I’m not sure if the golf industry has looked hard at this generation,
but if so, I haven’t seen it. There was
an interesting panel discussion on Millennials at the PGA Show but I’d argue
that capturing Gen Z is even more important.
Why? Because amidst
all the talk about growing the game, a critical component of any growth
strategy needs to focus on inclusion paths for these folks who are 0-18 years
old. This will not be easy. The reality is that they think much
differently than the Baby Boomers who mostly control the golf industry, and
they’re even quite different from someone like myself who walks the line between
being a Gen X’er and Millennial. These
are folks who were born into an Internet/smartphone/social media world and this has widespread effects on their sense of identity and approach to life (i.e. consumer behavior).
Therefore, I wanted to pass along the many notes I took
during the TIA seminar. I hope you find
them useful.
Gen Z Notes – 2.11.14
Overview:
-
Born 1995-Present, encompasses all kids in high
school and younger
-
23 Million in U.S. but growing rapidly… expected
to surpass Millennials in sheer population, which is amazing considering Millennials
blew away their predecessors (Gen X) by 71 million to 41 million
-
Highly inactive – 30% of kids in U.S. are obese,
50% are overweight
-
50% of youth don’t associate sports with their
identities, and 70% drop out of sports altogether by the age of 13
-
They’re accustomed to “relationship parenting”
which leads to ambivalence towards authority but also a family-first mentality
-
They have powerful control over their parents’
spending habits
-
They’re much more motivated by achievement than
money – e.g. would rather make $30k/year and do something meaningful to them
than make $60k doing something they felt was meaningless
-
With their lives on display for the world to
see, they have a hard time developing their ethos from within and rely heavily
on third party sources for personal identity generation
-
They are captivated by great stories
-
Their social graph is not much different than
their elders, it’s just that everything is now done online – their Instagram =
our photo album, their Spotify = our mixed tapes, their Tubmlr = our diary,
etc.
-
Their time is precious and highly defragmented –
e.g. while a Gen X’er may look at a Gen Z who has sat on the couch for an hour
and wonder “how can they be so lazy?,” the Gen Z’er has been super busy in their mind having
watched videos on Vine, uploaded photos to Instagram, played a few games,
texted their friends, etc.
How to connect/engage with a Gen Z’er:
-
Be authentic – while they have a global view,
they care about local impact
-
Provide shared experiences – they want something
to talk about
-
Provide instant gratification – they want you to
get to the point and provide immediate feedback
-
Build a community for them – they want to feel
like they’re part of something big
-
Inspire them – they want to feel good about
themselves
How to win them over:
- Provide flexible scheduling – they’re busy and
want options
-
Provide structure and constant rewards – they
need structure (like all kids do regardless of generation) and they crave
immediate feedback
-
Accept their authority indifference – use it to your advantage by empowering them with leadership opportunities
-
Let them rule, optimize and filter – we
establish the environment but they want to control the activities, so let them
-
Accept that they can tweet Obama – i.e. they see
everyone and everything as being connected and at their fingertips
------
At TGA, all of our 250,000 participants are members of Gen Z
so this information is very relevant to us.
From a programming standpoint, I think we do a good job of
engaging these individuals as all of our programs implement a birdie/bogey
ticketing system to provide immediate feedback and rewards, our staff are all
trained to setup and control a specific class environment but then let students determine different station activities and games, we empower our upper
level students with leadership roles, we have several online and social
interactions, and more.
From a branding standpoint, however, I think we have room
for growth. Some of our projects in 2014
include conducting heavy consumer research, reviewing and re-working our core
messaging to better relate to the different constituents we serve, and
expanding our messaging platforms.
I hope you found this Gen Z information useful and I
encourage all stakeholders in growing the game to continue learning more about
how we can engage this critically important audience.
Thanks for your time and happy entrepreneuring…
This post shows the experience of the blogger who told what about some conference and after going through it I believe the advice which is given in it is explained very well.
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