Exploring the attitudes and behaviour of generation Z students towards branded mobile applications.

Abstract

With the increasing mobile activity of the Generation Z market (those born after

1994) in South Africa, marketers’ interest in this social group is rising. This research

attempts to uncover the relatively unknown attitudes and behaviour of the youth

market in South Africa around branded mobile applications. The research problem

focuses on the academic literature gap of the latest group of consumers: Generation Z.

Previous studies on mobile marketing have focused on Generation X and Generation

Y. Furthermore, only quantitative studies have been performed on the youth market

and mobile applications in South Africa. This study is based on the theoretical

framework of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology Model 2.

The study employed a qualitative framework with focus groups as the data collection

method. The focus groups were stratified on gender and the participants ranged from

18-21 years old. The study was conducted at a private tertiary institution in Durban,

South Africa. The findings indicate that the participants had both positive and

negative attitudes towards branded mobile applications, however there were more

positive than negative attitudes. In terms of behaviour, on average, participants had

between 7-10 apps on their phone but only used 4-6 apps every day. The findings

revealed the most popular branded mobile application as Whatsapp. Furthermore,

social influences, facilitating conditions, performance expectancy, effort expectancy,

hedonic motivation, price value and habit are all influencers of branded mobile

application behaviour. The results identify age, gender and experience as moderating

factors related to the attitudes and behaviour of Generation Z students with mobile

apps. As a recommendation, the issue of privacy and its effect on mobile app adoption

is a factor to be researched in the future for academics. The research also provides

recommendations for marketers and app developers such as incorporating permission

marketing into mobile applications.