1. Marketing to Asian Millennials
Why being second best may be the best long-term strategy

2. Asian Millennials
Why being second best may be
the best long-term strategy
They have had enough of the pressure, the high
expectations. They lost their childhoods to the
incessant nagging of their parents and their
teachers. They could not bear the constant
comparisons with high performing classmates and
super-achieving kids of their parents’ friends, proudly
flaunted on social media. When they saw the sky-high
remuneration packages offered to a select few of the
graduating class, and matched it with against their
own measly compensation package, they wondered if
staying up all those late nights trying to master
macroeconomic theory and data networks and
protocols had really been worth it.
Asia’s millennials have it tough. But they make up
30% of the entire population of India, and 28% of
China’s, and are held out as marketing’s Next Big
Hope. Upbeat commentators proclaim their digital
connectivity, global aspirations and desire for rich
experiences as the golden lode, to be mined for the
next twenty years. Brands invariably depict them as
confident winners, exuding an aura of self-assurance,
always getting the girl (or boy), more knowledgeable
than their bosses, teachers and parents; and their
parents exulting at their achievements.
So where’s the disconnect, and how can companies
recognize their potential?
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3. For every gold medal winner, there are 10,000 who didn’t make it
The competition that Asian
millennials face is not only
huge, it has risen exponentially
over their short lifetimes.
In 1987, when one million
students took Grade 12 exams,
one of India’s top commerce
and economics schools,
Shriram College of Commerce
(SRCC) in Delhi, had 800 seats.
By 2011, 10.1 million students
wrote Grade 12 exams, but
SRCC had the same number of
seats. In 2014, the number of
students who scored over 90%
marks in their Grade 12 exams
was over 200,000, in Delhi
alone – and that was just in
one of the school boards.
In China, some 9.4 million
students took the dreaded
university entrance exam
gaokao this year. To put things
in perspective, 1.66 million
students took their SAT and 1.8
million sat for their ACT for US
college admission last year. The
success rate amongst those
appearing for the gaokao has
climbed from one in thirty in
the late 1970s to 75% last
year, the result of Chinese
universities investing in
building much greater capacity.
But the pressure is so great
that around one million high
school students gave up on
taking the gaokao this year.
Some 80% of these students
chose to enter the job market
right away, with the rest are
planning to study overseas or
taking the exam next year. The
travesty of it all is that today’s
millennials are smarter, better
connected and have so much
more exposure than their
parents and their teachers. But
the bar has just kept rising
higher.
The millennials’ response to
not emerging on top of the
heap is one of ‘so what?’
They are turning the ‘loser’ tag
into an alternative attitude, and
responding by making the best
of what they have.
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4. During the 2008 Olympics in
Beijing, pretty much every
brand – official sponsor or
otherwise, egged on champions
and gold medal prospects.
Hurdler Liu Xiang – who
disappointed, and diver Guo
Jingjing, who did not, endorsed
at least twenty brands between
them. The local Chinese youth
fashion brand Semir eschewed
celebrity sportstars and the
gold medal mania, choosing
instead to create a series of
films that showed young men
and women struggling to
become great athletes, and
failing miserably. But they had
one thing – smart colorful
attire, which differentiated
them from the athletes in
uniform, and an attitude that
said ‘so what if I’m not good at
gymnastics / taekwondo, at
least I look good.’
Chinese youth loved the brand.
It reflected their inner feelings
and deep understanding that
the gold medal juggernaut was
built on a system which they
had no stake in. Semir’s sales
shot up by 30%; inquiries for
setting up new franchises went
up by 60%. Today, the brand
retails through 8000 stores.
What happened to the official
sponsor adidas? They were left
with masses of unsold
inventory.
Asian millennials are a generation of
realists. They are willing to accept
things as they are, and it is up to
brands and companies to help them
feel good with whatever their situation
is.
Give me the opportunity and a leg up, will
you?
For all the faith and hope that
their parents put in them,
millennials realize that they
need help – even to get halfway
to their goals. Enter the
enablers.
Maotanchang Middle School
and its sister school, Jin'an
Middle School, are cram
schools that specialize in
preparing students for the
gaokao. Classes are so large
that teachers use loudspeakers
to address students and
students attend lectures and
practice tests every day from 6
am in the morning until 11 in
the night, with only two short
30 minute meal breaks and
one hour of relaxation time.
