Imagine cracking open the secret behind Gen Z’s snacking habits. That’s exactly what we’re doing today with Mary Mathes from Alpha Diver. She’s here to illuminate us on the four key decision-making factors behind Gen Z’s snack choices – function, experience, conformity, and impulse. She elaborates on how these lenses not just mold Gen Z’s snacking behavior but also have extensive implications outside of the consumer packaged goods sector. We delve into the fascinating science behind these choices and derive insights on how brands can enhance their engagement strategies with customers.
You can download the full report here.
Ever wondered how the General Population compares to Gen Z when it comes to snacking preferences? We’ve got that covered too. We survey the landscape of 12 snack categories and 50 brands to understand the differing palates. A surprising revelation is the gravitational pull of both cohorts towards snacks requiring more effort to chew. As we unpack this, we also explore the physiological calming benefit associated with the act of chewing. Uncover if Gen Z is more prone to impulse purchases than other generations and how brands can leverage this. The conversation doesn’t stop there. We take a deep dive into the role context plays in our snacking decisions, particularly in scenarios like an airport store. Get ready to absorb, engage and snack on this unique learning experience!
Full Transcript Below
Mike Giambattista
I am honored and excited to be talking to Mary Mathes who I’m just going to say is running things at or at least a decent, a decent chunk of things at Alpha Diver, and we’ve published some of Alpha Diver’s research in the past. Their most recent, very interesting bit here is called the Snack 50 Psych Pulse, and today’s discussion we’re going to center around how that’s broken out for the Gen Z cohort and what their preferences are. And Mary was kind enough, wise enough, to note before we started this conversation that not all of the customers or audience is involved in the CPG world. But I’ll tell you something after going through this. I think that the insights here are applicable well beyond CPG because of the drivers behind them. So with that I was supposed to introduce you, but thank you for joining me.
Mary Mathes
Glad to be here. Thanks so much for having me.
Mike Giambattista
Sure. Can you tell us exactly what you do at Alpha Diver?
Mary Mathes
Sure, I am our director of data insights, which means I work very closely with kind of, as we put it, both the front of the house and the back of the house, so I have a deaf, certainly a very client facing role of helping to understand what it is that clients, what are the questions they’re grappling with and how do we translate that into a study that’s going to make sure we answer those questions and working with the neuroscientist on our team, whose models underpin a lot of what we do and that model-based approach that we talked about earlier, and so interfacing with them, and really, that translation of what did we find into an actionable story for the client as to that it gets at. Who are you trying to get and how do you better activate with them, based on what we now know about how they’re making decisions and what’s driving their behavior?
Mike Giambattista
Thank you, much better description than I could have gotten to. I’d like to dive right into this report because I found a handful of things that were really, really interesting to me and I think could be really interesting to our audience. Let’s just start first with how Alpha-Diver has defined the four jobs. I’m doing rabbit ears right now on the jobs that different snacks do for customers.
I’m intrigued by the word jobs to describe kind of those buckets of motivation. I’m just going to read them through, but I think it’d be really fun to unpack them because and I think this is one great example of how these emotional drivers apply outside of CPG- For sure, and they certainly do.
So snackers who snack based on function and I’m reading your definition here providing a practical options that make rational sense. Ok, those are the functional, functional snackers experienced snackers providing new sensory discoveries to explore conformity. Snackers providing social connection and agreement. And then, lastly, impulse snackers, fueling feel good impulse purchases. How did we come across those as the main buckets? How were those developed? And then maybe we can kind of pull them apart a little bit.
Mary Mathes
Sure.
So those four drivers, as we call them conveniently, also describe the four key decision making lenses that we’re diagnosing in consumers and shoppers In our work. And this this derives from a lot of the work that our principal neuroscientist, Siggy Hale, did in his time in academia studying neuroscience, really understanding how we, as humans, our brains, evolved to make decisions. And there’s these, these four different decision making styles and lenses that we that we evolved over time, impulse being the first one, which is that very instinctual, as I referenced earlier, much very gut reaction kind of the back of the brain, your lizard brain, if you will what, what feels good right now, what.
