THE NEW

KIDS ON THE
BLOCK HAVE
ARRIVED…
2 GENERATION Z

As an innovation agency we have spent

the last seven years striving to understand
what moves and shakes the generations
around us. We do this in the pursuit of
FOREWORD creating value from the new, looking for
opportunities that others might miss, and
spotting the contradictions and anomalies
in the way people make sense of their lives.

This book is about looking around the next
corner, taking a peek at a new generation which
is currently emerging. Coined Generation Z,
this new breed is about to launch itself into the
public psyche, as they move from childhood to
adolescence, and start to make decisions that
will have a massive impact on us all.
Our book is inspired by the culmination
of years of research focusing on the attitudes
and behaviours of the Baby Boomer, X and
Y generations, their evolution, and how they
have inluenced Generation Z. In writing this
book, we made a decision to bring together
fresh research into Generation Z lives,
focusing on how they engage with all aspects
of life including money, education, food,
digital technology, family, and their future
aspirations. Like a modern day hackathon,
we gave ourselves just 48 hours to bring
together our insights, ideas and thoughts as
a creative team. It represents the start of
the conversation – ‘thought starters’ for how
this generation might evolve in the future.
It’s brought to you as a collective team efort;
it’s not meant as the inal blueprint, merely
a great place to begin.
Mark Cowan
Happen® Co-founder

We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed creating it!

 DEFINING THE
EMERGENCE
OF A NEW
GENERATION
1
6 GENERATION Z DEFINING THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW GENERATION 7

The reason you can map the future behaviours of a This overall pattern of repeating crises emerges from four generational archetypes and four key
life-stages, combined with a shifting tide of complementary and conlicting intergenerational
generation that hasn’t even hit its teenage years yet is relationships.
because it will form part of a long-established pattern Everyone is ultimately diferent from everyone else, but some people and their generations
of societal behaviour. The foundation for this model of vary in their diferences to a greater extent. But, according to this model at least, despite these
diferences we all end up being diferent in surprisingly similar ways. While clearly it isn’t possible
repeating generational patterns was irst formulated by to summarise anyone in four words, it nevertheless turns out to be a highly valid way to explain
sociology researchers in the US.1 why society evolves in the way that it does.
What drives society is the successive emergence and resolution of generational conlicts
Looking back through the last 600 years of Western history revealed a regular pulse of crises and contradictions. The best way to identify these conlicts is to exaggerate the characteristics
and societal re-calibrations. The duration of these ‘crisis pulses’ consistently turned out to be of each generation:
four generations apart. This repetition occurs through the interplay between four quite diferent
Growing-up Parenting Power Indirect Power
generational archetypes: Heroes, Artists, Prophets and Nomads.
Right at the heart of this interplay is the transfer of inluence from parents to their ofspring. 0-20 21-40 41-60 60+
The way you were raised by your parents will in turn inluence the way you raise your own children.
HERO Protected Heroic Hubristic Powerful
Heroes raise Artists, the Artists grow up to raise Prophets, and so on.
ARTIST Sufocated Sensitive Indecisive Empathic
  

Some generations of parents repeat what
they experienced as children, while others PROPHET Indulged Narcissistic Moralistic Wise
heroic suffocated end up doing the opposite. These twists and
parent child NOMAD Abandoned Alienated Pragmatic Tough
turns come to afect how people behave
through the rest of their lives.
protected sensitive
child parent According to this model, there are four Just in case you might want to position yourself in this picture, the Baby Boomers are Prophets,
key life stages that combine to create the Generation X are Nomads, Generation Y are Heroes and, the focus of our topic in this book,
overall societal behaviour pattern: The Generation Z, are the Artists.
growing-up years from 0-20; the early adult If you’re thinking to yourself, ‘this can’t be true’, you’re in the same boat as us, because that’s
and parenting years from 21-40; the mature what we’ve been thinking for the last 15 years! The fact that during this period we haven’t been able
alienated indulged adult years from 41-60; where we get to to disprove the model, means that we think it is a useful starting point when it comes to mapping
parent child
take on direct leadership and decision making what the future might look like. A signiicant part of our ongoing attempt to disprove the model
roles in society. Finally the years beyond 60, is that we have found it applies in almost all of the developed world, including India, China, Brazil,
abandoned narcissistic
child parent where our inluence becomes less direct, as Australia, and Eastern Europe. Anyone of a similarly sceptical nature might wish to check out the
grandparents, advisors and the such like. TrenDNA series of books2 and the assortment of papers and articles we’ve published on the subject.
 P 

 2040
8 GENERATION Z

Sensitive

Indulged
Hubristic
Tough

Prophets
HIGH

Gen ?
2030
Suffocated
Pragmatic

Heroic

2020
Wise
P T

Artists
Gen Z
CRISIS

2010
Another important element underpinning the when we plot age against year, we obtain a
generation cycle model is that societal events sequence of parallel diagonal lines denoting
happen randomly, but society’s reaction the transitions between one generation and

