Take 2 Ls and 2 Ns and Call Me In the Morning

Three times in the past week – three times! – I saw the word “millennial” misspelled. Two of those misspellings were in high-profile presentations in front of large audiences, one in a big-city newspaper. The first time I saw it I thought, well, tsk, tsk, tut, tut, blah-bi-di-blah-blah-blah. The second time I saw it I just rolled my eyes (hopefully no one saw that). But the third time? I - quite publicly - spit up my orange juice (it was at a breakfast thingee). As marketers we talk to one another a lot about millennials, those coveted, bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed media savvy children of the Baby Boomers – Millennials, please buy our stuff! – but we risk coming off like old fogies if we can’t at least spell their generational moniker right. Yes, millennial is a long word and includes a lot of consonants that all look alike. But come on, it’s not a hard word to spell. M-i-l-l-e-n-n-i-a-l. Two Ls, two Ns. Easy.

Comments

[Brett Hummel]

I definitely agree with your point about misspelling Millennials; actually spell checker still says that Millennials is not a word, hopefully they fix that soon.

Anyway, I was wondering your thoughts on whether you think this generation will stay as a single market or you think the old idea of generational labeling is a thing of the past, and will be comprised of many micro markets?