And then we evolved from that. We evolved episodic memory, which gives us the ability to that experience of like I’m building up this portfolio of things I have tried, experiences I have had in these things that I can tap into and wanting to look for more new experiences to add to that portfolio. So this year that’s a lens that’s very much about all five senses How’s it going to feel, taste, smell, what’s it going to be? And very sensorial and wanting to take in the world that way. Then there’s that lens of the conformity is very much about. You know, what do people like me agree is a good thing, following your wisdom of the tribe, if you will, and what’s something that will make everybody happy, maintains my good standing within the group that I’m in. You know, in the case of snacking, it’s probably what keeps my household happy. Or you know, the group of friends who’s party I’m bringing a snack to, whatever it is, thinking about it in that very social way.
And then that functional space is, you know, very, you know very, very rational. You know front of the brain. You know, when you sit people down in a focus group and ask them why they do things, that’s where everybody thinks they, that’s how everybody thinks they behave, right? Oh well, I look at the nutritional information and I assess the price and I make this very informed, well thought out decision. And some people do that, but most people don’t.
Most people are operating through one of these other three lenses and you know, one of the things that we look at in a study like this is seeing both. Which of those lenses comes to the fore for a given person, a different segment of the population. You know, as you mentioned, in this we dove deeper into like which of these really matters for Gen Z and seems to explain their behavior in this space. But you know, they also tell us how do people think about these different types of products. How do people think about your brand? They tend to associate it with one of these four things as well.
And so if you know, if one of these four drivers really fuels my behavior and that’s also the driver that I really associate with your brand, that’s a really nice, you know, alignment that suggests there’s a lot of opportunity there for you know, for me to really grow my brand with that kind of consumer space. If you’re over and driven, what’s driving your behavior is that very impulsive, what feels good right now. I’m gonna grab that purchase space and I’m offering something that’s very functional with all of this you know better for you, messaging and all of that that suggests there’s some disconnect.
There doesn’t mean you can’t get that person, but what we’re setting out to help you understand is how do I reframe, given what I understand about what’s actually driving their behavior to you know, to make that more functional claim or appealing to somebody that’s not actually thinking about it through that lens?
Mike Giambattista
I’m wondering out loud here, it seems to me, and I’m looking at the conformity snackers. I am not a conformity snacker. I don’t see myself as that. Maybe I am deep down, but you know, it seems like you know. One individual could, at different times, be any one of these four people. They could be very situational.
Mary Mathes
Absolutely.
Mike Giambattista
And now that I’ve said that I’m not a conformity snacker, I’m starting to wonder. Maybe I actually am, depending on the circumstance. But how do we reconcile that for a brand? You know, because it can be super situational right now, because you know Super Bowl party’s happening, I gotta have the guac and chips, right? Because you know, in that case everybody’s a conformity snacker, right?
Mary Mathes
Well, that’s an interesting topic that we have explored with companies in the past. A lot of companies are interested in the occasion-based consumption scenario and, yes, absolutely these. The lens that you use shifts depending on the context that you’re in, and you tend to have one of these that you use more often, you’ve become more comfortable with and how you navigate the world in your daily life. But, absolutely, when you’re dropped into a different context, you certainly can shift and another one comes more to the fore. And so, yes, in that case, what I’m buying for myself or in my typical grocery shopping trip, I could be definitely approaching that from a different lens than when I go.
You know, when I’m going to the store to shop for a specific occasion yes, the Super Bowl, et cetera. But we’ve done some interesting work in the past that has found that it’s the conformity may not, it’s for some people is not actually the main thing that drives that. If you’re the host of the party, it may be more around. What does what I offer say about me to my guests? You know there’s some other, there can be some other factors, so kind of subconsciously driving that as well.
But then thinking, you know, thinking around those, unpacking those different layers of that is definitely a big part of what we do and helping customers sort of understand what is the relative priority of that. You know, does the how much does occasion matter and influence how much these drivers change, or is it more universal? There are some contexts where just the nature of the situation tends to make us all a little bit more of the same. We all tend, we all tend to gravitate more toward the same lens. You know, like, like doing your taxes, you there’s not really a good impulse. You could, you could certainly do it from an impulsive lens. It might not work out so great for you with the IRS Probably want to be more thinking in that functional rational.
Mike Giambattista
Yeah, yeah.
Mary Mathes
Let me yeah, let me make sure that I’m really buckled down and getting this right mindset for something like that. We all we probably gravitate there, but in different, in different scenarios. There’s more, there could be more of a spread, and you see different and different types of people emerge that approach it from different angles.
