What wins the hearts of Gen Z customers? A discovery of the needs and trends by search activity

The social media services mostly used by Gen Z are drawing attention as new sources of fashion. For example, “Maritozzo”, “Taiwanese castella cake”, and “Planet Gummi” have become popular topics recently.

The products and services that have the potential to become the next big trends have been investigated at various sites. Keywords such as “Gashapon”, “ornamental foliage plant”, and “Shortcake Can” were included in the results. (Reference: Sucle survey『2021年 Z世代の下半期トレンド予測』)

In this research, the numbers of searchers, user attributes, and search keywords were used to analyze the trends in the first half of 2021, which were “Maritozzo”, “Planet Gummi”, and the next possible trends of “Gashapon” and “ornamental foliage plant”.

Search activity is helpful for investigating user needs. By capturing the increasing search results, let’s look at the future growth of the trends.

Maritozzo, a soft brioche bun filled with whipped cream, became super popular in early 2021, and numbers of stores, including convenience stores, began to sell their own products. It gained wide popularity due to its photogenic appearance and numerous features on TV shows.

Let’s find out when “Maritozzo” started to be a trend by looking into the number of searchers over the past year.

There had already been a few searchers in 2020. However, the increase of users started from January and reached a peak with 400,000 users in June.

Next, let’s take a look at the user attributes.

Seventy percent of all users were women, and there were more users in the age brackets of 30s to 50s than Gen Z users in age brackets of 10s to 20s.

This percentage shows the necessity of getting the attention of non-Gen Z generations, to make trends started among Gen Z grow more. Maritozzo already existed before it became a hit, and this may have made it easily accepted by the generations older than Gen Z.

Here are the seasonal changes of words searched together with “Maritozzo”.

At the very beginning of the trend (December 2020 to February 2021), “Kaldi” (imported goods store) and “recipe” were searched together with “Maritozzo”. It seems that users were initially interested in knowing where to buy and how to make maritozzo.

From March to May 2021, place names such as “Kichijouji (吉祥寺)” and “Chiba (千葉)” were searched. It shows that the users attempted to find the shops where maritozzo was available. The keyword “7-Eleven” can also be seen, as the convenience store released their own maritozzo during this month.

From June to August 2021, chain stores other than 7-Eleven also released their own maritozzo, which is why the names of chain stores like “Lawson”, “Family Mart”, and “Chateraise” started to show up. In addition, keywords such as “difference”, “eat and compare”, and “strawberry & raspberry sauce dressing” were also searched for the purpose of trying different kinds of maritozzo.

From those changes in search activities, we can see that the users’ knowledge and experience with maritozzo were both increasing outside SNS. The numbers and patterns of searches increased with the users’ desire to know where to buy maritozzo and which maritozzo tastes good.

We then tried to analyze “Planet Gummi”, which was also a hot topic but ended up not being as big of a trend as “Maritozzo”. Planet Gummi is a blue and round candy, wrapped in a clear plastic case with a continental pattern. The appearance of a miniature globe is what made it popular on SNS.

The changes in the number of searchers are shown below.

Since April 2021, the trend started to grow and reached a peak with over 50,000 searchers in July. However, this is only 12.8% of the maximum number of “Maritozzo” searchers.

The percentages by gender of the users are almost the same as that of “Maritozzo”. The age brackets show that there are more teenage searchers and the generation of their parents in the 30s to 40s age brackets, while the percentages in age brackets of 50s and above are relatively lower.

Next are the seasonal changes of the words searched together with “Planet Gummi”.

Similar to “Maritozzo”, keywords such as “Kaldi”, “Donki”, and “seller” reveal the desire of the users to find where to buy Planet Gummi. However, since the sellers and the flavors of “Planet Gummi” were limited, there were not so many topics other than its appearance, and there were no other related keywords.

Compared to maritozzo, Planet Gummi also has an impressive appearance, but the lower acceptance of older generations and the fewer chances for users to reach the product outside SNS made it a weaker trend than maritozzo.

