A theory about Millennials, repeated in enough meetings that it had stopped sounding like a theory.
Millennials were too young, not wealthy enough, and not ready for the brand. An assumption everyone had agreed to stop questioning, which is exactly why it was worth testing.
Every strategy team has a theory about its customer. This one had been stated so often it had quietly become a planning input: a whole cohort filed under “later”, with budget and positioning allocated accordingly.
Nobody had stopped long enough to ask it properly. The last time they had tried, the study took twelve weeks and landed after the decision was already made. What they needed was clarity before the next leadership conversation, not a perfect answer after it.
Millennials are not wealthy enough yet. Revisit the segment in a few years, once they have accumulated something worth managing.
They were more open to the brand than the team gave them credit for, and actively looking for exactly the kind of expertise the firm had spent years building.
This audience behaves differently from the firm’s existing client base, so the current approach would not simply carry over to them.
True, and now specific. The difference was not in what they wanted from an advisor. It was in how they expected to be spoken to before becoming one.
Something is keeping Millennials away, and it is most likely the product or the price point.
Neither. The gap was that nobody had made the case that this brand was built for them. A positioning problem, not a portfolio one, and a much cheaper one to fix.
This was not a segment to revisit in three years. It was an opportunity the firm was already sitting on.
The answer landed in a weekend, against the twelve weeks it had taken the last time they asked. Early enough to change the conversation it was commissioned for, rather than to explain it afterwards.
No lengthy brief required. If you know the assumption you’re betting on, that’s enough to start.