If you follow the western business press, you would have surely noticed that the so called "millennial generation" is gutting lots and lots of businesses hard-working folks have built with years of sweat. They have peculiar purchasing habits, lifestyles and preferences and with these they are supposedly decimating whole industries. It was not long ago when the CEO of the American casual dining restaurant chain "Buffalo Wild Wings" blamed the millennial's for dwindling fortunes of her company. She wrote to shareholders saying;
"Millennial consumers are more attracted than their elders to cooking at home, ordering delivery from restaurants and eating quickly, in fast-casual or quick-serve restaurants," Smith wrote. "Mall traffic has slowed. And, surprisingly, television viewership of sporting events (important for us, especially) is down."
According to news coming from the west, it is not just Buffalo Wild Wings that is in trouble, but similar casual dining chains such as TGI Fridays, Ruby Tuesday and Applebee are also in trouble. As per the "enlightened" western business press and harried CEO's, and marketing bosses, some of the industries and products millennial are gutting right now are;
Casual Chain Restaurant
Homeownership
Movie Theatres
Cable TV
Cereal
Paper Napkins (yes paper napkins... and hopefully not toilet paper)
Golf
Vacations
Beer
Wine
Motorcycles
Department Stores
Insurance
Actually, the list is lot longer and includes relationships!! I didn't know that relationships are an industry....except may be around Valentines Day.
Most of this can be attributed to journalistic hyperbole. However, there seems to be a genuine trend of certain industries declining due to their inability to attract the millennial generation.
So... that is in the West, How about Sri Lanka? Are our millennials killing anything?
As usual with many trends Sri Lankan, there are no accessible research data or hard facts. I am sure the data is available; locked up in hard-drives of market research companies like Nielsen or with top Sri Lankan FMCG companies and organised retailers, but sadly, very few hard facts are shared in this country about anything. Which means, the substance in this article is based on casual observation and not on hard data.
Let us look at a few industries and trends that Sri Lankan millennials can be accused of killing;
1] KADE (CORNER SHOP / MOM & POP SHOP)
With Cargills, Keells, Laufgs and Arpico battling it out and Softlogic entering the fray soon, days of small corner-shops are numbered. Unlike their parents, millennial crowd are a lot more comfortable with using credit / debit cards. They are more mobile with small cars and bikes and forever pressed for time. Hence the millennial crowd would prefer to pass many small kade's and walk/ride/drive into the nearest Cargills or Keells.
2] HOME COOKING
This trend is a reverse from the west where many millennials prefer home cooked food either due to health concerns or due to economic factors.
Many Sri Lankan millennials are having at least two meals and some even all three meals from outside. With high focus on careers and higher education, enjoyment of life rather than kitchen-chores, coupled with rising income; home cooking - at least until they start a family - is not the favorite way of filling up for millennials.
3] TRADITIONAL MUSIC BUSINESS
The traditional music business where an artist would produce a CD is gone forever in this country. Thanks to rampant copyright violations and YouTube, artists cannot make money by selling their music on a CD any more. They now have YouTube channels and social media pages which they monetize using adverts. They have deals with TVs and Radio stations. They make money on concerts and events. Ringtones and selling jingles to advertisers is a big business too. Some musicians have become successful TV presenters and reality TV stars.
4] TRADITIONAL EATERY (SINHALA BATH KADE a.k.a "hotel")
There was a time, when Colombo had hundreds of traditional eateries called bath kades. They most often called themselves "hotel" even-though they were just eateries serving traditional fair like rice and curry and pain-tea.
If you have noticed, they are disappearing fast and being replaced by more modern Sri Lankan style "pastry shops" (Sri Lankan term for modern bakery shop) and self-service outlets selling fried-rice, biryani and of course rice and curry.
Reason? probably because Millennials don't like to eat in dingy, not-so-clean traditional eateries staffed by equally disheveled waiters (who does anyway?) With higher purchasing power and greater willingness to spend compared to their thriftier parents, millennials prefer slightly higher priced, but modern, clean, well presented "pastry shops" like The Fab, Caravan, P & S. When they started flourishing and began a massive expansion (specially P & S and Fab) a million copycats followed the trend.
5] TRADITIONAL TV CHANNELS
Yes yes yes. Terrestrial channels in Sri Lanka are hopeless and many millennials are moving away. Even-though the housewives and 50+ still spend a lot of time watching TV, Millennials spend a most of their time online, getting their entertainment and news from online videos, Facebook and other social media. The other prefer paid for TV such as Dialog or Peo.
Writing is on the wall for traditional TV industry in Sri Lanka and this self-serving, self-righteous, holier-than-thou lot who make their money & ratings on misfortunes of other people truly deserve it.
6] SUGARY SODAS
Sorry Elephant House, its not the sugar tax. Millennials, especially the younger ones seem to prefer flavoured milk, ready-to-drink fruit juices and water compared with sugary sodas such as all time national favorite Cream Soda, Coke, Sprite or 7UP.
Sri Lankan millennial consume these even when their sugar content is high due to changing preferences and lifestyles. The main reason is healthy goodness associated with milk and fruit juices. Sugar becomes a concern after 40 and usually not before that.
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