1 in 4 of Gen Y is ethnic – but what do we know about them?

Manning Gottlieb OMD’s head of insight, Alison Tsang, shares her thoughts on their groundbreaking new study, Our Ethnic Youth – Redefining Gen Y.

It’s safe to say that Generation Y – a group broadly made up of 18-29 year-olds – is an attractive proposition for many brands and advertisers. Gen Y’s attitudes and behaviours shape and define trends which impact a far wider audience.

Essentially, they are lucrative working-age adults entering key life stages such as higher education, first job, first home and first child.

But how much do we really know about the make-up of this group – and who within it is driving key trends and new behaviours?

Gen Y is often treated as a homogeneous group based on the simple assumption that youth audiences can be defined by common characteristics moulded by globalisation and ubiquitous communications.

And this is true…to an extent. There are, of course, some similarities across Gen Y but there are also definite differences which our research discovered and brought to life when looking at ethnic (i.e. non white British) youth within Gen Y.

Overlooked but important audience

For Manning Gottlieb OMD’s latest proprietary research study, we decided to put a spotlight on our ethnic youth here in the UK, and give them a mouthpiece – something which has never been done before.

Why? Because they are already a significant proportion of our Gen Y audience and this is set to grow rapidly. In fact, by 2016, half the ethnic population will be under 12 whereas half of the white British population will be under 40.

Essentially, they represent our future youth audience and there’s still scope to make an impact from a brand perspective.

Ethnic youth is not a saturated audience or concept. Few brands are tapping into the wealth of opportunities, unaware of and lacking any relevant and actionable intelligence on this audience.

Overall, we spoke to nearly 1,800 18-29 year-olds across the 10 largest ethnicities as per the 2011 Census. This was via a large scale quantitative survey, filmed street interviews and in-depth blogs, and the insights really might surprise you.

Communicators and Connectors

Our ethnic youth have much larger networks of family and friends which they communicate much more frequently with on a daily basis compared with white British youth. For example, 22% communicate with five or more family members in an average day compared with only 7% of white British youth.

This means brand stories and messages could travel a lot faster and further – and we could argue that they are currently untapped communicators and connectors.

Promoters

What they communicate differs as well. Our ethnic youth are much more motivated to share as many of their positive experiences, with as many of their network as possible (61% vs. 47%).

Think how much harder a brand reward mechanic, designed to share and create advocacy, could work if it engaged an ethnic youth audience.

Influencers

British ethnic youth are more likely to be the ones giving advice rather than receiving it. Just under 60% agree they are often consulted on topics where they are known as experts compared with less than half of our white British youth.

They are also untapped influencers.

Producers

It’s not just more informed, larger volumes, and more frequent word-of-mouth which sets our ethnic youth apart; they are also significantly more active in their creation and subsequent sharing of content as well.

In fact, they are producers too.

Looking at regular sharing of content online such a music, films, videos or articles which they’ve made themselves, almost double our ethnic youth engage in this type of content creation (23%) compared with our white British youth (12%).

They are also digitally more adventurous, with greater regular use of all the newer social media platforms.

Early adoption of these channels allows our ethnic youth to indulge in their desire for creativity and sharing to great effect.

With creativity and content a core part of many brand campaigns, leveraging this aspiration to produce and share is a great way to engage this audience and boost earned media share of voice.

Importance of Brands

Brands matter more for our ethnic youth. They place a far greater premium on outward facing cues about themselves such as brands, designer labels, clothing and latest technology.

All these things contribute to an all-important image which satisfies a significantly stronger aspirational streak. This bigger appetite to buy into brands means they are, we can assume, more open to brand messages and communications.

Mainstream Media

Our ethnic youth audience can be reached by intelligent use of mainstream media, with digital at the core of their repertoire.

They consume the same amount – if not significantly more – mainstream, everyday media, across all channels compared with their white British counterparts.

This means they are already a substantial audience for many of the key media brands we already use for our clients – many of whom may not have ever looked at this crucial audience in this way.

So what does this mean for brands?

This is just the beginning. Eventually, the UK’s ethnic youth will become the majority. This is already the case in key urban centres such as London where around 60% of 18-29s are non white British.

It’s not that ethnic youth have been actively ignored by advertisers in the past, they’ve just been overlooked in the absence of better information.

Our insights and data from the whole study are designed to get the conversation going and provide the stimulus to spark fresh, new business and communications ideas, with the rigour of the research behind it.

Our ethnic youth: Gen Y, but not as we know it.