Yahoo Finance Live anchors Jared Blikre, Seana Smith, and Pras Subramanian discuss a a new Morning Consult Survey that found Gen Z’s favorite social media apps and which movie franchise they like more than Marvel.
Video Transcript
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SEANA SMITH: Morning Consult was out with a survey looking into Gen Z, some of their interests. This time, particularly what they liked about their media tastes, and also their habits or favorite celebrities, relationships with brands, and more. Let’s start with one of the most surprising findings, and that’s that “Despicable Me” franchise is among the favorite here in Gen Z. A third of the Gen Zers surveyed, Pras, saw this in theaters. We know the importance of social media when it comes to Gen Z.
A big reason why so many Gen Zers went and saw this movie in particular in theaters was because of a trending hashtag, #GentleMinions. That trend on TikTok got over 61 million views. And for those of you out there that don’t know what it is, I did not know what it was, full disclosure, before reading this survey. But it was when people would film themselves dressed up in suits and sunglasses when they went into the theater. So that playing a significant role into why so many Gen Zers went and saw this movie, and the fact that it did pretty well at the box office.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Yeah, you know, I was looking at the age range for Gen Z, and I thought, this is kind of young for them to be into Minions. But I guess this Gentle Minions trend is what they’re really into. One thing that caught my eye was, of course, stuff like YouTube coverage or YouTube usage. We saw that YouTube ad spending was down just a tad last quarter, and people were concerned about that. But I’ve got to say, if Gen Z is so heavily involved with stuff like YouTube to the point that it’s blowing away stuff like TikTok, I think it’s a positive for Google, right? I mean, it has to be, in my opinion.
JARED BLIKRE: I had to look up this Minions bit too. So I can dress up in sunglasses and enter–
SEANA SMITH: You basically go in what you’re wearing right now. Just throw on the sunglasses–
JARED BLIKRE: Thank you.
SEANA SMITH: –and you’re perfect.
JARED BLIKRE: That’s what I wanted to clarify. Because I am a “Despicable Me” fan, but I didn’t realize there were these super fans who had one up on me. So I’m just–
SEANA SMITH: A missed opportunity, Jared.
JARED BLIKRE: I know. I’m going to be reborn as a Gen Z. Is it too late for that? Maybe.
SEANA SMITH: No. You know, well, you can get in, you can do what the kids are doing these days. But, Pras, to your point, YouTube being a top destination here for Gen Zers, I was so shocked that it blew away Instagram and, more importantly, TikTok and Snapchat, the fact that Snapchat and TikTok were essentially the same here just in terms of the most used social platforms.
It really speaks to the fact that if brands want to be successful, at least when it comes to Gen Z, they need an online presence. And they need to really be capitalizing on that because that’s where a lot of Gen Zers figure out what’s coming out in terms of the media industry and why they are making the decisions that they are making when it comes to brands.
JARED BLIKRE: Can we put that back up, Gen Z’s most used social platforms? Because I think when a lot of people think YouTube, they’re not thinking Alphabet Google. Google has a huge stranglehold in terms of YouTube that has not even been fully monetized yet. I just think there’s incredible opportunities there.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: I’m sorry, [INAUDIBLE]. One thing that kind of caught my eye was, like, the Piper Jaffray, Piper Sandler teen survey, Snapchat usually the top platform, right? So I’m kind of surprised to see that. Well, Instagram not surprised, but YouTube and then TikTok actually below that. So that’s a little bit surprising to me.
But I’m not– I’m not shocked that Gen Z people are into short-form content, short-form video. We see YouTube doing that now, pushing– I mean, I’ve seen my YouTube feed pushing a lot of short-term videos. So I think that’s where the industry is headed. And why not? Because these young users you want to kind of court now so you have those kind of buying habits or consuming habits going forward after that.
SEANA SMITH: Yeah, that jumped out to me, something that I am totally on board with. They said Gen Zers, most of them wanted their TV episodes to be 45 minutes or less, their movies to be between two and 2 and 1/2 hours. To me, it makes a lot of sense. They value their time. They don’t want to be sitting there for a long period of time. You know, I’ve always struggled with the–
JARED BLIKRE: What about a good night’s–
SEANA SMITH: –longer movies. And that maybe is one of the things that’s kept me from the movie theaters for so long. So I am on board with Gen Z when it comes to shorter TV episodes and shorter movies.
JARED BLIKRE: And I don’t know where the coffee breaks and anything work related fits in there. However, I would say that in terms of my Gen X habits, I’m probably going to stick with some of the longer form stuff here.
SEANA SMITH: All right.
JARED BLIKRE: Just me.
PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: All right, guys, we’ll have to come back to that conversation later.