So it’s interesting for like things like segmentation, adding that additional layer of understanding of okay, you found there’s these different segments of people that approach this, approach your category, in a different way, and then we can kind of layer on this additional insight with it’s because their decision-making lens is different. So all of these different, you know, the different attitudinal variables, the demographic variables, the things that folks look at when they’re doing those typical segmentations, you know we can can then layer on top of that. And, yeah, this cohort of people has a tendency to share this decision-making style and that you know that’s another layer of explanation as to why you see that their behavior is different from that group over there.
Mike Giambattista
But I mean, I was thinking about and we’ll talk about this later down as we get deeper into the report but I think there are all kinds of fun use cases for this data that we can see playing out in the real world as we go to, you know, grocery store, convenience store, airport, wherever they might sell some of these goods.
Mary Mathes
Absolutely.
Mike Giambattista
And talking about about the reasons why some of that’s there for sale in those certain locations. But before we move on, I just want to personalize this a little bit. Don’t mean to put you on the spot necessarily, but if you are, if one of your, your primary jobs as you put them for snacking, where would you fall here? Which one of these four buckets would be your primary?
Mary Mathes
Ah, that is a good question. Probably, I would say, most of the time, I probably am in that experience bucket of I have more of a sweet tooth than a savory tooth. So, yeah, I’m looking for the new chocolate to try, or a new candy, or what’s the new crazy flavor of Oreo that they’re offering this month.
Mike Giambattista
Yeah, Well, I’m probably, I’m squarely an impulse, but I use experience to rationalize my behavior.
Mary Mathes
There you go yeah.
Mike Giambattista
Right, whatever it takes.
Mary Mathes
Sure.
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Mike Giambattista
So the first kind of breakout you’ve got here is you’re calling it, they choose, choose where you’ve got a general population ranking for what types of snacks people like versus what Gen Z tends to like, and Gen Z happens to like the chewy stuff. And you call out one brand in particular Slim Jims, which are the most ubiquitous, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody buy one before. I mean, I know they’re selling because they’re everywhere, but that was the number one brand for Gen Z. Is that a surprise to you? Because it is for me.
Mary Mathes
Well, SlimJim is number 11 with Gen Z, so but it did jump 10 spots.
Yeah, but yeah. So I mean in general, it was a little surprising at first but when we look so I think we looked at we had 12 different categories of snacks that were comprised by these 50 brands that we ranked. So we looked at the category level how do they fall out, gen Pop versus Gen Z, and then across the unusual brands, how are their ranking changing? And as you mentioned, for the two year, kind of the two sort of two is kinds of snacks out of the 12 were fruity chewy candy so your sour patch kids, and so on, and then the jerky’s and meat and meat snacks and among the general population neither of these ranked particularly high. Highly, fruity chewy candy was number nine out of the 12. And then the jerky and meat snacks were number 10.
With Gen Z, fruity chewy candy jumps up to number four. It’s the category of snack that increased the change the most with them. And then jerky and meat snacks jumps to number seven. And when we look at the corresponding brands in those spaces with Gen Z we see the same thing. It increases its psychological importance to Gen Z versus the Gen Pop Slim Jim jumps 10 spots. Sour patch kids, actually, that that one jumps the most from being number 40 with the Gen Pop, up to 22 with Gen Z I get that.
Like, yeah, airheads, skittles, starboard, even Twizzlers, you know which I mean. It goes from 43 to 38. But anything in that fruity, chewy space universally does better with the Gen Z audience. And you know, similarly, the jerky and meat snacks brands. And so there’s two things that are interesting here, that that are commonalities between these you know, seemingly very different types of snacks. One is that they’re both, as we, as we talked earlier, they’re both serving that impulse feel good snacking job for consumers. So that starts to tell us something about what.
Well, what is Gen Z looking for in a snack? Because they seem to they’re gravitating more than the Gen Pop to the snacks that are doing that job for them. They’re also gravitating. You know their numbers. One through three, I think, are definitely include cookies and chocolate. So there’s also a heavy of that experiential angle as well for them.
But the other thing that those that these two categories have in mind or have in common is they require more effort to chew them. You know you can’t, you know you’re not inhaling a bag of sour patch kids in three bites, like you could say a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. I mean you could. But you know there you can savor them or you can make them last there’s a little bit more work. I’m thinking about, like Skittles and your Starburst, things like that too, and just and certainly like me with beef jerky and just. You know, there’s a lot of research out there in the field of psychology that shows to that there’s a calming benefit, sort of a physiological calming benefit, from the act of chewing something. And when you, when we think about all of the different things going on in the world that we’ve talked about already that are creating stress, I think for everyone in the population. But certainly we see a lot out there about how Gen Z, this cohort as they’re coming into adulthood, is under a lot of stress.
