The YouthBeat squad descended on Navy Pier in Chicago recently for the annual Chicago Toy and Game Week (ChiTAG). In comparison to the international Toy Fair event in New York every year, the experience in Chicago is much more approachable in three ways:
This year, much like 2018, marked continuous evolution, even upheaval, in retail environments for youth. In the summer, Amazon once again hosted Prime Days, also known as “Black Friday in July,” which accelerated the Back-to-School Shopping season. Other top retailers, such as Target, Walmart, and 200 other companies, jumped on the bandwagon with some offering up to a week’s worth of bargains. In the fall, Gamestop announced the closing of upwards of 200 stores.
We’ve had Millennials in our panels since they were teens; Gen Z and Gen Alpha since they were toddlers, along with their parents, making the YouthBeat® team experts on Generations. Our consultants craft custom foundational presentations for clients who need a Generation 101 overview for brand inspiration or to kick off a research or development initiative. Our holistic YouthBeat® data applies to a wide variety of industries—food + beverage, media, shopping, giving, and much, much more.
We’ve had Millennials in our panels since they were teens; Gen Z and Gen Alpha since they were toddlers, along with their parents, making the YouthBeat® team experts on Generations. Our consultants craft custom foundational presentations for clients who need a Generation 101 overview for brand inspiration or to kick off a research or development initiative.
This magical time of year is one of our favorites here at YouthBeat®. It’s nonreligious (therefore non-exclusive to large groups of the youth population) and involves excuses for giving and receiving treats—a true celebration of youth of all ages. Our colleague Derek Bertelsen here at C+R wrote a fantastic thought piece on the history, modernity, and fun facts of Halloween for adults, which you can check out here.
At YouthBeat®, we were recently very intrigued by a poll conducted by CivicScience, which revealed that parents are more accepting of their children playing contact sports than eSports. Dads were more comfortable than moms with kids playing eSports, though, in fairness, they were more comfortable with them playing contact sports as well.
At YouthBeat®, we spend most of our time investigating trends among kids, tweens, and teens. Every year, we “graduate” a batch of 18-year-olds from our panel, but we don’t stop caring about them. The oldest members of Generation Z, 18-22 years old, are college-aged now. It’s a dynamic time of transition, discovery, and experimentation for young adults. We’re devoting this blog to the special condition of being college-aged in the U.S. today.
