chairman's past opposition to gay marriage and its donations to socially conservative causes.

购买便宜的“快时尚”服装，只穿一次就扔进垃圾桶的主要是年轻人。许多连锁店在年轻人中做得很好，未受波及。看看福乐鸡快餐店吧，根据另一项调查，它是美国最受青少年欢迎的餐厅，尽管其董事长过去反对同性恋婚姻，并为社会保守主义事业捐款。

What really matters is avoiding hypocrisy. Insincerity is easily exposed online, where everyone loves a takedown. Remember the backlash against Boohoo, a fast-fashion firm, when it appointed Kourtney Kardashian, a jet-setting socialite, as a “sustainability ambassador”? Don't post pictures from your private plane, obviously, but don't pretend you're Greta Thunberg, either.

真正重要的是避免虚伪。不真诚很容易在网上暴露，因为人人都喜欢将虚伪拆穿。还记得快时尚公司 Boohoo 任命社交名媛考特妮·卡戴珊为“可持续发展大使”时引起的强烈反响吗? 显然，不要发布你私人飞机上的照片，但也不要假装你是格里塔·图恩伯格。

Avoid platitudes, commit only to causes you can tangibly support and be frank when you are putting profits first. Nobody is perfect. To pretend otherwise is so 2013. We are people just as our customers are and people contain multitudes. Isn't the story of your life that yesterday's hippies are tomorrow's suits?

避免陈词滥调，只致力于你能切实支持的事业，当你把利润放在第一位时要坦率。人无完人。假装不是这样就仿佛回到了2013年。就像我们的客户一样，我们也是人，而人是多种多样的。你的人生故事不就是，昨天还是嬉皮士，而明天就穿得西装革履了？