Study: Gen Z’s favorite brands are …
Tech brands take the top spots with Gen Z.
YouTube, Google and Netflix took the top three spots in a ranking of the 40 favorite brands of Gen Z’s by decision intelligence company Morning Consult. Amazon and M&M round out the top five. Two retailers also scored well, with Walmart at No. 5, followed by Target, No. 6, with each hovering around 80% favorability.
Nike was No. 12, and Apple was No. 20 in “Gen Z’s Favorite Brands 2022 Report,” with the ranking determined by the share of Gen Z adults (those born between 1997 and 2004) who have either a “somewhat” or “very” favorable opinion of each brand. Dollar Tree ranked No. 14. No other retailers made the list.
The study also reveals the 20 brands are most popular with Gen Z adults (ages 18-25) relative to U.S. adults overall. TikTok took the top spot. Chinese fast-fashion Shein brand came in No. 7 and is now the ninth most popular apparel brand among Gen Z women, landing in the same range as Levi’s and Calvin Klein, according to Morning Consult.
Other insights from the report are below.
• Brands that fall under the food & beverage umbrella make up half of Gen Z’a top 40.
• TikTok and other social media brands fare better with Gen Z women than men: 77% of Gen Z women have a favorable opinion of TikTok, compared to only 58% of Gen Z men. Women also have a more favorable opinion of Pinterest (+22 points), Snapchat (+11), Facebook (+8) and Instagram (+6). Twitter is the only major social media platform that outperforms with Gen Z men (+7).
• Gen Z is harder to please by default: Across all of the brands tracked in Brand Intelligence in the United States, Gen Z’s average favorability rating is just 27%, compared with 33% for all adults and 36% for millennials. Gen Z also demonstrates particularly high unfavorability ratings across the brands surveyed; on average, 10% of Gen Z adults have an unfavorable impression of a given brand, compared with 8% for all adults and 9% for millennials.
Gen Z’s Favorite Brands ranking uses data from Morning Consult Brand Intelligence, which fields tens of thousands of surveys across the globe every day on over 4,000 brands and products. This data set was gathered May 1-August 21, 2022. Sample sizes vary by brand, with an average representative sample of 16,053 U.S. adults per brand, including an average of 2,031 Gen Z adults (those born between 1997 and 2004).