Infographic: What Gen Z Wants From Brands

While marketers are busy strategizing how to engage the millennials of Generation Y, there’s a younger, more tapped-in audience of consumers they should be targeting: Gen Z—people aged seven to 17.

Some might choose to tackle the Gen Y demographic and wait on learning more about younger kids. Others might just group these audiences together and figure they’re killing two marketing birds with one stone. But Deep Focus’ latest Cassandra Report, Gen Y and Gen Z want very different things from brands, and now that people who are a part of Gen Z are making independent purchasing decisions, that distinction is very important.

It seems this generation is more tolerant of online advertising than its Y counterpart. Twenty-eight percent of Gen Z consumers want marketers to reach them with online ads compared to just 16 percent of millennials. Also, Gen Z prefers being sold a cool product (60 percent) over a cool experience (40 percent), while Gen Y prefers the opposite.

As Marketwired points out, Gen Z is more than twice as likely to respond to advertising that features “real people” as opposed to celebrities. This fits right in with the study’s finding that Gen Z’s favorite website is YouTube, where celebrities are often relatable people who share digital experiences with viewers and introduce them to new products. Meanwhile, Gen Y’s favorite website is Amazon.

As far as behavior is concerned, workplace author Alexandra Levit explains in The New York Times how Gen Z has separated itself from previous generations by prioritizing independence and eschewing tradition: “Gen Zers are growing up in a healthier economy and appear eager to be cut loose. They don’t wait for their parents to teach them things or tell them how to make decisions.” Similarly, Deep Focus found that 93 percent of parents surveyed said their teen and tween children have at least some influence on their family’s spending and household purchases.

As Deep Focus CMO Jamie Gutfreund said, “If, as a brand, you aren’t putting energy into understanding Gen Z, you are losing an opportunity to anticipate the future of consumer behavior.” Or, evidently, the present.

Check out the Deep Focus infographic below for more telling data about the generation gap.