20 years of adding brand value
This year marks the 20th year of GenNext delivering on research that has shaped youth insights and provided valuable behavioural and brand preference data for businesses to drive impact and unlock sustainable growth. The theme ‘Amplifying Youth’ revolves around four common threads that have been the focus of GenNext research over the past twenty years: brands, youth, trends, and insights. By exploring these four pillars, GenNext has been able to amplify the voices and realities of young people across the country, making their unique perspectives relevant and meaningful for the business community. This remains our key action year after year, and we are committed to continuously evolving and improving it in the foreseeable future.
In our partnership with the Sunday Times, we deliver the 20th edition of the Sunday Times GenNext Coolest Brands Survey. In addition, this year marks the 4th year of Yellowwood producing the Youth Behaviour report for brands and businesses across the South African landscape to leverage. Twenty years on, our research allows you to learn about the world of young people and take an active role in identifying their drivers and barriers.
This annual ambition and our continued efforts to evolve our youth research into a property that continuously delivers value for our industry have influenced our decision to introduce a metric to define what “Cool” is and how young people understand this when engaging brands and businesses.
In 2024, we unapologetically salute the amplification of the youth and unpack what they deem ‘cool’ and why. Knowing that there’s still so much to learn, we intentionally structure our research for it to be a tool to drive the data-driven strategies our clients need.
