Entertaining the World - The Future of Entertainment and Media Through the Eyes of Gen Z
Written by Ella Desewu
Entertaining the world virtual event by Adweek on June 10th 2021 was an insightful conversation on the future of entertainment and media through the eyes of Gen Z. The talk highlighted cultural trends from this generation and spoke openly with members of Generation Z.
Interactive polls were used throughout the talk to get the audience involved and guess what percentages. A lot of other watchers in the comments were surprised by some of the results.
The three points of discussion were the three current global trends: the comfort of the familiar, connecting and community, and the demand to discover.
The findings discovered that 61% of Gen Z’s prefer entertainment that is just for fun / mindless; only 50-60% of subgroups within Gen Z agree that they are represented in the media and would like to see content that challenges social norms; they do not want to be labelled as basic and discover new music from social media such as Twitter, Instagram stories or TikTok. However, there is tension between new discovery and what is comforting and familiar.
The conversation expressed that Gen Z is also one of the reasons that brands are now held accountable when they do not interact with social issues or are not diverse, ethical etc. The panel discussed the fact that Gen Z are very socially conscious and trying to better themselves and the world around them.
Veronica Fabiani (Viacom CBS) discussed the idea of Gen-Z as a consumer enjoying the two-way interaction they can have from celebrities, brands and influencers on social media. However, they are hyper aware of apps that take more than they are given; for example, do not like advertisements that use their name and personal information that they hadn’t submitted, and also do not like ads that they have spoken about but haven’t physically searched for on a device. Gen Z prefer TV ads as they view this as part of the TV consumer experience and prefer the quality of the ads.
A quote that summarised the talk well was by Kelsey Kirpatrick (SXM Media) from the panel who said “it’s no longer a 50-year-old white guy in a suit telling you who the song of the summer is, it’s Gen Z”. The panel discussed how Gen Z is the reason so many artists came onto the mainstream music scene so quickly with examples of artists such as Doja Cat and Olivia Rodrigo who broke streaming records due to the way their songs were used on TikTok.