Why Gen Alpha Prefers the Big Screen Over Their Phones

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1:19Reach the right buyers with LinkedIn Ads. You can target by company, industry, job title, and more. So cut the bull spend. Advertise on LinkedIn. the network that works for you. Spend$250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a$250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com slash the town. That's linkedin.com slash the town. Terms and conditions apply. It is Friday, September 5th. It's movie theater week. First, Adam Aaron. Today, it's kids and theaters. I think most people might assume that gen alpha, that's children under 13 or 14, born after the advent of social media and raised on tablets and other devices, got one of those at home, I think the thinking is that they probably wouldn't be very into going to a theater to watch a movie.

2:09It's probably outdated, as Ted Sarandos at Netflix has said. In fact, the thinking goes, if theaters ever hope to win this demo, they need to start catering to their tastes, like allowing phones or even AI chatbots in theaters. But what if it's the exact opposite? What if these kids, having grown up digitally, actually crave an in-person experience? What if Gen Alpha is actually the savior of movie theaters? There's a new report from National Research Group that suggests exactly that. A majority of Gen Alpha kids prefer theaters to watching movies at home, it says. And they're the only demo where that's the case.

2:44It's much more exotic and alluring to that generation than to Gen Z or millennials, whose lives have been shaped by their phones, but who also largely knew a time before them. Quote, if anything, the amount of time that members of Gen Alpha spend staring at their phones and tablets appears to have made them deeply appreciative of those moments that allow them to log off, disconnect, and enjoy the real world company of friends and family, study reports. An interesting finding, and when I wrote about this in my Puck newsletter, I got a lot of feedback, and I had many, many questions. So today I brought on Fergus Navaratnam Blair.

3:18He's one of the authors of the study, works at NRG. And today it's gen alpha and movie theaters. Is there hope for the future? From The Ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany, and this is The Town.

3:33Okay, we are here with Fergus Navaratnam-Blair, who is a VP at National Research Group and a returning champion on The Town. Welcome back. Hello. Great to be with you. Thanks, Matt. Okay. So I enjoyed a study that you did recently that I wrote about in my Puck newsletter, and I wanted to have you on to explain more about it. It's called Gen Alpha Saves the Box Office? And the question mark is because I think this is a potentially important trend you are identifying, but I'll be honest with you, I'm not totally sure. Basically, the gist is that 59 % of Gen Alpha respondents to your survey, and these are kids born after 2010, born in the iPhone era, the social media age, they are telling you that they prefer to watch movies in theaters.

4:32And this is the highest percentage cohort of any age demo. So my first question is, what is going on here? Yeah, I think fundamentally what we're seeing is that this is a generation, Gen Alpha, a generation that has grown up really deeply embedded in the online world. They're spending so much of their time, all the research says this, they're spending so much of their time on their tablets, on their screens, on their devices, really plugging into digital forms of communication as the primary venue. They get to connect with friends, they get to socialize, they get to have those kind of experiences.

5:07And I think what we're seeing is you might have thought that that combined with the kind of endless variety of entertainment options available to them these days, the plethora of avenues they have to spend their time, the kind of death of the monoculture that we're always hearing about, the fact they're plugged into their sort of algorithmic social media bubbles. you might have thought that would lead to a kind of drifting away from the idea of the theater and moviegoing as this really special occasion, as this really exciting opportunity for them. But actually, we're not seeing that. We are seeing among this generation a deep love of the moviegoing experience.

5:44They have, in fact, if anything, the amount of time that they spend on their devices has led them to really value those moments that they get to disconnect from that, to get to build community in the real world. And I think that's a really promising story for the future of our industry. Yeah, that's the interesting one because it suggests that if all you know is the digital world, and millennials and Gen Z, they're all on their phones too. But they know a world, most of them, that doesn't have phones everywhere. So the convenience of watching anything you want at any time, infinite content, that is appealing to them.

6:22But if that's all you know, then maybe this weird world of movie theaters where you actually have to put it down and pay attention and you're sitting next to all your friends in real life rather than socializing with them on Roblox or Minecraft, maybe that is appealing. But one thing I want to press you on here, and I had a couple people email me when I published some of the data. Do you have stats on what Gen Z and millennials preferred when they were the age of Gen Alpha? Because this could just be a situation where little kids find movie theaters cool, and then as they get older, they age out of it.

