Here comes the millennial bride

In addition to seeking out unique styles, millennials don't mind waiting to get exactly what they want and are more likely to value customer service over brand names when it comes to engagement rings. This engagement ring from Gottlieb & Sons can be crafted in 14- or 18-karat white or yellow gold, platinum or palladium.

By Michelle Graff

Aug 10, 2010

New York—Millennials, the 'Net Generation, Echo Boomers, Generation Y ... the nation's 20-something adults are part of a large generation to which numerous monikers have been applied. For jewelers, though, the singular summation is this: They are a group of consumers who are primed to have one big impact on the bridal market in the coming years.

Jewelers just need to understand how these young adults think. For example, individuals in this age group tend to reject items that they feel everybody else has and, raised in an age of Internet shopping, they are not averse to waiting if it means getting exactly what they want.

"These are the children of the baby boomers," says industry analyst Ken Gassman, who has given presentations on the millennials and the bridal market at industry trade shows throughout the year. "Call them what you want. We call them bridal customers."

All that is required to understand why this generation is going to be so important to retailers in the coming years is a brief history lesson and some simple math.

Gassman says that when it came time for the baby boomers, the giant-sized generation of Americans born between 1946 and 1964, to have children of their own they, quite logically, produced another large generation. Data from the National Center for Health Statistics gathered by Gassman shows that U.S. birth rates began to accelerate in the late 1970s, peaking at about 4 million in 1991 and mirroring the boom produced by their parents two generations ago.

While it may be hard for baby boomers to accept—after all it seems like only yesterday that they were heading to San Francisco with flowers in their hair—the time has come for their offspring to start popping the question and heading down the aisle.

Gassman says that while the dates assigned to the millennial generation vary, he has in his own research confined the range to those born between 1979 and 1998, meaning the eldest members of this generation are 31 and the youngest are just 12. Factor into this equation the fact that the average marrying age in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is 27.6 for men and 26 for women, and that adds up to a lot of potential engagement ring customers coming down the pike.

Like any generation, Gassman says the millennials' values differ from that of their parents. One key difference jewelers need to grasp is that this generation is not concerned about "keeping up with the Joneses." Instead of eyeing a 2-carat engagement ring just to one-up their best friend's 1-carat rock, millennials are more interested in having something that is uniquely their own.

"It's about custom," Gassman says. "What their neighbors think about their engagement ring is less important than what they think of their engagement ring. That's the exact opposite of boomers, who wanted to outdo each other."

Retailers need to up their selection of bridal jewelry, Gassman says, whether that means having a virtual selection that can be displayed on an in-store flat-screen TV or investing in "brass-and-glass" inventories from companies such as Unique Settings, Overnight Mountings or Gabriel & Co. Made of base metal and cubic zirconia, the pieces are stand-ins that let bridal consumers see samples before buying.

"The young consumers need to see a broad selection before they're willing to plunk their money down," Gassman says.

The next generation's desire for customization is not lost on Jerry Gottlieb, vice president of jewelry manufacturer Gottlieb & Sons.

Toward the end of 2009, Gottlieb decided to retool the marketing message driving his Cleveland-based company, which his father Saul started in 1949, right around the time the baby boom generation got its start. Gottlieb hired public relations expert Bill Daddi, of Daddi Brand Communications, to do some research on the current engagement ring market. The research mirrored what Gassman uncovered: that millennials strive for uniqueness.

The results were no big shock to Gottlieb, who has both professional and personal experience with this generation. At home, he's the father of three millennials, ages 26, 22 and 17.

Gottlieb says that over the past two or three years, he has noticed an uptick in the number of his retail partners who ask for slight alterations to the designs offered by Gottlieb & Sons.

"I see it in my kids, too," Gottlieb says of the millennials' penchant for custom-made. "The millennials want everything customized to their own lifestyle."

While the company has always had the ability to customize, Gottlieb says its new marketing program, "Wear Your Love Story," emphasizes this offering and provides retail partners with millennial-appropriate co-op billboard and magazine ads, as well as in-store sales material. The literature centers on sharing the engagement stories of fictional couples, such as a couple of four years that got engaged in Paris despite a sprained ankle and a nervous potential fiancé.

The idea: to engage viewers and get them thinking about how they can tell their own love story through an engagement ring from Gottlieb & Sons purchased at their local jewelry store.

Gottlieb stresses that his manufacturing company has no interest in selling directly to consumers.

"The consumer doesn't really know the brand," he says. "They know their local retailer. We're not interested at all in dealing with the consumer. We want to drive business to our retail partners."

Also on tap for the Love Story program is a Gottlieb & Sons Facebook page and Web site, both set to launch this fall, where consumers can log on and share their real-life love stories.

"The ring tells their story," Gottlieb says.

And, in the end, it seems, that very personal type of story is what really matters to the millennials. 


Let's stay together

Ken Gassman says that another trait of the millennial generation is a tendency to be family-oriented. He sees the divorce rate—which hit a high point in the 1980s—slowing down in the coming years. Though jewelers might miss out on the chance for second-time-around engagement rings, there will be more milestone anniversaries and life-cycle events, which can be celebrated with jewelry.

Below is a look at the divorce rate per 1,000 married U.S. women between 1960 and 2005.

1960 = 9.2%
1965 = 10.6%
1970 = 14.9%
1975 = 20.3%
1980 = 22.6%
1985 = 21.7%
1990 = 20.9%
1995 = 19.8%
2000 = 18.8%
2005 = 17.7%

Source: StatAbstract