The hype around the success
rates has only driven
enrollment to the “magic”
schools, which have become
the economic heart of the
town.
The influx of 50,000 people
every year (including 20,000
middle school students and
10,000 parents) has raised the
town's fiscal revenue to nearly
$2.45 million, four times the
neighboring town of
Dongehkou.
The same story is repeated in
my hometown Varanasi in
India, and other cities like Kota
– where a flourishing coaching
industry draws in high school
students from villages and
small towns. Their parents
dream that their children will
enter the top engineering and
medical schools and spend as
much as $1500 per term – way
beyond their means, to equip
them to take the entrance
examinations.
Those
who
qualify
for
the
top
schools
have
their
pictures
plastered
on
billboards
and
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5. Australian or a Midwest
American accent. This was the
opportunity that the youngsters
were waiting for. Sure, they
were not going to get the high
starting salaries that the IIT
(Indian Institute of Technology)
graduates commanded, but it
was enough for them to stop
depending on their parents,
buy the jeans, cosmetics and
motorcycles they wanted, go
out for movies with their friends
on weekends. Today, Indian
marketers have a term to
describe this segment – it’s the
Multiplex Crowd.
In China, over 500 million
people – and a vast majority of
the youth identify themselves
street kiosks around the city.
The others – realizing that their
parents will do all they can to
realize their own dream, often
convince them to pay for an
education at a private
university, which charge hefty
fees.
Companies like NIIT and Aptech
in India realized that there was
an opportunity to train these
youngsters about two decades
ago – in writing code. Their two-
to-three year computer
programming courses prepared
masses of young people who
could meet the demand of the
IT companies, just as the BPO
training courses taught the
Indian youth how to fake an
as being diaosi, a once
slightly derogatory moniker
meaning loser, but one
that has now been turned
around as a badge of
honour to mean someone
who has a take-it-as-comes
kind of an attitude. Many
diaosi are socially inept but
technologically well
connected, and it is not a
surprise when TV shows
like The Big Bang Theory
have found a huge fan
base amongst the diaosi
community. But now they
have their own show, Diors
Man, while the hugely
popular film Lost in
Thailand tells the story of a
‘loser’ who wins a beautiful
woman’s hand.
The second-best need a healthy dose of
self-respect, greater opportunity and
commendation for whatever they’re able
to achieve. Enable them, and you will
have earned their gratitude.
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6. The means aren’t
important, realizing
the goal is
The key thing to remember is
that just because they’re not
at the top of the pecking
order, they’re given up. It’s a
far cry – what they do is that
they find a new goal, and
more often than not, a new
path to those goals. It’s about
doing a reality check about
their abilities and their social
resources. In India, there’s a
term for this strategy –
jugaad, an innovative solution
or simple work-around to
achieve a goal, involving the
bending or challenging of
rules. This is where social
resources come in handy:
seeking favours to get
admission in a college, to land
a job, to obtain a driving
license, or to just move things
faster through the
bureaucracy. It is no different
in China, where
guanxi, or social capital, is the
currency that can make things
happen. It is that singular
strategy that many young
people often have to gain an
advantage over the better
(academically) qualified; and
as the Global Monitor data
shows, to Asian millennials,
having a large network of
friends is a sign of success.
Take the recent Bollywood
film Humpty Sharma Ki
Dulhaniya. Humpty is not
good in his studies. He barely
scrapes through his final
examinations, but only by
browbeating the examiner to
give him the necessary
marks. Then he falls in love
with a feisty girl called Kavya
– who is about to be married
out to a good looking, very
intelligent doctor who works in
the US – the archetypal
achiever who can do no
wrong. The girl’s father throws
Humpty a challenge – if he is
able to find even one fault in
the prospective groom, he can
marry Kavya.
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7. Of course, Humpty can find
nothing wrong. All his ploys,
in which he supported by
his father, aided by his
friends, and sometimes
even by Kavya, fail.
Eventually, he is only able
to get the girl because, he
is able to prove that he
truly loves her – but also by
reminding the girl’s father
about his own love as a
young man.
