Editor’s note: Holly Carter is a product marketing director with market research firm Confirmit, New York.
Generation Z currently represents $143 billion in buying power and influences 93 percent of household spending. It’s no wonder marketing research professionals are shifting focus to better engage these hyper-digital, always-connected consumers.
When breaking down the ways in which Gen Z engages with today’s technology and devices, the key to garnering their feedback becomes clear: it’s all about the visuals. Gen Z grew up in the era of high-speed Internet, social media and technology at every touchpoint, so visuals are embedded in all aspects of their lives.
The impact of always-on smart technology has clearly shaped the attitudes and behaviors of the youth market, making it increasingly challenging to engage them in research activities. As an MR professional, it’s imperative to take the time to understand what Gen Z is looking for.
Here are four tips to help you make the most of your imagery to capture Gen Z’s attention.
1. Captivate your audience. It’s been said that people have a shorter attention span than a goldfish and Gen Z is no exception. Visuals, however, can help grab and hold their attention. Be liberal with your use of GIFs, memes and even infographics. If possible, multimedia should replace open-text answers, and give the option to have questions read aloud. You can even create a word cloud for respondents to engage with.
Another way to captivate this audience? Incentivize your feedback method. Make it feel like a game or offer a perk or discount and you’ll have a better chance of Gen Z putting in the time to complete a survey.
2. Be authentic. Gen Z spends a lot of time on social media, especially on visual-based platforms like Instagram. When conducting research with Gen Z, it’s important to mimic these platforms and create and use authentic visuals.
In general, Gen Z is easily able to identify ulterior motives and marketing ploys. The visuals designed for surveys should be unique so as not to blur with the many images they are exposed to each day. Be creative with your design to keep users engaged long enough to answer the question.
When creating a Gen Z-targeted survey, don’t be “basic.” Simply put, your survey should not be stereotypical or common. Find a way to stand out. Creating something truly authentic is a great way to do that. In addition, it’s important to never assume that the respondent is basic. Surveys should feed the ego a bit and call out how each respondent is an individual and not a stereotype.
Before introducing a visual to a survey, keep a checklist handy to ensure your visuals will be seen as authentic. Here are three quick tips:
- Use appealing, high-quality visuals.
- Words are important but visuals should also tell a story and provide context.
- Be sure that photos are relevant and relatable. Determine this by putting yourself in your audience’s shoes and deciding what’s important to them, what’s familiar, what they like and what they are drawn to.
3. Mobile, please. Mobile is where Gen Z spends most of their time and it’s no surprise that 98 percent of this group globally has a mobile phone. The key is to use the channels already heavily embedded in the generation’s psyche, making engagement a natural process rather than a forced event.
To succeed with Gen Z, we need to look at their current mobile behavior and mimic ideas from platforms that are successfully engaging with this group, such as Snapchat, YouTube and Instagram, all of which are captured from their mobile phones. In order to imitate their current mobile activity, surveys should offer rich media but give respondents the opportunity to take pictures and even record short videos that allow them to express their opinions, provide feedback and show how they use a product. Gen Z respondents tend to speak in photos and are not fans of tick boxes and radio bullet surveys. Allow them to do this on mobile!
With platforms such as Snapchat engaging groups socially, this creates an opportunity to leverage location to provide in-the-moment stories. For the generation that’s familiar with push notifications, you can ping their location and release an immediate opportunity for feedback.
4. Capture respondent emotion. Looking for an emotional reaction from Gen Z? Implement an ad test where the respondents watch a video advertisement and their reactions are recorded using a Webcam from their desktop. Here, researchers can capture an emotional reaction to the videos – even the micro emotions the respondent doesn’t really understand. Sometimes people can’t properly express their opinions in words but this technology can detect facial emotions and analyze sentiment, making it easy for professionals to gather the necessary data.
Facial expression recognition technology is beginning to deliver analysis without human observation bias. For example, emotion detection is being developed to detect feelings such as happiness, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, fear and contempt – all types of emotions that typically don’t come through in a survey. Learn how to utilize this technology within your standard survey to create context and depth of insight.
Shaping the future
Generation Z is becoming an important group of customers who will continue to shape the future as their purchasing power increases. As an MR professional, it’s imperative to understand how to get the attention of this generation and use their insights to generate real business change. The key is to use the channels already heavily embedded in the generation’s psyche, making engagement a natural process rather than a forced event.