MARKETING PRIVATE CLUBS TO MILLENNIALS - DOES AGE REALLY MATTER?

I hear Millennials like wine.

And they are tech-savvy.

And they seek out personal recommendations.

And they like things to be customized and unique to them.

Hey, me too.

The marketing world speaks of Millennials and Gen-Xers and Baby Boomers as though every member of a birth cohort is somehow compelled to make their decisions based on a single, shared set of values determined by the year in which they were born.

It’s a lot like listening to people who believe in astrology, convinced that your fate is somehow determined by your birthday.

As older Millennials are now starting to enter “club-joining years,” the private club industry is brimming with theories on what makes Millennials tick.

Recent industry research suggests that when it comes to joining a club, Millennials want convenience, the ability to bring guests, well-maintained grounds and facilities, excellent service, and consistent costs above all else.

Hey, me too.

This research from the November 2016 study conducted by the Club Managers Association of America and the Center for Generational Kinetics titled Uncovering Generational Attitudes About Club Memberships is tremendous, and should be required reading for anyone in a leadership role in our industry.

Among their findings, the study examined generational attitudes in what potential members are looking for in a club:

When you look at what Millennials want in a membership club, it’s almost exactly what the rest of us want.

In fact, the ranges only differ between generations by between a 4 to 8-percentage points – so close as to say (especially to marketers) that the difference is insignificant. Of course, the obvious exception is that Millennials are much more interested in a place for family, and kids sports and activities.

Hey, I was too.

It’s true. Millennials are not like what us Baby Boomers or Gen-X’ers used to be. But then we’re not like we used to be either.

I’ve come to realize that when it comes to private club marketing, the concept of Millennials is just too limiting.

It’s time to embrace a more accurate picture.

What matters to your prospective member has little to do with the year they were born. What matters are the desires and beliefs and values of their tribe.

Millennials aren’t a tribe. They do not behave as a single, cohesive birth cohort. They are a collection of tribes.

Tribes typically form around shared experiences and interests such as food, politics, the arts, faith, fashion, money, health, fitness, and sports.

We unconsciously join a tribe when we see and feel and think the same way others do on a particular subject. Or we share a passion for similar experiences. Tribal marketing simply reflects back to a tribe their own vision and emotion and logic.

Brilliant marketing is built on this concept.

In July 2017, Millennial marketing and research firm YPulse asked 1,000 13-34-year-olds an open-ended question: “Which luxury brands would you actually want to own?”

Rolex was among the top ten.

Did Rolex alter their designs to appeal to Millennials? Did they lower prices or offer discounts to entice Millennials? Have they been targeting their advertising to 13-34 year-olds?

No.

Rolex gets tribal marketing.

The Submariner is the watch for the scuba tribe.
The Daytona is the watch for the car-guy tribe.
The Yacht Master is the watch for the boating tribe.
The Air King is the watch for the airplane tribe.
The Milgauss is the watch for the technical tribe.
The Explorer is the watch for the outdoor tribe.
The President is the watch for the business tribe.

A tribe is targeted through carefully selected words and stories crafted with a specific tribe in mind, regardless of age.

Like Rolex, private clubs represent a traditional industry searching for relevance in a techno-connected world. And like Rolex, our marketing needs to move beyond the concept of Millennials to figure out how to create tribes, attract existing ones, influence them and guide them.

Where to start?

Inclusivity over Exclusivity – Exclusivity isn’t a bad thing, per se. But let’s guard against self-righteousness and become more approachable. Tribes care less about the awards we’ve won, or how important we think we are. They care about how important we make them feel. The role we play in facilitating friendship, fun and purpose in a time when people are yearning for community – that’s priceless and ageless. Our relevance as an industry depends on our ability to think outside the gates and learn the true language of our tribes.

Social Media – Social networks play a huge role in “tribal” culture. What makes tribes especially relevant today is the immediacy with which people can come together around shared interests and experiences through social media. But as an industry we are way behind. We need to get past our inherent shyness and use social to engage our tribes. ALL CLUBS CAN TELL THEIR STORY, and Facebook and Instagram offer us the unprecedented ability to gain attention from our precise tribes based on hyper-targeted interests and behaviors.

Clubs as Brands – We have to realize that every club is now a brand, or at least we must begin to act like one if we want to get our intentions recognized by our tribes. We are now in a time where either we take control of our story and get proactive about telling it, or we continue to just let the world happen to us. Or possibly worse, it doesn’t happen at all.

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