If there is one resource that
the Asian Millennials can
rely on, it is their parents’
blind trust and constant
support. They’re never on
their own, left to fend for
themselves. It is common
for many Chinese to borrow
money from their parents
even when they’ve been
working for three or four
years, often to pay for their
accommodation in a new
city. They don’t think of it
as dependence, rather they
believe it is their right.
Some go on to abuse that
blind trust. A recent TV
commercial for the bottled
water Kinley shows a girl
away from home at night,
with her friends, at a hill
station near Mumbai.
Drinking from a bottle, she
calls her father to tell him
the truth that she is not at
a study sleepover. When
her angry father asks her
why she felt the need to
call him, she says, “I
couldn't sleep because I
lied to you.” While the
father gets all teary eyed in
forgiveness, the brand’s
tagline says “Every drop is
true.”
Grey characterizations are quite
acceptable to millennials. They know
they aren’t quite perfect, they believe
that by building social capital and
keeping their parents on their side,
they can get ahead.
Life is unfair, but I’ll
overcome whatever
challenges it throws
at me.
The reality of Asian millennials
and their coping mechanisms
are finding increasing
representation in popular
culture and media.
In Feng Xiaogong’s epic film
Aftershock, a mother is faced
with the choice of saving one of
her twin children – a boy
named Da and a girl named
Deng, after the Tangshan
earthquake. Burdened by the
traditional preference for male
children, she chooses the
former. Deng, left behind to die,
survives, but is ultimately able
to overcome the lifelong
trauma of knowing that her
mother chose her brother's life
over hers.
In the Bollywood film Queen,
Rani, played by Kangana
Ranaut, is shattered when her
to-be bridegroom backs out of
their wedding on the day
before. Instead of moping, she
decides to leave for Paris, and
Amsterdam – where she was
supposed to go for her
honeymoon, on a remarkable
journey of self discovery,
enabled by a free-spirited
single mother.
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8. Da Peng, the creator of Diors
Man came to Beijing in search
of opportunity. As it happens
every once in a while, he was
cheated: a fake record
company promised to make
him a star after he graduated
from college, but they instead
took all of his money and then
disappeared. Though the scam
was devastating at the time, he
managed to pick himself up
and landed a job at Sohu.com,
one of China’s top online
entertainment companies.
When a show host called in
sick one day, he quickly found
himself in the spotlight. Soon,
he met one of China’s comedy
masters Zhao Benshan, who
If you want the involvement and
commitment of millennials, challenge
them. They are eager to prove that
they’re no less capable than the
superachievers.
took him under his wing. There
was no looking back for Da
Peng. Diors Man is now in its
third season running.
What is interesting about these
real experiences and screen
representations is that these
are not stories of the underdog,
as the Oscar-winning Slumdog
Millionnaire was. Today’s
millennials do not believe that
they are underdogs at all. It’s
just that they are likely to face
challenges in life, but they have
the maturity and the gumption
to deal with these challenges.
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9. We’re impatient.
Deal with it !
Whether it’s about getting
service at a restaurant,
delivery from an e-commerce
site, or a promotion at work,
Asian millennials are just not
willing to wait. As kids, for
much of the middle class,
they have been used to their
parents satisfying their every
whim – and now, as they
grow older, they expect
similar responsiveness from
brands and employers. In
China, 19% of millennials
expect to be manager within
two years of graduating from
university. The expectation is
even higher in India, with
37% hoping to be a manager
within a year. Millennials are
more likely to job hop. In
Singapore, 79% managers
found that they were unable
to deal with situations when
millennials decided to leave
a job within two years.
While they were in school,
the days and weekends of
most millennials were
packed with school, extra
classes, music lessons,
sports coaching – even as
they sneaked in time for
entertainment. This has
resulted in an amazing ability
to multitask and respond to
fast change. “Someone who
has worked for 30 years may
settle for a role and do that
for 5 years, while the younger
generation wants to do 20
things together,” says Sumit
Mitra, Executive vice-
president – human
resources, Godrej Industries.
“This generation wants to
move fast. They understand
that business cycles are
getting shorter, and that if
you don’t adapt and innovate
on a continual basis, you’re
pretty much old news,” adds
Malcolm Frank, executive
vice-president, strategy,
Cognizant Technologies.