7:04And we're going to see the same trends with Gen Alpha. Do you have comparative data sets here that show that this generation is actually more interested in theaters than the previous ones when they were this age? I think there's certainly a degree to which that is a possibility that they do age out of that to some extent. And frankly, there is a lack of good longitudinal data on this out there. It's hard to make a like-for-like comparison, especially given the degree to which the context has changed, the degree to which the movie industry has changed, the cadence of releases, the release models for new movies.

7:37Given all of that background change, it's very difficult to make an exact like-for-like comparison. What I will say is, firstly, we don't see the sort of shift away from that love of moviegoing that we might have expected to see among that generation. And secondly, if we look at this in the broader context of research on Gen Alpha, research we've been doing at NRG, research we've seen elsewhere, we really do see this longing among them for this desire to connect in the real world, this desire to disconnect from their devices, is this desire to find ways of bringing their communities that they've often built online into the real world.

8:12So I do think that evidence does suggest that as they grow up, as they have more ability to make their own purchasing decisions, as they have more ability to take control of their lives and how they spend their time, they are really going to be looking for those opportunities. They're going to be looking for a rebalancing of that away from the kind of dependency on digital media, on digital communications that they've kind of grown up with that they've been forced to grow up with because of COVID, because of the sort of changing social landscape, because of all of these factors. So it's not just that young people prefer to be in groups and then when they get older and have responsibilities, that preference goes away necessarily, or they prefer to be in theaters and have the time to spend on that and then it drops off.

8:58You are seeing a fundamental difference in this generation. I think it comes back to what you said earlier about the different contexts in which they're growing up. I am, for my sins, a millennial. I remember growing up as a kid. I remember the experience of the at-home movie night, going out to Blockbuster, going out to the video store, getting a VHS, getting a DVD, getting popcorn, watching it at home. This generation, they don't have that as much because they've grown up in this world where the expectation is that they have content on demand. They can watch whatever they want, whenever they want at home.

9:29There is a real need, therefore, for something that fills that gap that gives them what they can't get at home, what they can't replicate at home. And that, I think, is part of the story. I think there's also just this broader desire that we're seeing among this generation. They're saying, as I get older, as I grow up, as I have more power to make these decisions for myself, I want to spend it on really meaningful moments. I want to spend it on events. I want to spend it on forms of celebrating the fandoms that I love in the real world, not just spending all my time on my screens. And only 20 % of Gen Alpha expressed an interest in a theatrical experience that involved using their phone.

10:10So all of these theories about how the theater chains should have separate screenings for, you know, whatever you want to do, phones, talking, whatever. Maybe that's not the answer. I should have brought this up with my good friend Adam Aaron about what they're planning at AMC Theaters because they've talked about having these separate screening times. and maybe they should have them even more quiet. Maybe they should enforce it more and have it be a completely silent experience for these kids. Yeah, I mean, there's no harm in experimenting with these sorts of things, but I do think that what the data suggests is that when these kids go to the movies, they are looking for something that they can't get at home.

10:48They're not using their phones in theaters at particularly higher rates than Gen Z than millennials are. And when we ask them about the types of theatrical experiences that they would be interested in in the future, as you say, they don't say, I want to be able to incorporate my phone into the screening in some way. They say, I want to go to premium large format screenings. I want to go to special events like sing-alongs or dining experiences. Moving seats and wind and things like that. The stuff that you can't offer in the living room. So I do think, you know, there is all this experimentation.

11:19I remember there was that story the other month about an experiment that Meta was doing with AI chatbots that people could interact with while they were watching a movie on their phones. Literally kill me. That's literally killed me. Oh, Craig, come on, man. You don't want to have people chatting along with you. It's like having a buddy sitting there telling you the best lines in the movie before they come on. I'd like to say I'm proud of Gen Alpha for only 20 % of them saying they would like their phones to be incorporated into the movie theater experience. I know, Craig, you love this study.

11:49It's all your fault, though. Gen Z and millennials, they ruined it for everyone. We've got to have the backlash now. I want to extrapolate this in the real world and see how this is playing out. Because when you think about the box office in these terms, you can kind of see what's working and what's not through the lens of what young people care about. Because look what just happened with K-pop Demon Hunters. Sing along of a movie that all these kids had already seen. It grows to almost$20 million because they wanted to be with their friends and have a moment. Same thing going on this weekend with Hamilton.

12:24We'll see how it does. Same thing going on with all of these re-releases That we're seeing do pretty well in theaters Minecraft is another one These kids wanted to go and point at the screen And say, oh, it's Steve's Lava Chicken I know that They want to point at the screen and say Oh, that's what I know from the game And we are all talking about it in real life And having a moment where we can throw our popcorn in the air Seems like the studios that lean into that fan culture and galvanizing these fandoms for real-life experiences, that's kind of the new spectacle for the big screen. Absolutely.

