If Paul Revere were alive today, he would probably be saying “the Millennials are coming, the Millennials are coming.” And he would be right. After decades of dominating consumer markets, American Baby Boomers are beginning to fade into the sunset, surrendering the population throne to Millennials in 2016. Boomers still control much more wealth, but it is only a matter of time before Millennials win out there too.

But marketing to Millennials is not the same as marketing to Baby Boomers. Spanning age 18 to 34, Millennials are digital natives, highly individualistic, and experience-driven. The youngest of this generation has a completely different set of experiences than Baby Boomers. For starters, they have never rolled down a car window, have never lived during a time when there were no flat screen televisions, and have never not been able to text their friends. Times have changed.

Earlier generations had much more control over how they looked to the outside world. An embarrassing photo could be buried in a shoe box, shoved to the bottom of a purse, or burned in a fireplace. Not today. A “bad hair day” lives forever on social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Snapchat. Is it any mystery, then, that over two thirds of American Millennials find it important to feel physically attractive?

Marketing to Millennials means understanding their influences, concerns, worries, talents, and skills. This is a generation that is much more likely to trust what their peers think or what product users think about a specific product than what a company wants them to think. Some of the strongest influencers of Millennial beauty are bloggers and YouTube influencers who the Baby Boomer generation has never heard of, much less seen.

Millennials are informed, educated, and engaged. This is not a generation that wants to sit in front of a television and become a couch potato. This is a generation that wants a piece of the action or a place at the table in creating new products. It is also a generation that cares about health and wellness. Almost nine in every 10 American Millennials say they consider eating healthy a key part of wellness. Over six in 10 say they exercise at least “several times a week.” If you are marketing beauty products to Millennials, you better make sure your product can either stand up to this kind of grind, or complement active lifestyles.

These are just a few ways that Millennial beauty consumers are blazing new trails in beauty. For a more in-depth look at Millennial beauty consumers and trends, be sure to check out GlobalData’s presentation at 12:45pm at in-cosmetics North America, located at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City on October 11, 2017. “Targeting Millennials through Beauty Innovation” will highlight why beauty-makers need to pay attention to Millennials and look at key innovation opportunities to target this demographic.

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Tom Vierhile will discuss more on the millennial consumer in a session ‘Targeting millennials in beauty innovation’ at in-cosmetics North America in New York City, on Wednesday 11 October at 12.45pm

Register to attend the in-cosmetics North America show at www.in-cosmeticsnorthamerica.com/register