It is the impatience and
ability to adapt speedily that
allows the second-best to
quickly take stock of their
situation, the environment in
which they must compete,
and come up with a
differentiating strategy to get
ahead. For many, being street
smart and acting fast is how
they forge ahead of the more
intellectual thinkers.
Olx.in is a very popular portal
that helps Indians get rid of
household goods they don’t
need. The traditional way of
asking your friends and
family, or even thinking
several times if you really
need to sell are challenged by
the young protagonists in its
communication – who are
able to sell off stuff to eager
customers hoping to snag
deals, by the time other
family members return from
work or shopping. There’s
also a subtle message that
resonates with the
millennials: there’s no shame
in buying used goods. This is
a demographic that is still not
very wealthy, and wants to
spend smart.
Organizations need to provide small,
frequent jumps to their millennial
employees. For brands, you don’t have
to be the best or most desirable
product. You only need to be able to
respond faster than they expect, to
service expectations, to new trends
and to their needs.
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10. Not as self-centred
as you think
For many years, the
jiulinghao – Post 90s
generation in China, were
accused of being lazy, self-
centred, rebellious and spoilt,
having grown up as single
children in relatively well-off
families. At the same time,
they are extremely tech-
savvy: social media help
spread the word about new
brands, corrupt officials and
events with the same
lightening speed, allowing
them to organize quickly.
Almost inexplicably, the
Sichuan earthquake of 2010
suddenly galvanized the
jiulinghao. They headed out
to the earthquake zone as
volunteers, began raising
relief funds and started
putting pressure on the
government and corporations
alike to respond quickly. Over
the last two years, many
Chinese millennials have
been at the forefront of
environmental protests,
protesting against a
paraxylene plant proposed to
be set up by Sinopec, the
state owned enterprise and
the local government in
Maoming, an industrial town
in Guangdong province; and
in Kunming in Yunnan
province.
In a remarkably similar way,
the youth in India’s capital
New Delhi were labeled as
being too self-centred and
uncaring. But when a young
paramedic, returning from a
movie with a male friend,
was attacked, brutally raped
by six men and left on the
road to die, an entire
generation rose up in anger
and shame. The older
generation – which would
usually prevent young
women from leaving home
in the night, could do
nothing to prevent them from
holding all night candle vigils in
front of India’s parliament
building.
Travel portal Makemytrip.com
in India involved youngsters in
a campaign in which they could
write virtual graffiti on some of
India’s top monuments like the
Taj Mahal, Humayun’s Tomb
and Charminar, in order to
spread the message of not
defacing historical monuments.
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11. These social phenomena
clearly suggest that many
millennials – particularly
those who did not achieve
the high goals that were set
for them by their parents, or
they set themselves, are
looking for a direction and a
purpose, and they had found
them in a cause. Many
understand that society and
the environment have been
degraded by the earlier
generations, and are
continued to be, by today’s
wealthy. As the Global
Monitor data shows, they
have a sense of responsibility
as good citizens.
Employers who engage millennials in
social responsibility efforts and
provide opportunities to do good are
likely to have greater loyalty that those
who don’t. Brands that make it easy
for them to engage with social causes
will benefit from their endorsement.
10

12. The new role models
Until a decade ago, the heads of
corporate India as well as
achievers overseas, many top
bureaucrats came from the
prestigious Indian Institutes of
Technology, Indian Institutes of
Management and elite liberal
arts colleges in cities like New
Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.
That is changing fast, as
graduates from the next rung of
academic institutions make a
mark: Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s
CEO studied at the private
Manipal Institute of Technology
in India’s Karnataka state, while
Vishal Sikka, CEO of Infosys
went to MS University, Baroda
before heading overseas for
their higher degrees. Many of
India and China’s hot
entrepreneurs were educated in
similar institutions. The
founders of Innoz Technologies,
a go-to offline search engine
that counts some of India’s top
telecom companies as its
customers, were batchmates
at the Lal Bahadur Shastri
College of Engineering in
Kasargod, Kerala. Twin
brothers Anant and Anuj Garg
began creating websites for
their school (which didn’t have
one!) and their family and
relatives when they were in
Grade 7. They went on to study
engineering from the KJ
Somaiya College of
Engineering and commerce at
the RA Podar College of
Commerce, before founding
Inscripts, a software firm
offering innovative products
that help website owners
increase site engagement with
and among users.
