BETA unblockers: Millennials are turning 40. They’re now B2B marketing’s key buyers – and they are making an entirely different set of decisions. A new global study from LinkedIn’s B2B Institute says 75 per cent of Australia’s professional workforce will be millennial “BETAs” by 2025. They’re B – blurring the work/home boundaries, E – evolving rapidly, T – tech natives, and A – activists in how they purchase. Marketers have been “obsessed” with this audience, Lara Brownlow, LinkedIn Australia’s head of agency and channel sales, but now they need to change tactics. Lucie Greene, a futurist, founder of Light Years and an author of the report, says influential BETAs will only buy relevant and aspirational brands. Words wont cut it, says Cisco ANZ director of marketing Ray Kloss – and if brands don’t walk the talk, they are probably toast. Samantha Cunliffe, managing director at Merkle’s DWA Media, says B2B branding has always been “a bit beige”. “Be bold. Don’t be beige.”

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