Who better than teenagers to know what’s trendy? Piper Sandler has released the spring edition of its semiannual “Taking Stock With Teens Survey,” with solid results for several names in our portfolio. We love scanning the report, which looks at a wide swath of Generation Z, roughly defined as people aged 11 to 26. In fact, the median age of the 6,020 teens polled across 47 states was 16.1 years old. The gender breakdown was 54% male, 44% female and 2% nonbinary. About 38% said they were employed part-time. The average household income of the respondents was $66,280. Research shows younger shoppers are more likely to try new things and stick with brands that they can identify with personally, ideologically, and/or had good experiences with. So, it’s not just about selling teens because it’s good for companies’ current quarters but also about gaining mindshare among group to improve the lifetime value of these customers. Here’s an in-depth look at Piper’s teen survey and how six Club names — Meta Platforms, Amazon, Apple, Starbucks, Estee Lauder and Foot Locker — fared with younger consumers. Internet The big winner here was Meta Platforms . Instagram remains a staple for teens, with 80% of respondents using the app. That’s unchanged. Instagram’s lead as “the most used app” increased by 8 percentage points, up from 5 percentage points in Piper’s fall survey. About 30% of teens said Instagram was their favorite app. Not only is that a 7-percentage-point increase versus the fall data, it’s also the strongest gain seen since TikTok was added to the survey. TikTok, which faces U.S. calls to ban the short-form video platform owned by China’s ByteDance, does remain teens’ top app. However, it did lose some ground. Instagram displaced Snap ‘s Snapchat as the No. 2 platform among teens. Facebook saw an engagement increase, with monthly usage increasing to 32%, the higher level in four years, thanks to Meta’s artificial intelligence investments. Another positive, though perhaps unsurprisingly, Amazon remains the top retailer among upper-income teens. The support from teens overall is even stronger than seen in the past, with 61% of respondents highlighting the platform as their go-to, up from 59% in the fall and 57% last spring. Apple also remains a top brand with teens with 85% of respondents saying they own an iPhone and 86% saying that they intend to purchase one. That’s down slightly from the levels seen in 2021 but still near record highs. The Apple Watch also remains the No. 1 watch brand among teens. Restaurants and coffee, tea, beverage Starbucks is the top dog no matter how you cut it — No. 1 across all income levels, regardless of gender. That said, the coffee giant has the most mindshare with upper-income females. Compared to the competition, it’s not even close with Starbucks maintaining 37% mindshare across all teens surveyed, way ahead of the 7% mindshare held by the runner-up, Dunkin’ Donuts. The analysts did modify the survey a bit this year, spinning out the coffee, tea, & beverage category from what was previously simply categorized under restaurants. Before this update, the analysts said, “Starbucks consistently ranked as a Top 5 restaurant, typically in the No. 2 or No. 3 spot. This further highlights the brand’s dominance as both restaurant and coffee choice among teens.” They added, that in their view, the Starbucks brand remains a “relevant social currency among teens.” That’s especially important given the recent boycott calls and protests over Starbucks’ perceived stance in the Israel-Hamas war. In our view, it supports the idea that the headwinds from these actions are temporary and any weakness in the stock price resulting from them is a buying opportunity. In December, Starbucks said its position on the Mideast conflict remains unchanged , saying it “stands for humanity.” The company added it condemns “violence, the loss of innocent life, and all hate and weaponized speech.” Beauty The survey bodes well for beauty retailers, with the Piper analysts noting that industry spending reached its highest level since 2018. The wallet share increase of 8% was spread out, with growth among all categories. While cosmetics maintained the highest share of beauty spending, fragrance was the fastest growing — up 23% versus the year-ago period. Elf Beauty remains the No. 1 brand among teens. For Estee Lauder , the results were a bit more neutral, with strength seen in its skincare brand The Ordinary, which maintained its spot at No. 2. However, that was offset by Clinique, which lost some ground, falling two spots to No. 10. Too Faced also gained some ground, while MAC lost some share. While the spending trends in the beauty category are encouraging, we remain mindful that in terms of Estee Lauder’s stock price, it’s the demand coming from Asia that matters most. Global lifestyle brands, athletic and footwear Here we find that Foot Locker has been losing mindshare among teens, falling to No. 12 from the 10-spot last spring and No. 9 in the fall. It appears that the winner of Foot Locker’s troubles is Dick’s Sporting Goods . That said, we think results elsewhere support Foot Locker management’s efforts to focus on brands other than Nike as they look to turn around the retailer. Nike maintained its No. 1 spot “across apparel, athletic apparel, footwear, and athletic footwear,” the Piper analysts said. But they noted that Nike is now “starting to see weakness in overall brand mindshare.” At Nike’s expense, it appears brands such as running specialist Deckers Outdoor -owned Hoka, No. 3 in athletic footwear, and On running, No. 9 in overall footwear, are gaining mindshare. Overall, spending on footwear was down 1% annually as a 3% decline in the “average-income” cohort was only partially offset by 5% annual increase in the “upper-income” cohort. Political and social issues The top three most important political and social issues were unchanged from the fall results, with the environment as No. 1, followed by inflation and racial equity. That’s perhaps even more notable with the hotly contested 2024 presidential election on the horizon because as much as we would like companies to stay out of the social/political realm due to the impossible task of pleasing everyone, it’s clear that stances companies decide to take or not take will impact their mindshare among teenagers and the demand they see from this key demographic. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long META, AMZN, AAPL, SBUX, EL, FL. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . 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Who better than teenagers to know what’s trendy?
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