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Insights
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April 2025

Generation Zeitgeist - Taking the Social Pulse of Gen Z

Gen Z Insights

By Gareth Price, Global Audience Marketing


The marketing industry's preoccupation with Gen Z may be a cliché, but it's also rooted in reality.

According to UN data, Gen Z makes up around a third of the world’s population and, in the USA, the average 25-year-old has an annual household income more than 50% higher than baby boomers at the same age1.

So, not only do Gen Z represent the next generation of consumers, many are here and ready to buy today.

As the first generation to have grown up on the user-generated web, Gen Z naturally turns to social media and messaging apps to connect with family and friends. It also shapes their experience of culture and is increasingly where they look to shop too.

As we see in the wider shift to short-form video consumption, Gen Z can be a harbinger of usage for older generations too.

In order to help marketers understand how to connect, leverage culture, and drive commerce with this key demographic, we partnered with BAMM Global to explore the social media habits and motivations of 18- to 24-year-olds in Brazil, Germany, Japan, the UK, and the USA via a mix of qualitative and quantitative research.

This is what we found:

1. Connection Evolved - Content is the New Hello

“I scroll through Reels and then send them to my friends and then we comment on them.” - Lucca, USA

67% have shared video content from Meta with friends and family

Across the animal world, ‘pebbling’ is the term used to describe the act of offering small, meaningful objects or gestures to establish social bonds. For Gen Z, content provides today’s pebbles.

Sharing videos and memes has become a love language - an intimate gift for Gen Z to send loved ones throughout the day, letting them know they care. 67% have shared video content from Facebook or Instagram with family and friends2.

By leading with content that conveys their mood, Gen Z are able to start conversations in a more ambiguous and risk-averse way; avoiding sharing more direct, explicit perspectives.

Perpetually seeking videos and memes that reflect their personal feelings in any given moment has invariably reshaped their relationship with content, and Gen Z has a more intimate connection with it in social media as a result.

Gen Z also shift between apps based on mood, context, and intent; moving fluidly between each and the different formats within them. This includes code-switching into the 'language' of the app, even with the same person in different places.

As Laurel told us: “I could be talking to one person at the same time on three different apps with three completely different conversations. We could be talking on Instagram about Post Malone that my best friend sent me. On iMessage, we're talking about how we need to do better in life and on WhatsApp, we're talking about how her ex did something.”

Putting this into action

Brands must tailor their approach to content creation accordingly. Look for ways to break down the fourth wall through one-to-one conversations that bring the camera closer to subjects.

Prioritizing human connection delivers for brands too. CreativeX and Kantar's data reveals that Meta ads featuring a single human or eye contact achieve 81% higher effectiveness on the latter's LIFT ROI modeling3.

As Gen Z moves fluidly between modes of communication and identities, reaching them on different formats across different apps also becomes increasingly important.

Facebook plus Instagram delivers incremental Gen Z reach across every market BAMM examined. While a Nielsen custom MMM meta-analysis commissioned by Meta found placement optimization boosts effectiveness by an average of 20%4.

So it’s essential to maximize impact by embracing automation across both apps AND advertising formats (6+ placements).

2. Culture Curated - Fast & Furious (& Micro) Appetite for Video

“I enjoy watching workout videos, videos on self care, videos that inspire me to be a better person, videos that are focused on positivity and not negativity, videos that talk about motivation, videos that talk about discipline, videos that talk about creating a better life for yourself. Videos that talk about showing up as one's best self, self care videos, self help videos, positive motivation videos, to random funny videos.” - Laurel, USA

11.6 average no. of SFV benefits on Meta's platforms

Personal passions shape Gen Z culture, with a shift away from mass trends and broad, mainstream content, to favoring more niche, individual, and interest-driven engagement.

Gen Z's conscious curation of feeds ties to this atomization and multiplication of culture. They want to ensure what they see is most relevant to them and their particular needs. 63% of Gen Z say they actively curate their Facebook and/or Instagram feeds to be exposed to relevant content, feel more in control, and ensure their time is spent more purposefully5.

Raised on short-form video, Gen Z is used to diving into any niche that feels relevant to them. Take sports fans. They don’t just want to watch live matches, they crave snackable content from teams, players, leagues, experts, and even other fans. And they expect to see fresh content from those different perspectives added to their feeds throughout the day.

Short-form video also acts as a qualitative search engine Gen Z uses to make decisions about their lives. It’s where they go to look for everything from recipe ideas to investment tips to travel inspiration. 81% of Instagram users told us they use it for self-development, from picking up new skills to learning about finances and nutrition6.

Micro-creators, with their niche expertise and focus, create much of the short-form video that Gen Z watches today. As Max highlighted, they want to hear from "creators [that are] actually adding something to [their] life"; explaining that "a lot of the nutritional accounts that I follow actually educate me and teach me useful things."

They don’t necessarily need to follow these creators either because relevant content will increasingly show up in their feeds regardless. 71% told us they are open to hearing from niche content creators they don’t follow7.

Putting this into action

With Gen Z ‘training the algorithm’ to tailor it to their specific interests and needs, brand communication shifts towards smaller wins rather than large statements.

This generation has come to expect greater relevance in the content they see. That requires brands to embrace creative diversity in placement (from Reels to Stories to Feed), messaging (highlighting multiple benefits and showcasing different usage occasions), and the look of assets (ensuring it’s consistently branded but visibly differentiated at a glance).

Marketers should aim to create a system of ideas that can come to life in a multitude of ways, rather than a narrow, singular creative concept that struggles to stretch to different mediums and messages.