Rahul Sharma, 37, is the co-
founder and CEO of Micromax,
India’s largest selling mobile
phone. He studied mechanical
engineering in Nagpur,
Maharashtra and started the
company with three friends –
as an IT software company.
Realizing that one of the
biggest challenges that many
people, including those in rural
India, faced was having access
to regular power supply to
charge their phones, Micromax
hit upon the winning formula
of a phone which needed a
recharge only once a month.
China’s hottest entrepreneurs
are no different. 26 year old
Liao Jinhua is the CEO of Hex
Airbot in Guiyang, Guizhou
province. His firm designs and
creates open source flying
robots for education and
entertainment. Chen Fangyi,
27, is the head of Xiamen
Meet You Information
Technology Company. As a
college student, he started
Fanhuan.com, a website that
helps consumers save money
when shopping online; and
went on to create Meet You, an
app to help female users
manage their menstrual
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Rahul Sharma Liao Jinhua Satya Nadella

13. cycles. Chai Ke, another 27
year old, created Dayima, an
app that provides young
women healthcare advice.
So, while the high achievers
still head out to investment
banks, multinational
companies, law firms, super-
speciality hospitals and the
corridors of bureaucracy, a
much larger number of
millennials are questioning if
the eighteen hour workdays
and shrinking weekends are
really the best way to spend
the best years of their lives.
For them, the idea of
independence that
entrepreneurship represents
is far more appealing, and
the jugaad mindset means
they’re quick to pounce on
new opportunities.
More than authority or aspirational
figures, Asian millennials trust and
depend on each other. They do mostly
what their friends do. ‘People-like-us’
give them a sense of comfort and
confidence.
Of course, this is enabled by
today’s digital environment,
where the world – not your city
or even country – is the market,
even if they live in a small town.
Many millennials in China’s
fourth tier cities are becoming
Taobao entrepreneurs,
manufacturing, sourcing and
supplying goods to customers
wherever they can find them.
The Indian e-commerce
platform Flipkart recently set
up a mechanism that allows
the silk weavers of Varanasi
to sell their products directly
to customers, eliminating the
middleman who would skim
away a huge part of their
possible income.
12

14. The marketplace
performance of brands
seems to reflect the validity
of the ‘second-best’
approach, in which local
brands seem perfectly
good choices. While Apple
and Samsung may slug it
out, the top selling mobile
phone in India is the local
brand Micromax; Xiaomi is
the number one
smartphone brand in
China. Semir is China’s
largest youth fashion
brand, Thums Up - not
Pepsi or Coke - is India’s
largest carbonated soft
drink brand. Hero is the
most valuable motorcycle
brand in India. Kingfisher is
India’s most valuable beer
brand, Tsingtao and Snow
in China.
The lesson for brands is
quite profound.
What the marketplace tells us
In the hugely populated
Asian market, you must
rethink the strategy of
going after the top-end of
the market. While Asian
millennials do have
aspirations, the answer to
fulfilling them does not lie
in aspirational brands. It
lies in creating good, value-
based options that provide
them with the opportunity
to thumb their noses at a
society that is constantly
piling on the pressure. It is
about resonating with their
reality of not meeting
expectations and
challenging them, and
finding openings when
there might seem none. It
lies in the feeling that life
teaches them more that
any fancy college degree.
And ultimately, it is about
the ability to turn adversity
into advantage.
Isn’t that a challenge that so many brands face so
often in their lifetimes?
References:
http://www.nielsen.com/us/
en/insights/news/2014/
money-matters-upscale-
millennials-are-saving-for-
tomorrow.html
http://indianexpress.com/
article/cities/delhi/class-xii-
results-over-2-lakh-score-
above-90-in-capital/
Ogilvy & Mather China,
Effie case study, 2008
http://www.hrmasia.com/
forum/organisations-
struggling-to-handle-
millennials/191207/
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15. Marketing to Asian Millennials was written by Kunal Sinha
For further information, please contact:
Kunal Sinha
kunalsinha@hotmail.com
.
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