The real threat to traditional media: Gen Z

There’s a perception among advertisers, as well as media people, that Millennials could well be the death of traditional media.

They are, after all, the first digital generation, growing up in an age of Netflix instead of NBC. They’re also the ones cutting the cord and abandoning magazines and newspapers in droves.

But as it turns out, traditional media may have more to fear from Gen Z, people born in the 1990s, than Millennials.

That’s the suggestion of a new Harris Poll, which examines brand equity across multiple generations.

It measured the strongest brands in almost 100 categories across media, automotive, restaurants and more.

It finds that, overall the broadcast networks have strong brand equity, leading the media category.

Yet the younger the respondents, the less likely they are to point to ABC, CBS and the like as the brand equity standard bearers.

While Millennials give networks the same brand equity as older generations, that standing drops substantially among Gen Z, which gives greater importance and respect to streaming services.

“While much focus has been on Millennials’ media consumption, Gen Z stands to be the real disruptor,” says Joan Sinopoli, vice president of brand solutions at Nielsen, which owns the Harris Poll.

“Among Millennials and Generation Z, video streaming subscriptions have their strongest equity position, but TV networks’ equity drops dramatically among Gen Z consumers.”

This disparity between the young and the very young will grow over the next few years, Sinopoli predicts.

“With an abundance of new media choices, such as Crunchy Roll and Twitch.tv, the mobile-first generation will accelerate media fragmentation at a speed we can barely grasp today,” she says.

Tags: gen z, gen z media, generation z, Harris Poll, media habits, millennials, research