What is Generation Z's relationship with the restaurant industry?
What are their most relevant dining occasions? How do you design dining experiences that bridge the physical and digital worlds?
In 2020, we dedicated IMG– to Gen Z, exploring this generation’s relationship with the restaurant industry and their main dining occasions.
Thanks to an innovative 4-phase research process, we engaged a vast number of Gen Zers in a qualitative and quantitative analysis.
Through several brainstorming sessions, 30 university students shared the decision-making processes and motivations that guide them when choosing a venue for out-of-home dining.
Using targeted, qualitative one-to-one interviews with 12 young people across Italy, we explored their consumption moments in detail.
By experimenting with new research methodologies—moving beyond the traditional concept of “personas” in favor of a more situational model, “scenarios”—we successfully identified the most relevant dining occasions for Gen Z.
Thanks to these scenarios, developed through research involving over 715 young people, each dining occasion is mapped to the individual’s needs based on their specific situation and the goal they want to achieve.
Finally, we refined the details of these scenarios in light of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The outcome of this process is the definition of various customer journeys that envision hybrid dining experiences, bridging the gap between the physical and digital worlds.