From analyzing “Maritozzo” and “Planet Gummi”, it seems that it is necessary for products to win acceptance across different generations and have a chance to reach users through physical stores and social media so that they can become trends. Therefore, based on these two points, we analyzed the next possible trends.

First, we investigated “Gashapon”. Gashapons are not only toys for children, but they now also attract grown-ups. Particularly, there is an increase in unique gashapon series that are not related to any specific characters in popular media, such as Onigiringu (a series of gashapons with rice ball fillings wrapped in triangular rice ball cases).

Let’s take a look at the change in the numbers of users who searched “Gashapon”.

Due to the constant popularity, more than 70,000 users searched “Gashapon” every month, and the number is increasing further.

The age brackets are shown below.

This chart shows that “Gashapon” has been more popular among users in the age brackets of 20s to 40s.
Let’s also take a look at the monthly change in age brackets.

Although there were sight changes between different months, the percentage of users in the 20s age bracket (red line) had increased during the entire year.

Here are the seasonal changes of words searched together with “Gashapon”.

Almost all the words were related to names of characters or brands such as “Disney Land” and “Tom and Jerry”. There were huge changes in search words between different periods of time.

Gashapons are physically very reachable, as they can be seen in various shopping malls. They can easily become hot topics since they change frequently and are reported by the media.

As there is a substantial number of Instagram posts featuring gashapons for grown-ups and 100,000 monthly searchers, it is evident that gashapons have been a constant trend among Gen Z and millennials. Since the older generations are also familiar with gashapons, this trend is likely to expand in the near future.
The affordable price of gashapons makes it easier for younger generations to be immersed in their own world with these cute miniatures.

We analyzed the trend of “ornamental foliage plant”. Although ornamental foliage plants have been popular for a while, the stay-at-home period due to the spread of COVID-19 has brought even more attention to ornamental foliage plants.

The changes in the numbers of users who searched “ornamental foliage plant” are shown below.

After the decrease in December 2020, the number of searchers kept increasing and reached 300,000 in May 2021.

The age brackets are shown below.

There are higher percentages in the 30s to 50s age brackets, and the percentages do not change much over time. Due to the prolonged stay-at-home period during COVID-19, relaxing and photogenic ornamental foliage plants have received more attention.

Next, let’s take a look at the seasonal changes of the words searched together with “ornamental foliage plant”.

We can see there are various search keywords, such as the names of sellers like “Rakuten” and “Costco”, and words related to how to grow plants like “humidification” and “timing for transplanting”. “KIRIN PLUS”, the rental service for ornamental foliage plants, and “Nana Seino”, the name of a Japanese actress known to be a lover of ornamental foliage plants, are also in the chart.

Although there are not so many chances for users to reach ornamental foliage plants physically, there are still various search words every season. The chart shows that there are new services such as rental services and subscription services, and some users need to buy the plants as gifts for Mother’s Day. As these plants are purchased by customers of all ages, we believe that the trend of ornamental foliage plants will expand even further.

Social media influencers often present their recent addictions through Instagram stories and get positive reactions from their fans because their lifestyles look quite attractive. If influencers present ornamental foliage plants as their current addiction, their fans immediately get interested and start thinking about buying one. This kind of distribution channel also deserves attention.

In this research, we investigated the trends of Gen Z. By analyzing the trends in the first half of 2021, “Maritozzo” and “Planet Gummi”, we discovered the requirements for expanding a trend, which are “acceptance across different generations” and “easier access to the products through physical stores and social media”.

In addition, in the analyses of the next possible trends, “Gashapon” and “ornamental foliage plant”, there were increases in search activities due to the familiarity of these two subjects existing long before the trends started. The behaviors of users using gashapons to build their own miniature world or decorating their rooms with ornamental foliage plants may show the unique needs of younger generations, which is to create a small but comfortable space around themselves.

To explore future trends, it might be helpful to ascertain the small changes in the numbers of search activities. Dockpit, our tool for marketing analysis used in this research, allows us to analyze changes in numbers of searchers and user attributes as well as other keywords those searchers are interested in, popular inflow sites and pages, and so on. For more details, please try the free trial of Dockpit.