A marketer's guide to modern media consumption by age group

"1. Outdated media mix models offered by major consulting houses weight older media forms like broadcast and cable more than new forms of media or ignore them completely. 2. Media fragmentation has muddied the marketplace with hundreds of new channels. 3. New media forms don't have or haven't built platforms allowing advertising at scale. 4. Bureaucracy. Large marketing organizations are slow movers, despite audiences moving elsewhere. 5. Change is hard. Lazy marketers stick to what has worked in the past, ignoring audience shifts."

"Gen Z, people aged 12-25, are the socially conscious, woke, TikTok dancers that advertisers can't talk enough about. This group can be boiled down to four channels: social, streaming TV, streaming music, and video games. That's where 90% of your budget should go to reach ad land's most desirable, youngest, and impressionable demographic. For young women, skew to streaming TV; for young men, invest more in video games. Social should be prioritized for each."

A massive disconnect exists between where marketers spend ad budgets and where audiences actually consume media. Outdated media mix models, media fragmentation, lack of scaled advertising platforms in new channels, organizational bureaucracy, and resistance to change drive the mismatch. The remedy is to follow the audience and shift spends toward digital channels. Data compiled from eMarketer, Warc, and Statista inform generational consumption patterns. Gen Z (ages 12–25) concentrates on social, streaming TV, streaming music, and video games and warrants roughly 90% digital allocation. Young women skew toward streaming TV, young men toward video games. Traditional TV buys can be cut for this cohort.

Read at The Drum