What are the Key Characteristics of GenZ?
Top 10 ways GenZ really are special.
While you can only take generational marketing so far, with the pace of technology today, I’m a big believer that “GenZ”, those born after 1995- and those young people today born generally in the 90s with the internet are indeed, different.
They witnessed their siblings and parents coping with the 2008 economic depression. They grew up on mobile. They are early adopters of:
- Voice technologies such as Alexa and Google Assistant
- YouTube and Instagram Stories
- Video creations, vlogging and digital entrepreneurship
Building the fashion and social commerce app for teens YEAY, I’ve also learned a lot about the creativity, resilience and pragmatism of how young people turn their personal brands into business opportunities.
Viral teen app musical.ly recently merged into Tik Tok. Many of the top performers and personal brands on Musical.ly were being pursued and promoted by retail brands for their incredible reach. The attention ecosystems of young people are changing as digital itself evolves.
This generation of mobile video creators, “GenZ”, is tethered with how apps are evolving. Their preferences are shaping new ecosystems and digital economies, as well as impacting retail (the oldest of GenZ are 23 years old) that motivated us to build the WOM Token.
GenZ Traits
- Ad-Immunity: Generation Z has built a reputation as hard-to-reach consumers. Ad-blockers, shorter attention spans - this is real.
2. Video Natives: GenZ have fled feeds for stories, Facebook for YouTube, and prefer watching a video to reading a blog or checking an Email.
3. Planetary Evangelists: GenZ appear to have a high regard for inclusion, decentralization, online privacy, corporate social responsibility, sustainability, well-being, human rights and the importance of ethics in business.
4. Influence on Family Spending: GenZ are known for their interest in shopping, E-commerce and have a big say on family spending decisions.
5. P2P: This is a generation that uses P2P payments such as Venmo, collaborate in gaming, and grew up with peer-to-peer apps such as Snapchat.
6. Crypto-Friendly: GenZ with higher student loans and faced with higher costs of living are open to crypto investing and the possibility of what token economies could become.
7. Personal Branders: GenZ show a lot of initiative nurturing, maintaining and utilizing their online presence to their advantage, whether that be on Instagram, Twitch, YouTube or other platforms and apps.
8. Self-Learners: GenZ have the ability to teach themselves whether this be coding, gaming or becoming early entrepreneurs, they tend to be self-reliant, highly educated and pragmatic.
9. Video Streamers: GenZ aren’t into TV the way other generations were. Only 45% of Gen Zers watch cable TV on a television (Vision Critical). This bodes well for Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Disney and Apple.
10. Digital Adaptives: GenZ are “digital adaptives” since they embrace apps, E-commerce and AI (like voice) more easily than some of their older relatives. This can allow them to be more open-minded when it comes to blockchain, the next apps and AR/VR evolutions.
GenZ know exactly the kind of world they are inheriting, and are uniquely defined and influenced by mobile apps and video content, more than any other generation before them.
For retail brands, marketers and advertisers — it’s important to understand your audience to ensure that you are speaking with them, and not to them.
The following video provides a fresh and insightful look at this exciting generation.
