The impact

• Insights shared with sporting leaders in the Saudi market to inform their understanding of UK and US youth culture

• Directly informing a book being written by a leading figure in sports and entertainment marketing

• Produced a proprietary three-part archetypes framework that gives the client a replicable model for evaluating cultural influence

• Coined two strategic concepts that explain the existing disconnect in women's sport

The brief

A leading figure in sports and entertainment marketing - in the process of writing a book on the future of the industry - needed rigorous, original research to understand how Gen Z and Alpha are redefining the rules of influence, loyalty and cultural connection.

The questions at the heart of the brief: who do young people look up to and why? What does the Caitlin Clark phenomenon actually tell us about the future of women's sport? And what separates a cultural moment from a sustained movement?

What made this brief interesting

Gen Z and Alpha are not simply younger versions of previous generations. They represent a fundamentally different kind of cultural consumer — one that has grown up with the internet as an environment rather than a tool, that distrusts institutions and derives behavioural cues from individuals rather than media, and that holds icons to an entirely new and unwritten set of rules.

The research needed to go beyond surface-level generational profiling and get under the skin of what actually drives loyalty, fandom and influence in 2026 and beyond.

The approach

Three complementary methods, designed to triangulate quantitative scale with qualitative depth and real-world cultural immersion in only three weeks.

A nationally representative survey of 750 Gen Z respondents across the UK and US — with a deliberate 50% non-sports-engaged sample to avoid skewing toward existing fans. Social listening to codify how young audiences actually talk about the icons they love. And live intercepts at Arsenal Women vs Manchester United at the Emirates — 18 participants spanning super fans, families with Gen Alpha children and Gen Z first-timers — to understand fandom as it's actually lived and felt in the room.

The insight that reframed everything

The research revealed that modern influence operates through three distinct but overlapping archetypes — each with a different engine driving loyalty. At this stage, I’ll have to keep ‘mum’ on the findings before they’re published.

The outcomes

The research and its frameworks are directly informing a book by a leading sports and entertainment figure — reaching an audience of industry leaders and decision makers. The insights have been shared with sporting leaders in the Saudi market, shaping how they understand the UK and US youth landscape and what it means for the future of sports entertainment globally.

What I'd do differently

The Gen Alpha section is the most forward-looking and the least evidenced — the methodology skewed older within the Gen Z bracket due to budget and time restraints. A dedicated Gen Alpha strand, including parent-mediated research and platform immersion, would have given that closing argument even more rigour. It's the next chapter of this research waiting to be written.