Editor’s note: Nate Cusick is a business and marketing development representative at market research tech firm Discuss.io, Seattle.

Generation ZJust when brands started to understand Millennial consumers, a new challenge arrived – Generation Z. These young consumers (born after 1998) account for $44 billion in spending power. The first fully digital generation, Gen Z represents a huge slice of revenue for most brands and market researchers are shifting their focus toward gleaning insights from these young, savvy consumers.

One stumbling block that market researchers are running into is how to effectively communicate with this demographic in order to gain actionable qualitative insights. It is important to remember to follow all ESOMAR World Research Codes and Guidelines when interviewing young respondents. Once you have a solid understanding of the guidelines, you can use these five tips to get the most out of your next Gen Z qualitative study.

1. Be authentic. Members of Gen Z don’t want to feel like they are being interrogated or talked down to; they want to be a part of the conversation. Work to create a natural, two-way conversation and simply be yourself! Share simple details about your life (where you are from, what you do in your free time). Before they open up they want to know that they can trust you.  

2. Assign pre-work. Assigning younger respondents pre-work is a great way to show them that you value their contribution. With an average attention span of eight seconds, you have to keep Gen Z engaged. Pre-work can also provide great talking points throughout interviews. Some examples of effective pre-work are:

  • In-the-moment video or image capture of shopping or after-school experiences. Pairing asynchronous data with live interviews can be done seamlessly with technology. Gen Zers live on their smartphones. They are extremely comfortable documenting experiences in a tangible and creative way. Allow younger respondents to take images or videos of experiences in-the-moment and review that data with them in an in-depth interview to gain an accurate understanding of how they think. This pre-work assignment is best suited for a researcher with an ethnographic approach.
  • Selfies of their #ootd (outfit of the day). Conducting focus groups with tweens can be challenging if you have one or two respondents that overpower the conversation. One way to ensure that there is a balance in a group is to provide a pre-work assignment that they can all speak to. Personal style is an important form of expression for Gen Z. This assignment is fairly easy to complete because your respondents are probably already uploading their selfies to Snapchat daily. Have them send the moderator their outfit selfies to be uploaded and talked about in a group discussion. This helps ensure everyone gets a chance to speak.   
  • Last five Instagram uploads (stories and posts). If you are taking the narrative approach, you might find this pre-work assignment interesting. Instagram has two main types of content: stories and posts.

Posts are usually highly curated images run through filters and uploaded for their aesthetic. Gen Zers often treat their Instagram pages like a photography portfolio. The image styles, themes, colors and captions all have to be cohesive. This is not an accurate look at their day-to-day lives but rather a reflection of their aspirations, personal styles and dreams.

Instagram stories are treated with less care since they expire after 24 hours (unless you “highlight” them). Stories are used to share the exciting things users are up to. Stories document the day-to-day experiences in an organic, natural way. Reviewing stories with your Gen Z respondents can be an easy opening to asking engaging questions.

Attain actionable insights that lead to building a cohesive story by piecing together your subjects’ posts and Instagram stories paired with a few in-depth interviews.

  • Collage of brands/images they think are cool/relatable. Prior to an IDI or focus group, have Gen Z respondents put together a collage of images from brands they think are cool and relatable. During your interviews lead the conversation around why they chose specific images and what they liked about them. This pre-work fits well into an ethnography style study, allowing you to ask strategic questions, understand the Gen Z culture and gather rich qualitative data.

3. Communicate face-to-face. Surprisingly, 53 percent of Generation Z prefer face-to-face communication over e-mail, text or chat. Whether this is in-person or over a video platform/app, Gen Z understands the importance of facial expressions, voice tone and body language. Generation Z is very comfortable with video, interacting daily over video apps/platforms with their family and friends. Video chatting is completely natural to them. And the good news for researchers is that speaking with young consumers over video or in-person allows you to communicate with them in their natural habitat and pick up on cues that you would otherwise miss. Remember, authenticity is huge. Generation Z will pay attention to how engaged you are with them by how you present yourself on camera. They want to feel and see that you respect and understand them and are interested in what they have to say.

4. Focus on individual interviews. Like many generations before them, Gen Z has a reputation of having to be constantly entertained, otherwise they might tune you out. This makes sense because nearly half are consuming 10 hours of online media a day!

However, if you get them talking about their passions and focus 100 percent of your attention on a conversation with them, they will talk your ear off.

To help illustrate this point, I’ll share a personal example. On a flight to LA, I was seated next to a 13-year-old. He was not very talkative at first but when I mentioned that I like to watch YouTube, his face lit up and he asked me all about the channels I subscribe to and why. This turned into a 90-minute conversation about pop culture, politics and sports. I was interested, he was interested and the conversation flowed naturally from there.

My point is – just like you – Gen Zers can be very focused and engaged if you find their passion, ask open-ended questions and remain present in the conversation. That is why many researchers have found the best way to maximize conversations with Gen Z is to hold individual interviews.

5. Ask effective questions. When building your discussion guide, think about how the questions are worded and what the intention is behind them. Gen Z respondents are already hyper-skeptical of market researchers. The easiest way around this obstacle is to make your questions conversational and relaxed. Here are some examples of effective questions:

  • That is an interesting picture you posted. What do you like about it?
  • Can you talk to me about your favorite outfit out of the three that you showed me?
  • Why do you prefer to watch gaming YouTube videos over other types of videos?

Don’t get discouraged if it takes a few attempts to warm them up.

Quality conversations

Generation Z is going through a lot of the same experiences that you went through when you were their age but their circumstances have changed because of technology. They are exposed to an immense amount of information at a much younger age, making them more educated on what’s going on in the world and why. Because technology and social media are so accessible to this generation, they are highly informed, articulate and aware of your brand – even more so than their parents. They will also be willing to embrace video and other technologies to talk with you. Focus on the quality of your conversations with Gen Z and I promise you will get some amazing qualitative insights.