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The Escapism Issue. Or: partying while the world burns
You don’t need us to tell you that a lot has changed over the past two years, on campus and off. With lockdowns (we hope) a thing of the past, we wanted to look at how student buying behaviour has changed.
We interviewed thought leaders from across the youth marketing space – including those from brands such as MOB, Bacardi and Boohoo – and spoke to 250 students nationwide to find out. Here’s the report, and here’s a sneak peak at a few of the things we looked at:
Partying while the world burns
Generally speaking, Gen Z are noted for their environmental consciousness. They’re going to have to live in this world, after all.
But when an unprecedented event like lockdown came along, grounding flights and preventing almost all tourism, we wondered: would students temporarily suspend their environmental concerns as they sought escape from their months inside?
Logging on, checking out
Bored of spending their afternoons locked – quite often literally – in their students halls, many students turned to gaming as a way to distract themselves from the rather depressing state of the world.
The world has gone back to normal – although it’s still fairly depressing – so we took a look at how much the surge in gaming stuck around when students were allowed to go and play outside again.
In search of lost good times
The typical UK university degree lasts three years. But the class of Covid have had to spend 18 months of that time with their doors closed against the outside world, learning and socialising through laptop screens, with the social ferment of student life all locked down.
So what happens when those doors open again?
Carnage, like a cross between Freshers’ Week and the 1920s? Or a continuation in the trends of Gen Z drinking less than students who came before?