13:05I would say it's that fan culture, but also an element of co-creation as well. I mean, when you look at the types of franchises that really resonate with Gen Alpha, when you look at the types of media properties that they are talking about with their friends, that list is dominated by video game titles and in particular by social gaming titles. Minecraft, but also Roblox, Fortnite, these sorts of platforms. Yeah, let's go through that list because we have that list. The top 20 are Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite, Grand Theft Auto, Pokemon, Avengers. That's the first Hollywood one, number six. Mario Brothers, Spider-Man, Lego, Madden, Sonic the Hedgehog, Wicked.

13:46Wicked actually is interesting. We'll talk about that. Spider-Verse, EA Sports, UFC, Squid Game, Five Nights at Freddy's Wednesday, Among Us Stranger Things and Batman Batman down at 20 a generation ago Batman would have probably been much higher Yeah absolutely and it's interesting that you brought up Wicked in particular because I think that is such a good example of the way that franchises can lean into that idea of empowering younger fans and leaning into that idea of co-creation this is a generation that have grown up with all of these digital tools at their fingertips, with all of these ways of showing off and sharing their fandom.

14:25They are looking for franchises that invite them into that element of creativity, that invite them to play around, that give them those tools to build and assemble things themselves. Wicked, I think, by its very nature, as a franchise that originated essentially as a work of fan fiction on top of this existing property, it kind of comes with this sort of built-in idea of, you can play around with this yourself. You know, they really leaned into that with the aesthetic of the movie, The very clear, the green and pink, it gave people opportunities to dress up. Oh my god, the TikTok videos and the singing.

14:56Exactly. It gave people opportunities to engage in fan fiction, fan art, create their own characters, all of these sorts of things. I think a lot of social gaming franchises do that really well, but Wicked does demonstrate you don't have to be a gaming franchise to give them what they're looking for there. Yeah, your study says there are four basic strategies here for galvanizing this age group. one is what you said, facilitating co-creation. The other is leveraging communities. So these fandoms and getting people to build their communities around these properties. And then that translates into people showing up for the movie.

15:31The other is offering ownership. What do you mean by that? What I mean by that is giving Gen Alpha an opportunity to say, this is my culture. This is my culture, not necessarily anyone else's. That happened with Minecraft. My kid was like, we're effing going because this is my thing. And he had ownership over that. Minecraft is a great example because if you look at different franchises, if you look at the level of fandom among different franchises, Minecraft is one of the franchises where we see the biggest delta between fandom among under-20s and fandom among older audiences. Those younger audiences, younger Gen Z, Gen Alpha audiences, really see it as their property.

16:10They understand that older people don't get it. They don't get what's exciting about this, but we do. This is part of our culture. And I think having those franchises that feel that they are owned by Gen Alpha is such an important part of giving them reasons to come to the theater. Yeah. And maybe not 70-year-old movie executives deciding what movies to make. Maybe they aren't the best arbiter of what kids were like. Or this generation of filmmakers who are aging out and seem to have whiffs at the box office every weekend. Maybe it's time for a new generation to determine what's cool. 63 % of Gen Alpha prefers to see a movie opening weekend.

16:50That's way higher than the other cohorts. They all prefer to watch movies in a busy theater over a quiet theater. That is higher than any other cohort. Interesting stuff. The last one of the four is providing unique live experiences, which you've talked about. So all of these activations, you know, when you go to the mall, Century City Mall, they have these, you know, Minecraft worlds or activations outside the movie theater. That adds to the experience for these kids. Very much. And your point there about they prefer to go on opening weekend, they prefer to go in a busy theater. I think that's very much part of it as well.

17:29This idea that when we look at their motivation for going compared to older audiences, they're not saying, you know, I'm going because of the story so much. I'm not going because of the sound quality or the picture quality necessarily. necessarily i'm going because i want to feel like i'm taking part in a cultural event i want to i'm going because i want to spend time with my friends and family who are there with me watching as well you know they want to go before spoilers are on social media they want to go you know while they still feel like they have the ability to plug into those you talked about all those sort of viral videos going around of um theaters reacting to minecraft earlier this year you know they want to be a part of those trends.