Emphatic

Moralistic

Protected
Alienated

2000
to those events is often generationally the next.
conditioned. Some events, like nuclear You can ind yourself on this map by

UNRAVELLING
disasters or wars and invasions, come to take looking up your birth year on the horizontal
on enormous signiicance – whereas others axis and then drawing a diagonal line from this

Gen Y
Heros
1990
disappear from society’s collective awareness. point. The map shows how a typical member
The end of the Second World War in 1945 of your generation then changes over the

Indecisive

Narcissistic

Abandoned
Powerful
was highly signiicant, but from a purely course of getting older.

1980
generational perspective, its end marked the Generation Z, on this model, is the
return home of combat troops and then a Artist generation born in the wake of the

AKENING
subsequent baby boom. infamous date, 9/11, an event that marked

Nomads
Gen X
Enter a generation of indulged Baby the commencement of a crisis period in

1970
Boomers, and the start of a new ‘high point’ history. What the map shows us is that their
in society. equivalent previous Artist generation was the 

Hubristic

Sensitive

Indulged
We can take these turning points in Silent generation born during the previous

1960
Tough
society as a means of constructing a map equivalent crisis period – the years between
of generational interactions in calendar the 1929 Wall Street Crash through the

BabyBoomers
year terms. Calendar years thus form the Depression of the 1930s. (No surprise here,


Prophets
1950
horizontal axis on this map. The vertical axis then, that we hear much talk in the media

denotes the age of an individual, and so of us living through a period like the 1930s). 

Suffocated
mPragmatic
s

Heroic
et

1940
Emphatic nera Wise
h p
ro

s
ad
nP

es

Silent Generation
ro
tio

nN

nH


Artists
1930
io

io
e

rat

at
yG

Protected
Generational transition timeline: Coloured bands illustrate each of the four diferent generation archetypes

er
Moralistic

Alienated
e n

n
ar
and the descriptions describe their core characteristics at diferent life stages. The top of the graph describes

Ge

Ge
n
sio
the connection between the generations and the four diferent phases of an overall generation cycle: Crisis is

st

GI
60 Mis

Lo
followed by a High, which is followed by an Awakening, an Unravelling, and inally back to another Crisis.

1920
Age
80

40

20

0
10 GENERATION Z DEFINING THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW GENERATION 11

Having constructed this basic model, we In addition to growing up in a period of high RAT !"# BETWEEN MAJOR SOCIETA
can then start to overlay other societal nurture, our Generation Z kids also ind
!OATIONS AND THE $ OF GENERATION Z ARTISTS
patterns in order to test for the existence themselves at a point in history when the
of a generational cause. One of the most pendulum swing from ‘me’ to ‘we’ is moving
 
80
frequent of these generational efects is a strongly towards the ‘we’ state. Assuming
periodic oscillation that occurs between one history is allowed to pan out as it has in past  
type of behaviour and its opposite. Some cycles, Generation Z will grow up during a 60
CHILD SOCIETAL CHILD SOCIETAL
periods in history are very focused on the Crisis period that will demand of them the NURTURE STRUCTURE NURTURE STRUCTURE
individual – the greedy ‘me’ decade that signiicant sacriice of their individual desires
40
typiied the 1980s for example – whereas and wishes for the collective needs of society.
others are much more about individual The under/over-protect and me/we
sacriice for the good of the collective. pendulum swings are seen to be the dominant
20 

L
Child nurture is another oscillating pair, but they in turn come to drive other swings
pattern. If you’re a member of Generation that also help us to construct a clearer picture
X, chances are you had parents that both of who Generation Z are likely to become. 0
worked (or were divorced), and so you As an example, gender diference follows 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 2040

experienced a lot of freedom. Today, we see the me/we curve in a way that means we’re
80
the precise opposite of that trend. Many of heading towards a period where, perhaps
the things that Baby Boomer parents did to the chagrin of the women’s liberation HIGH
to their Generation X ofspring, would be movement, girls are girls and boys are boys Emphatic Wise Tough
WE
deemed highly inappropriate today. Right once again.
now, in fact, we’re close to the end of this Tolerance for risk is the exact opposite 60
child-nurture pendulum swing. Generation of the me/we oscillation – the greater CHILD SOCIETAL
NURTURE STRUCTURE
Z kids have been raised in an environment the emphasis on the ‘we’ – the lower the
that is as highly protected (sufocated) as tolerance for risk. Generation Z, in other Moralistic Pragmatic Hubristic
it will ever get. The system is in efect self- words, will tend to reach adulthood during a
40
reinforced. Media and government alike put period when risk-taking is not looked upon
pressure on parents to ensure they know favourably.
precisely where their kids are and what The world of art tends to oscillate between Alienated Heroic Sensitive
they’re doing at every waking moment. challenging and safe. This oscillation lags the
This ‘sufocation’ of our Generation Z kids has me/we curve by about ive years. 20
inevitable implications for their impending Artist generations (such as Generation Z),
teenage and adult years. One of which, if are so called because they tend to be the WE

