Well, ideally, we’d be buying a lot more than we are. At this point, it’s well-established that, through a combination of the Great Recession repercussions and rampant student loan debt [Americans age 19-29 collectively have over $1 trillion in debt], Millennials aren’t spending as much as they’d like to, delaying marriage and home ownership in record numbers.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom! Having less discretionary income just means we’re a little more select about where we use it. In fact, there are three big silver linings here that keep our dollars worth chasing:

• If it’s high-quality goods, count us in. Millennials have shown they’ll put in the extra time, and spend the extra money, to find the products that will last longer. This not only translates to day-to-day things like clothing, phones, and cars, but “experience” purchases, like airfare and cocktails. Which brings us to…
• Millennials are far more likely spend on a new trip than a new car. Yes, we need cars to a point [more on that in a bit], but if we’re still in the no-kid zone, you better believe Millennials will generally live that up while they can. Whereas a car isn’t quite the status symbol it was, a 3-week, country-hopping trip to Southeast Asia via Delta Airlines sure is.
• Despite all that, Millennials are still having babies and buying homes. And again, as the largest purchasing demographic in history — also used to being in debt — that means we’ll absolutely be buying Kias, Chevys and Hondas, while we use every tool available to us online to find the best loan servicers for our car and home payments. After all, we still want to build equity… we’re just a little slower than the Boomers.

So why hire a Millennial voice over talent to voice your campaign?

Because you need someone who can authentically connect as a peer to your audience, living the same life as they are in real time.

It’s no secret that, unless it’s hyper-local, Millennials are far more likely to make their purchase from the comfort of their home [or smartphone]. But that also means we’re able to shop around for the best deals better than ever, with a whole host of apps at our disposal to send us notices of flash sales.

We just don’t go to brick-and-mortar stores as much. Part of it is the breadth of the Internet [“Whatever I want, I can find it just how I want it”] and part of it is convenience — where the mall replaced one hassle a generation ago by grouping stores together, now, we’ve got infinite stores to explore… often, in our pajamas, while bingeing “The Great British Baking Show.”

But you knew that already. So…

It means that traditional commercial placement is much more regimented, but has far more options. Cable and network TV will always be there, but now, we know we’re getting, say, four commercials in a standard show on Hulu. Or two commercials every four songs while streaming on Spotify. Or a 6-second pre-roll on YouTube before we watch a video of dachshund puppies or Russian bears playing hockey.

It also means that your voice over must connect that much more with the listener. If your voice talks over us/at us, you can bet we’re gonna tune it out ASAP. If you’re interrupting our “flow” — whatever that may be — we’re far more likely to hear you out if you interrupt us casually, than if you brazenly hawk whatever your latest & greatest is.

But, in turn, when we’re treated as we wish to be, Millennials show more brand loyalty than ever, and far more publicly. Granted, not everyone is an “influencer,” but we love buying and sharing things just as much as any generation before us. Sure, some people still use social media as a way to bash companies when they do wrong. But when they do things right, in terms of their goods and their mission — think American Giant, or Volkswagen — they get ravenous fans that follow them for life.

Millennials are little more select than Boomers and Gen X about our discretionary income, because we kind of have to be. But since our social status is so Internet-based [we can’t all be “living our best life all the time”], when we do spend, it’s on experiences over stuff. And when we do spend on stuff, we want it to last longer than MySpace did [R.I.P.]

Want to learn more about Millennials and voice over? Check out “What Is A Millennial?” for a great breakdown! No freelance voice over talent were harmed in the writing of this content.

And feel free to reach Maria or Ian anytime if you think their voices are the right ones for you!