Remember the Millennials? Well, forget them. The hottest new marketing segment arbitrarily defined by the decade of their birth is "Generation Z" - one presumes the following generation will be refered to as "Generation AA"- which now has the attention of marketers everywhere hoping that broad appeals to demographic age groups will somehow set them apart. The latest study of Gen Z comes courtesy of the National Retail Federation and IBM - and as we are nothing if not completely willing to jump on the bandwagon of any marketing trend as long as it gets us clicks and retweets, please allow us to share it with you.For our purposes, the report "Uniquely Gen Z" provides a comprehensive look at these digital natives - Wikipedia unhelpfully defines them by stating: "There are no precise dates for when the Gen Z cohort starts or ends; demographers and researchers typically use starting birth years that range from the mid-1990s to early 2000s, and as of yet there is little consensus about ending birth years" - through a survey of over 15,000 Gen-Zers on six continents. For our purposes, here are some key responses on brand loyalty:
- Quality matters most: Gen-Z rates product quality, popularity, and social responsibility as the top three attributes that make them loyal to a brand.
- Availability, value and experience: When evaluating brands, Gen-Zers rate product availability, value in the form of rewards and discounts, and store experience as the top factors influencing their purchase decisions.
- Willing to share: 62 percent of Gen-Zers are willing to share their purchase history with brands.
- They still like stores: 98 percent of Gen-Zers make their purchases in stores, and 67 percent prefer shopping in stores over shopping online. That said, the report notes that this behavior may be due to their lack of credit card access.
For those of you who want to learn more about the next generation we'll be talking about until they age out the youth segment, there's lots more chocolately goodness; you can find it here.