history repeats, is the realisation that the ones that produce, historically, the most Protected Suffocated Indulged

over-protection has not been a good thing. challenging, thought provoking art – be it
0
This will then result in the pendulum swinging literature, ilm, or even new and emerging
1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040
back the other way once again. artforms.
Gen Y Heros Gen Z Artists en ? Prophets
12 GENERATION Z DEFINING THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW GENERATION 13

The other big thing the generation map The culmination of this Crisis period has a So, inally, what are some of the possible But, all that is still to come. In the next chapter
tells us about the future of Generation Z general impact on how Generation Z comes implications of the ‘crisis-coming-to-a-head’ we look to draw a more detailed picture of
teenagers is that they grow-up experiencing to view the world. for Generation Z? Perhaps the overriding one their current ‘sufocated’ upbringing…
a period of crisis. Exactly as happened to the Again, there’s no absolute rule here that is the fact our over-protection/sufocation
previous Artist generation raised during the says ‘this is the way things will be’. Part of the results in a post-crisis generation of adults that
Depression years of the 1930s. These were original Strauss & Howe book’s rationale was have few of the skills necessary to thrive in a
the ‘children should be seen and not heard’ that, ‘if we know the crisis is coming, we can re-calibrated world.
years. Society is probably more enlightened mitigate its consequences’. Artist generation adults are ‘sensitive’
in this regard this time Probably the safest, throughout their 20s and 30s. Sensitive in REFERENCES
around, but if the cycle most reliable, way of that they are able to see the world from other  Strauss, W., Howe, N., ‘The Fourth Turning: An
American Prophecy’, Bantam, 1997.
repeats, as it appears SOME thinking about the ‘crisis’ peoples’ perspectives, but also sensitive in
 Mann, D.L., Özözer, Y., ‘TrenDNA: Understanding
to be doing, the Crisis prediction of the model, that they are quite vulnerable when life throws
deepens and parents
GENERATIONS is that it presents us up challenges and diiculties.
Populations Better Than They Understand Themselves’,
IFR Press, 2009.
and politicians have OF PARENTS with a possible scenario
more and more pressing for consideration. We
issues that simply have
REPEAT might not believe that it
to be attended to. WHAT THEY will happen – especially
%&'&E()*+ GENERATION CYC,&-
While it’s not EXPERIENCED when at this moment in
possible to predict with
AS CHILDREN,
time politicians are trying SHOWN AS A SEQUENCE OF S-CURVES
any kind of accuracy to convince us things are
what the next set of WHILE OTHERS getting better in the wake CRISIS HIGH AWAKENING UNRAVELLING CRISIS HIGH

societal crises will of the global inancial

be (there are several
END UP DOING crisis. However, the smart
candidates discussed in THE OPPOSITE money is on the people
the TrenDNA book), it is and organisations that
possible to hypothesise, plan for the worst,
with a fair degree of accuracy, that sometime rather than the best. In any crisis, there are
between 2020 and 2025 one or more of the always winners and losers. The signiicance
unknown crises will come to a head and have of publishing this Generation Z book now is
to be resolved. In efect, society is forced that it gives readers the best opportunity to
to re-calibrate itself and ‘jump’ to another place themselves, and their ofspring, on the
s-curve on the graph. winners’ side of the story. BORN
Prophets
wise indulged narcissistic moralistic wise indulged
BORN
pragmatic tough abandoned alienated pragmatic tough Nomads
The vertical axis on this picture could be read as ‘quality of life’ or ‘progress’. As with all s-curves, the BORN

lattened top portion of the curve happens when conlicts and contradictions become dominant. These heroic hubristic powerful protected heroic hubristic Heroes
periods represent ‘Crisis’ periods in history. The end of a Crisis signals a re-calibration of key aspects BORN
suffocated sensitive indecisive empathic suffocated sensitive Artists
of society and what is typically known as a ‘High’ period. The bottom of the picture illustrates the
behaviours of the diferent generation archetypes during each phase of the s-curve’s evolution. 1929 1945 ~1962 ~1981 2001 2020-25 2040-45
 As an innovation agency we have spent the last
seven years striving to understand what moves
and shakes the generations around us.

This book is inspired by years of research into

Generation Z, focusing on how they engage with all
aspects of their lives and their aspirations for the future.

© Happen 2014. All Rights Reserved

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