18:07But how do you create that? I mean, when I talk to studio people, they say, of course, we want that. We all learned with Barbenheimer and with all this stuff, it's been 10 years now where the social reaction and buildup is the key to getting an audience to show up. But it's easier said than done. And does this study suggest anything new about how to translate that fandom into butts in seats. Yeah, I think it's difficult because you're right. You can't force those moments. I think if you try to force those moments, it's going to come across as artificial. Kids are going to reject it. They're not going to kind of go along with you for that journey.

18:47What I think it is about is creating the space and the opportunity in terms of the franchises that you choose to engage with in terms of the way that you present those franchises for them to create those moments themselves. I mean, Minecraft's a great example of that because it is a franchise that was rooted in that idea of community. The movie itself lent into that idea of community. It had all of these little Easter eggs sort of referencing famous streamers from the Minecraft community, had all of these little in-jokes that fans are only going to get if they're really embedded in that community.

19:17And then that gave them the tools themselves to create those kind of viral moments. So I think that's a big part of it. I think the other part of it as well is around embracing the kind of level of irony that kids have with some of these franchises. I think it's interesting the relationship they have to these franchises often kind of walks the line between sincere and ironic appreciation. I mean, we saw that a few years ago with the Minions movie, the Gentle Minions trend. They were dressing up in suits and coming out to theaters. Well, it's basically the wicked press tour also. Indeed. People were buying in, but also sort of laughing at it at the same time.

19:52Another great example. That creates that sense of being in on the joke. It creates that sense of being part of, again, to come back to that word, community. And I think giving them those tools to allow those moments to emerge organically is what you have to do. You can't try and force it.

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20:50That's why Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales. Using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. To learn more, check out Accenture.com slash Spotify. The question was, which of these factors would make you more interested in seeing a new movie in a theater? The number one factor for Gen Alpha, way more than other generations, is it has lots of action sequences.

21:31Followed by, it's funny. And then it features actors I like. Then my friends are talking about it. Then it has impressive special effects. And then it's part of a franchise I like. So franchise lower, then it has lots of action sequences. I don't know how much to read into that because the franchise thing is lower than other generations. The one I want to zero in here on is the actors. What do actors mean to this generation? Yeah, this is an ongoing question within the industry, right? This sort of balance between actors and franchises. And I know you've done some episodes on the show before talking about the death of the movie star and some of the challenges that we're seeing in that sort of space.

22:14I mean, we've done studies on this. Jack Black is meaningful. The Rock is meaningful. It's these big movie stars that have been in kids' franchises that are meaningful, which is not a surprise. But I want to get to more of the like, how meaningful are they? Did it matter that Jack Black was the star of Minecraft and Jason Momoa was in Minecraft? Does that stuff even matter to this young generation like it once mattered to my generation? I think it does matter, but not exactly in the same way. And we do see in our data that older audiences are more likely to say that having specific big name actors is a draw to get them to go out and see a movie in theaters.

22:53It is still relevant for Gen Alpha, but I think it manifests in a slightly different way. It's more about the extent to which having those actors in the movie creates opportunities for them to talk about it with their friends. I mean, the biggest factor relative to other generations that gets younger audiences into theaters is word of mouth, is that kind of buzz among their community. and I think what you need is actors who by virtue of their fame by virtue of their celebrity status and their mass appeal create those conversations I mean the Wicked Press Store you mentioned already you know the extent to which we saw so many conversations driven by Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande you know I think those having those kind of actors who can generate those moments I think Jack Black is another person who naturally does that a lot just by the type of persona that he's created for himself I think that is what's important not necessarily the actors in a vacuum What surprised you most about this study?

23:47It was the attention span. I think there's so much kind of hand-wringing in the media these days about the attention span of younger audiences, this idea of kids growing up on scrollable video, watching 10-second TikToks, this idea that they've destroyed their attention spans. I don't think we see evidence of that in our data. I don't think we see evidence of that in wider research as well. There's a lot of academic studies recently suggesting that, Yes, kids are, you know, when they're on their phones, they're paying attention to things in these kind of very short bursts, but that hasn't had a kind of knock-on wider impact on their ability to pay attention in other contexts.

24:25And actually, if you create the right contextual environment, they are willing to sit still to pay attention to a two-hour movie. Well, you take away their phone and put them in the dark and sit them down with a big bucket of popcorn. That probably helps. Exactly. My kid associates movies in theaters with food that he likes. And I know that's always been the case, but it's a lot easier to get him to sit still when he's got that in front of him. Fergus, is there any data specifically on Gen Alpha's opinion on movie length? Oh, there is. It's in this study. Movies are getting longer. I know you said attention spans are holding on perhaps, but Gen Alpha specifically is incredibly used to short form vertical video that is quick.