The Research.

Method.

To conduct my primary research, I held three focus groups. One group consisted of three Zillennials and two had four Zillennials. Each focus group was approximately one hour. The focus groups were held online via Zoom.

The focus groups were completed during February 2022. The ages from my focus groups ranged from 23-28, with six 23 year olds, two 24 year olds, one 25 year old, one 26 year old and one 28 year old.

Using a grounded theory approach, I then took transcripts and coded them based on my various themes and insights. I then translated it into a mind map for a more visual approach. From this mind map, I was finally able to narrow everything into 5 key themes, with several areas of support under each group.

Results.

There are three primary influences when it comes to a Zillennial using a specific streaming service: price, exclusivity of content, and diversity of content.

Price is the number one factor, as most Zillennials are still on either their families’ subscription plans or they are mooching off college discount bundles, such as Hulu and Spotify or Amazon Prime Student. If their families were to discontinue a subscription plan, Zillennials would most likely not pay to have access to those streaming service plans. Instead, their primary course of action would be to find a friend and use their account, or split the account with one.

The second priority is exclusivity of content, as a majority of Zillennials will use a streaming service for a specific show only available on that platform. Typically, these are new releases that correlate with trending content on social media and amongst their personal groups.

The final factor is diversity of content. Zillennials want streaming services to have options to cater to their many needs and emotions - comfort, engagement, nostalgia, drama, etc. No one ever wants to experience the same type of emotion always, and being able to have content that satisfies all these needs will be worthy of a Zillennial’s time.

When it comes to deciding what to watch, many Zillennials are overwhelmed by the amount of choices that exist out there. To help with this, a key strategy many of the Zillennials utilize is creating their own personal list of shows that they want to watch later.

Themes.

Within my results, I developed 5 key themes:

1. YouTube is the Preferred Platform

There were several reasons why YouTube was seen as top priority. The first is that it is something easy for people to have in the background while they do other things, which relates to one of my other key themes of multitasking. In addition, Zillennials found it to be portable. 10 out of the 11 participants stated that they would watch YouTube on their phone (first choice), laptop, or television. Finally, the last reason Zillennials preferred YouTube over streaming services is because of how personal it feels. Unlike other shows, Zillennials watch YouTube only for themselves, with no cultural influence.

2. Multitasking is a Way of Life

Zillennials multitask every day, whether that be with work, school, errands, chores, or other personal obligations. They heavily rely on multiple devices when it comes to multitasking, and serving different functions for different purposes.

In these circumstances, they tend to view content consumption as background noise, with the purpose of making time go by faster or more enjoyable as they are focused on other tasks. Sometimes, they will sit on social media as they watch shows or movies. This can be intentional or unintentional, depending on how engaging the content they are watching is.

3. Personal Relationships are the Most Valued Communities

For a majority of the Zillennials involved in the focus group, they prioritized recommendations from personal relationships much higher than discussions occurring online.

The most common response was that online conversations about a show would spark their interest, but alone not be enough to influence action and actually watching the content. Rather, if a friend or sibling recommended that same show, they would be much more likely to watch since they view this as a more credible recommendation, due to the fact that they believe their personal relationships have a better understanding of what they may like.

4. Engagement and Immersion is Most Desired

When asked what was the primary driver for what the Zillennials wanted to feel when they were watching a streaming service, the most common response was to feel engaged. They mentioned that they were more likely to watch a genre that they typically were not interested in if it was both engaging and culturally relevant.

They also love to be completely immersed to help maintain their larger engagement, which is why most Zillennials in the focus group aren’t watching streaming services as much as they are now playing video games. In order to truly keep their attention away from other devices or other tasks, Zillennials need to be entirely focused on the form of entertainment.

5. Nostalgia is Always Prominent

Nostalgia is nothing new, but it is a core fundamental to uniting the Zillennial group. They feel connected to other Zillennials through these specific experiences they all went through together during childhood, that others are unable to relate to.

This mostly consists of pop culture and products at the time of their adolescence, such as shows like Hannah Montana and playing with Game Boys. Especially during the pandemic, they took refuge in the comforting emotions nostalgia provides, such as by watching some of their older favorite shows.

In addition, spin offs and sequels of past shows prove to be very successful in this group, which we can see now with several shows and movies being released and scheduled to come out soon from this time period. This includes a live remake of The Little Mermaid, and a Shrek reboot.