13 December 2017
Madrid Headquarters
The retail CEO of El Corte Inglés, Víctor del Pozo and Mapfre president Antonio Huertas attended the presentation of the book on Z Generation written by Núria Villanova, President of ATREVIA and Iñaki Ortega, Manager of Deusto Business School: Todo lo que necesitas saber sobre los jóvenes que han dejado viejos a los millennials.
The book is a guide to understanding who these young people are and how they are different from previous generations. Dolors Montserrat, Minister of Health, Social Services and Equality and Antonio Huertas, President of Mapfre collaborated in this initiative. Also attending the presentation were Begoña Sese, Generación Z and CEO for a month in Adecco and Jordi Nadal, editor of the book and founder of Plataform Editorial.
Generation Z is formed by people born after 1994, almost 8 million, according to Spanish statistics and over 25% of the world’s population. And they are not halfway between analog and digital like their older siblings but are 100% digital natives because they have studied and socialised during a time when the Internet was fully developed.
The iGeneration
The book includes some of the conclusions from the quantitative and qualitative study conducted by ATREVIA and Deusto Business School- Generación Z. El dilemma-, studying the main characteristics of Z youth in detail: digital natives, entrepreneurs, committed, brand-aware and nonconformists.
If anything defines this generation, it is the so called 4 i's, which, together with the Internet, would be irreverent, inclusion, immediacy and instability. As Iñaki Ortega stated, “they are irreverent because they have no doubts about disagreeing with their parents, teachers or elders, partly because they are self-taught. Immediacy like the social media sites they frequent where everything is fast and fleeting. The collaborative economy and the diversity they advocate make them inclusive. The liquid world into which they were born, in the words of the philosopher Bauman, where nothing is stable and everything is changing makes instability their travelling companion since their birth during a full blown global crisis".
“They are beginning to leave universities and join the job market and claim their place in the world. They are the first generation to have included the Internet in the initial stages of their learning and socialisation and also the first whose personalities have been so clearly marked by the crisis. Thanks to the democratisation of the Internet, they have powerful instruments to change their environment or destiny", explained Núria Vilanova´.
As the book reveals, Z youth prefer to work and undertake new ventures freely. 36% of those responding to the survey would rather set up their own business or work on their own while only 20.8% would like to be civil servants. The main reasons for being self-employed are independence and autonomy, the chance to work in different fields and not having a boss. The key motivation to create a company is the opportunity to implement their own ideas.
They are critical and empowered consumers. Some 92% of these young people use the Internet on a regular basis to find out about the products they wish to purchase. They have a much more open view of the world, are easily influenced through the network and are always willing to hear what it has to say about subjects that interest them. They take a skeptical attitude. They question the input they receive about brands, compare the information via the Internet, look at other options and share opinions with their peers.
For Z people, a product is an experience, both in the purchase and use stages. They feel that the key point is feeling, awakening their emotions to share content on the network. The challenge facing brands is therefore personalising products to reach the “heart”. In this respect, more effective communication for brands will be those that convey the product’s emotional virtues in the Z’s language and codes.
