Understanding young consumers’ preferences isn’t a matter of curiosity. It’s smart business. The digital lives of Generations Y and Z are evolving quickly, and organizations need to move just as fast to follow the nuances of how these generations consume content, make purchases and think about privacy.
For media, communications, internet and over-the-top (OTT) companies, gaining insight into how young people live digitally has never been more strategic.
One reason is the numbers. In 2019, Generation Y (also called millennials) became the largest living generation in the U.S. Soon to outnumber them is Generation Z, the young consumers born between 1997 and 2012. Another reason is the combined spending power of Gen Y and Z. Morgan Stanley predicts a youth-boom economy in which the two outsized generations will fuel higher consumption, wages and housing demand, all pillars of GDP growth, from the 2020s through the 2040s.
What does this demographic powerhouse of Gen Y and Z — what we call “Generation Now” – want? How should they be served? To find the answers, we partnered with The Center for Generational Kinetics on groundbreaking research.
Part one of this three-part series explores how and why Gen Now will apply connectivity in all aspects of their lives. Part two will investigate how they’ll adopt new content forms over the next three to five years. Part three will examine the nuances of privacy and perceived value.