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 platforms 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 thus 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: