Millennial users — along with Gen Z (born after 1998), for that matter — can be a little hard to predict when it comes to finding an effective advertising program. Yesterday, we posted an article that got more into the minds of millennials. Today, we’re following up with a report posted over at AdWeek, which breaks down just what these types of audiences are seeking from brands.
The latest edition of a Cassandra report by Deep Focus indicates that millennials find email marketing to be acceptable compared to the Gen Z audience. That said, Gen Z believes that online advertising is a more tolerable practice.
28 percent of Gen Z consumers polled by the company indicated that they prefer marketers to reach them through online ads, while only 16 percent of millennials feel the same way.
Jamie Gutfreund, CMO of Deep Focus, indicated that brands that don’t pay attention to the growing Gen Z audience “are losing an opportunity to anticipate the future of consumer behavior,” despite how different they may be from millennials.
The survey actually spoke with over 900 Gen Z consumers, between the ages of seven and 17, along with 500 of their parents, while the millennials consisted of age groups between 18 and 34 years old. As a result, a large infographic was compiled, which you can find below.
The numbers are broken down below, but here are some basic stats reported from the survey . . .
60 percent of those in Gen Z believe a cool product would be better over a cool experience. Meanwhile, 77 percent of those in the millennials group feel that a cool experience would actually be better than product. That’s an interesting reversal.
As far as outreach, millennials prefer email over other forms of contact, with 43 percent over social media’s 29 percent and online ads taking 16 percent. Meanwhile, Gen Z prefers social media by 34 percent, just a nudge over email’s 33 percent.
Favorite websites were a stark difference between the two groups. While millennials prefer the ease of use with Amazon.com, Gen Z feels that watching videos via YouTube is the cool way to go.
Then there’s ad preference, in which both millennials and Gen Z report low numbers when it comes to ads that feature celebrities and athletes. Millennials report 20 percent preference, while Gen Z is a little higher at 27 percent. Meanwhile, ads creating an emotional connection fared a little higher, with 31 percent of millennials preferring them, compared to 20 percent of Gen Z.