That includes diversity in the voices bringing those ideas to life too.

Partnering with craft creators and boosting their content to a wider audience via partnership ads is an effective way to achieve this and one that resonates with Gen Z. 94% say they like creators that use advanced technical skills8.

Craft creators can take something as simple as a pack and communicate it in such a visually dynamic and arresting way that it stops Gen Z’s scrolling thumbs in their tracks.

3. Commerce Expanded - Always On Discovery

“If I see a cool product on Instagram but I’m not sure I want to buy it just yet, I’ll save it to my bookmarks while I have time to think and mull it over. Then around Christmas time or my birthday, if I'm looking for ideas of what to ask for, I’ll come back and look here.” - Finlay, UK

67pc of GenZ want to find out more about a brand...

Brand and product discovery is now integrated into Gen Z's social media consumption in a seamless and non-disruptive way.

AI-driven recommendations, short-form video, and creator content are reshaping how Gen Z finds and connects with brands, making discovery a welcome part of their online experience. 73% believe active curation leads to more relevant advertising and - across all formats available in social media - 78% say they are most likely to discover new products or brands in video9.

In an environment in which discovery is welcomed, Gen Z naturally incorporates shopping behaviors into their social media habits. They are almost always in “consideration” mode, rendering the old divide between in-market and out-of-market obsolete.

Any brand with a product that’s seamlessly available for purchase online has the potential to pull people who aren’t in-market at that moment into one.

And post-purchase, speed of response is essential too. The mobile environment is one of immediacy, where quick replies are the norm. Nearly 6 in 10 worry about getting a slow response when messaging a business directly, while 71% say they have no issue receiving an AI-generated reply10.

Gen Z are more concerned with achieving the quickest resolution possible, regardless of how it's delivered. Better AI assistants will increasingly offer the simplest, fastest way to achieve this.

Putting this into action

In this environment of fast scrolling and recommended content, repeat exposure becomes more critical. 67% say they want to find out more about a brand or purchase a product if they have seen content or advertising for it several times on Meta11.

That means frequency takes on even more importance. Optimizing for aggregate attention is integral to effectiveness, with multiple brand touchpoints building memories through volume and increasing purchase intent through variety.

According to a Nielsen custom MMM meta-analysis commissioned by Meta, frequency optimization boosts effectiveness by an average of 15%, with a minimum of 1-1.5x weekly frequency recommended12.

Lastly, Gen Z are not averse to commercial messaging and are sophisticated when it comes to the rules of engagement. So begin testing AI assistants for the faster response times they demand.

Navigating the Now with Gen Z

taking the social pulse of GenZ

Engaging Gen Z requires a nuanced approach that incorporates their changing social media behaviors and preferences.

As connection evolves, brands should embrace eye contact and human presence in creative to deliver the intimacy this generation expects in content. And adopt liquidity across Meta's apps and placements to reflect the more fluid way they move between apps and formats today.

When it comes to culture - and the more specific and self-interested way they curate it - leverage creative diversity to reflect those individual tastes. And partner with craft creators to tell your brand’s stories in newer, more innovative ways too.

Finally, when it comes to driving purchase - in an environment in which commerce and discovery is expanding across the social environment - build for aggregate attention across multiple touchpoints, including incorporating Reels for product launches. And install Meta’s Conversion API to show your ads to those more likely to find them relevant and find that wider audience that might be interested in buying, rather than narrowing in on those actively looking to buy right now.

Ultimately, modern marketers must grasp the opportunity to build the connection between their brands and Gen Z through ideas that originate from culture - in all its multitudes, richness, and complexity - to both create memories and convert them into action. In the process, breaking down the false binaries between brand versus performance and in- versus out-of-market; and moving away from centralized ideas that don’t allow for flexibility and diversity in messaging and voice.

Sources

  1. The Economist, Generation Z is unprecedentedly rich, 16 April 2024.
  2. BAMM quant research, Q1 2025, Global (BR, DE, JP, UK & US), n = 1,519.
  3. Kantar ran 5 LIFT ROI studies for US, Canada, Germany, France, and Thailand markets, analyzing campaigns and creatives aired in calendar Years 2021-2023: 56,984 creatives, 1,295 campaigns and 13.1 billion impressions. Adoption rate is the percentage of total campaigns where a feature is present.
  4. Nielsen custom MMM meta-analysis commissioned by Meta, "Global CPG Execution Best Practices To Maximize Meta Performance, Nielsen Metrics That Matter", 119 CPG brands, 2019–2021.
  5. BAMM quant research, Q1 2025, Global (BR, DE, JP, UK & US), n = 1,519.
  6. BAMM quant research, Q1 2025, Global (BR, DE, JP, UK & US), n = 1,519.
  7. BAMM quant research, Q1 2025, Global (BR, DE, JP, UK & US), n = 1,519.
  8. BAMM quant research, Q1 2025, Global (BR, DE, JP, UK & US), n = 1,519.
  9. BAMM quant research, Q1 2025, Global (BR, DE, JP, UK & US), n = 1,519.
  10. BAMM quant research, Q1 2025, Global (BR, DE, JP, UK & US), n = 1,519.
  11. BAMM quant research, Q1 2025, Global (BR, DE, JP, UK & US), n = 1,519.
  12. Nielsen custom MMM meta-analysis commissioned by Meta, "Global CPG Execution Best Practices To Maximize Meta Performance, Nielsen Metrics That Matter", 119 CPG brands, 2019–2021.