Report Overview
Fast Company asked more than 100 people—mostly members of Gen Z but also companies that have shown a facility for connecting with this cohort and researchers who have studied them—to share with us what they know about Gen Z that they don’t believe is widely understood, how to lead this generation as they enter the workforce, and how to speak to them as a marketer looking to reach the next generation of customers. You will hear directly from the best respondents, with their most thoughtful answers to your questions. Along the way, the experts we’ve curated here deliver scores of concrete ideas and frameworks for managing and selling to Gen Z.
Too many reports on Generation Z recycle the same ideas, or treat the generation as a monolith—or both! These first-person expressions transcend the tropes and will help you discern what’s true and what’s more complicated.
What you’ll learn from this report
- How to tap into Gen Z’s entrepreneurialism and make it work for your company
- The nine most common bits of conventional wisdom about Gen Z: What’s really true and what isn’t
- How Gen Z wants to be led
- Best practices on managing Gen Z
- Their ambition versus their “laziness”
- Gen Zers’ advice on how best to market to them
- How to sell to Gen Z—by not selling
- Three winning TikTok case studies
- Understanding Gen Z’s mental health
Executives interviewed
Some of the people you’ll hear from in this report include:
- Sejal Shah Miller, CMO, Converse
- Doug Martin, chief brand and disruptive growth officer, General Mills
- Tressie Lieberman, VP of digital marketing and off-premise, Chipotle
- Matt Klein, head of global foresight, Reddit
- Emma Chamberlain, founder, Chamberlain Coffee
- Andrew Yeung, global product lead, Google; creator, Andrew’s Mixers
- Jackie Berardo, researcher, Meta
- Nik Sharma, CEO, Sharma Brands
Introduction
This spring, a digital publication called The Ankler published a story titled, “Everyone Who Ran Hollywood Used to Be Young. What Happened?” It chronicled how a century of handing the reins to brash upstarts with a pulse on the culture (yes, mostly men, but not exclusively) had devolved into the last generation to ascend to power refusing to let go after decades at the helm. Around the same time, National Research Group did a survey asking people to identify up to five actors whose work would inspire them to go to a movie theater. The results also revealed a stark generational divide: The average age of the top 20 stars was almost 58, and only a handful of youngish stars even made the top 100.
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