But you know, there’s the student loan, student loan issue, and having a lot of their educational years being disrupted by COVID and learning over Zoom and missing out on a lot of those rites of passage that you know they didn’t get to go through in a typical way, and all of the different stressors that are facing this generation. The fact that they’re gravitating more toward these categories that maybe provide that little bit of calming relief just from the act of eating them was interesting to us. That there’s some, there’s, there’s something that really all kind of is all hanging together there that we’re seeing that I don’t think anybody else has really been talking about that that we thought was cool and you know, a good action of a learning. If you’re in that space or you’re thinking about how do I appeal to this mindset, to think about that angle?
Mike Giambattista
So two questions come to mind. One is that this is these are would fall be categorized more as impulsive bias, as you noted earlier, can you? So one question would be based on your other research outside of this category Do you see that Gen Z is more apt to make impulse buys than other generations? Is it? Can you? Can you take these learnings and necessarily overlay them into other categories?
Mary Mathes
In some extent. Yes, we see, we it there. What drives their behavior in sick? The beverage category beverage categories is also similar. You know their work we’ve done, though in sort of their general, more general grocery. Your household shopping behavior Shows more of that conformity skew where okay, I’m coming into adulthood, I’m trying to demonstrate my you know that.
Mike Giambattista
I’m a good member of the house.
Mary Mathes
Yeah, I’m a good member of the household. I’m thinking about everyone else. I’m bringing, I’m getting, I’m getting stuff that everybody’s gonna be happy with. They feel that little bit of tension. They’re okay. No, I need to think more about what everybody else wants to, not just what’s for me right now. So it does it. Context does matter, and we do. We do see some differences, but we also see, you know, there are several areas where that Impulsiveness, that like looking for something that just helps me to feel, helps me feel better right now. It definitely explains a lot of what’s going on with that generation.
Mike Giambattista
Would you say I’m asking for something that’s unknowable? I’m sure, but would you say that, based on what you see, that that impulsiveness is more the norm or the anomaly, and call it general CPG world?
Mary Mathes
Well, and I think we can even more broadly than CPG. Just in general, what we’ve seen is there is there is a steady increase in this need to this desire to blow off some steam, seek a little bit of your tension, release we react more emotionally, make ourselves feel better, across just even how people are just navigating the world in their daily life. We’ve seen a very dramatic increase in that. You’re trying to trying to fulfill that emotional job, serve that emotional need out among the population in general, and you to us. You know. I think that explains a lot about why Brand, you know these brands that serve that you think about you soft drinks, energy drinks, you, your, your, can’t you candy chocolates that are like these brands that, despite a lot of them having taken price increases several times over, really probably in the last few years, you know, you listen to their, you know their earnings, calls for Wall Street and they’re all still Making money, hand over fist and seeing products fly off the shelves and they’re not really. They’re not really seeing the trade down effects that One might expect, given all of the other discussion we hear about what’s going on with the economy right now and it speaks to because they’re still providing that emotional benefit that people are looking for, that little bit of affordable indulgence. You know that, for you know, for a few minutes, this makes me feel better.
Give fast food, another category that’s, you know, still doing, still doing really well, despite, you know, having to take price increases, despite, you know, economic uncertainty. There’s still, there’s still a pretty sizable swath of the population out there that’s willing to say you know what? Yeah, I mean, I should, I should probably Be economical and go shop at Aldi and all that, but screw it, I’m gonna go through, I’m gonna go to McDonald’s and go through the drive-thru because it’s just easier and yeah, exactly, which is a great little segue to the next topic I wanted to bring up.
Mike Giambattista
You’re heading for this is better for you know. You know I’m gonna bring up your heading for this is better for you. May not be better for business. I’m with Gen Z. We. We published research from a lot of people, frankly, that Gen Z is Tends to be a little bit more authenticity, aware, uh, they, they value things that would feel more genuine. I’m putting your quotes around that one as well, um, and I don’t think it’s a too much of a stretch to assume, uh, that that would translate into better for you eating, and yet Turns out it’s not really the case yeah, that’s, you know that’s.
