QUIRKY MILLENNIALS MORE TRADITIONAL THAN BOOMERS IN THE KITCHEN

Millennials are traditionalists, but more traditional than their parents?? Who knew?? According to a recent AIM survey, Millennials are at least more traditional in their kitchen preferences than their Baby Boomer parents. 50% of Millennials prefer "Old School" (Traditional and Country), while only 36% of Boomers prefer this type of design for the kitchen. On the other hand, only 25% of Millennials prefer "New Age" (Contemporary and Modern) compared to 44% of Boomers.

This might account for the growing popularity among young people of retro-look kitchen products such as Big Chill refrigerators, Dualit toasters, Lodge cast iron cookware and Fiesta dinnerware. "Quirky" is the word many Millennials use to describe their design preferences and many young women cite New Girl's Zooey Deschanel as their design inspiration, even for the kitchen.

Amanda, a 27-year-old engineer from Silicon Valley, told AIM, "I want my kitchen to run with the efficiency of the Maglev train in Shanghai, but I don't want it to look like that. I love soft edges and warm colors like red and yellow. And I really love things that have a story behind them." Another Millennial, Joe, a 24-year-old pharmaceutical sales person from New Jersey, added, "My mom's kitchen is way too cold and sleek for my tastes. I like the layout, but she has way too much granite and stainless steel for my tastes. She needs to warm it up with color and more traditional furniture."

[21% of Millennials and 19% of Boomers selected Ecletic or Mixed.]

Amateur 26-year-old Filmmaker's Ad "Wins" at Super Bowl

According to Yahoo Auto, Zach Borst, a 26-year-old filmmaker from Long Island, N.Y., wrote, produced and assembled a one-minute ad about a graduate getting a Chevrolet Camaro as a gift for a Chevrolet competition. When you see it, you'll realize why Chevy picked it to air in the upcoming Super Bowl to an audience of 110 million people.

Borst may be a homegrown filmmaker, but he's no neophyte -- he's been shooting video since he was seven, and has several quality commercials online. He'd also won a previous Chevrolet competition at the Tribeca film festival; knowing what the client wants does usually help in advertising. For the "Happy Grad" ad, Borst used friends for actors, camera help and locations.

"Happy Grad" -- filmed by Borst and company in four hours -- beat out 198 other video submissions and 400 scripts in the contest. To air, Chevy will spend at least $3.5 million for 30 seconds of air time.

AIM post-game research found that this ad ranked in the top ten among 300 Millennials surveyed. Nice job, Zach!

Millennials Learn About Kitchen Products Online

Sixty-one percent of Millennials learn about kitchen products on the Internet (versus 37% who learn at retail stores and 29% from either their parents OR from friends/siblings, the number two, three and four choices.) Only 9%, however, learn about kitchen products from Internet Social Media sites such as Facebook, Twitter or blogs. Millennials tell AIM that their favorite online sources for kitchen information are sites with customer ratings such as Amazon, Epinion and general information on search engines such as Google.

"MILLENNIALS At HOME in the Kitchen" - a comprehensive portrait of young people and their cooking/kitchen behavior - will be published by Albing International Marketing in April 2012. See Robin Albing and Whitney Ryan preview the study at the International Home and Housewares Show in Chicago on March 12th at 12:30 pm. For details, call (908) 788-5411 or email ralbing@albing.com.