Mary Mathes
That’s Another interesting one that you know it raises a lot of eyebrows with when we, when we show what we found here. But you Snack nuts as the kind of the prime example in this, of this category space. That was a. That was number four with the general population. If you think about what could, typically, I think, it’s thought of as a better for you snack right now. It’s a nice balance of protein and fat and it’s not all sugary and you know, um, but with Gen Z it plummets to number 11. And you know, and we had two different, we had blue diamond and planter’s brands in the list too, and each of them drop 21 spots.
They’re just Really drop off with Gen Z you know, and pretzels be kind of another, another ostensibly better for you snack that ranks number 12 with them. Um, I think their number 10 was, like you know, snack mix, trail, trail mix, things like that. So there’s we we’re seeing a lot of consistency that these, the some of the ostensibly better for you snacks that we had featured, are just not Resonating as much with this audience. They’re going much more for the cookie, the chocolate, the chewy, the fruity chewy, etc. And you know, I think there again, it’s because what’s driving their behavior when they’re thinking about snacking most of the time is more that emotional. I’m looking for something that’s gonna taste good and make me feel better right now, and so it’s not to say that a better for you snack can’t deliver that. But that’s not how most of them are positioned.
Mike Giambattista
It’s not sold that way, right.
Mary Mathes
Right. So I mean, I saw an article that I shared the other day around. You know, Blue Diamond is launching a new limited flavor. That’s, you know, a honey, honey, butter, almond and it’s like that’s in it, you know, positioned correctly, like that could be an interesting way of trying to bridge that gap of it’s. You know they’re almonds, they’re good for you, etc. But the honey butter flavor gives you more that you know. Oh, a new new sensory experience that I might enjoy. That’s. It’s a little, it elevates it a little bit. You know that might be that might help with you making it more appealing to somebody that’s looking more for something that’s just gonna feel good and taste good right now.
Mike Giambattista
Yeah, so it’s great name, it’s a great idea. I can’t wait to see how it performs. I mean, you know, you, even if the product didn’t change at all, which I’m sure it would, you know labeling something that implies sticky, gooey and sweet Probably a good idea right now.
Mary Mathes
Yeah, and you know, apparently butterboards are all the rage, so you know, the butter, the butter angle seems to be on trend as well. That, hopefully will you know, is in the right, you know, hitting in the right space to appeal. Yeah.
Mike Giambattista
Well, I was thinking about the places where I see these kinds of snacks the most. You know where they’re checkout lines in grocery stores. They are in every airport convenience store on mass. There’s a whole wall of them, probably better displayed in most of those stores than anywhere else. I can think of and, situationally and I think segment wise you’re talking about a product viability for different reasons in those locations. I mean, if you’re in the checkout line, it’s you’re probably thinking it’s my last chance to get something here. I’m gonna look around. It looks good. Here I can rationalize the M&Ms or the nuts.
You know it’s 50-50, but that’s probably a good place to have people starting to consider that. And in the airport stores you’re thinking about, I’m about to get on a plane, I’m about to go sit down for a couple hours. I don’t really like the airplane food. Let me get something that that you know x, y or z’s for me and my own personal thought process usually goes something like I don’t really like the airplane food, so I’m gonna buy something here. So wait, I’ve already started telling myself I need something better for me, which means I should not go towards the, the gummy bears or the SourJacks. I really I’m already telling myself I should do something better for myself than that and I might I might kind of, you know, begrudgingly shuffle myself over and get some nuts or something, but that’s you know. There are thought processes there I think are gonna be at play.
Mary Mathes
For sure, and that’s you know the context there, I think can certainly can be playing a role. You know, like we’re looking at this more in that context of a more typical in your day to day snacking behavior. You know, you’re at, you’re at the 7-Eleven, you’re at the grocery store, you’re, you’re, you’re gonna grab something. Versus that, that, the contextual of well, I’m about to get on a plane for however many hours that that could potentially for some consumers, shift, shift them even begrudgingly, into, you know against their, you know with their impulse, their impulse might be of what they want versus I.
okay that I probably should, so you know that’s but, that’s one of the things that we like, that we like to study and if you’re a brand that’s very heavy, heavily promoted in you and that you know the airport, your duty for you, etc. Space, how, understanding what drives behavior very specific to that context and how, and does it really differ from the grocery store format, it is certainly something that we can help unpack and think through.
