From Gen Z to Boomers: Insights on how the most relevant brands meet customers where they are

This article is part of a year-long, 25th anniversary series that explores where insight communities have been, where they are today, and the market and customer trends that are shaping where C Space is taking insight communities next.

Imagine you’re an insight professional tasked with conducting outreach to a new audience segment key to your customer-centric business strategy —say, Arabic-speaking Gen Z consumers. Now picture a completely different challenge: you’re trying to build a relationship with luxury car owners to inform ongoing marketing campaigns. How do you approach reaching and engaging these two consumer groups?

Both audiences are very different, yet the market research industry too often relies on the same tools to reach them. Maybe there’s a slight tweak in design or a customized message is sent out, but at its core it’s the same. This reflects the paradox of modern qualitative and quantitative research: while we have more ways than ever to connect with people, meaningful engagement can be harder than ever. The real question isn’t whether you can reach customers; it’s whether you know how to engage each audience effectively for actionable customer insights.

At C Space, we’re constantly evolving our approach to meet customers where they are. We deliver messages through the right digital channels at the right time, facilitate insight communities that power ongoing engagement and build trust by hiring humans that understand the context, culture and unspoken expectations that shape how diverse groups of people engage.

Arabic-speaking Gen Z consumers live on their phones. They prefer quick, timely, low-bandwidth and in-language communication — push notifications and short videos over lengthy emails and dense text walls. To keep Gen Z engaged, customer research methods should be mobile-first, offering interactive activity formats relevant to daily routines that provide instant gratification. If a brand’s messaging isn’t relevant, it won’t resonate, making local language expertise and cultural intelligence essential.

Luxury car owners value design, prestige and experience. They seek more than just access to a brand; they want to feel a part of it. That means slick, intuitive digital experiences that feel as polished as the vehicles they drive. Customer engagement strategies should foster conversations that tap into their shared values of pride, status and the satisfaction of shaping something they care about. It’s about developing a culture where insight community members are seen as thought leaders and recognizing their influence on the brand as the motivating factors over extrinsic, transactional rewards.

These research decisions around insight community member recruitment and engagement go beyond mere tactics; they reflect a deeper philosophy about cultivating brand-customer relationships. This involves recognizing the unique qualities of each audience and creating a tailored engagement plan. It’s important to not just access a community but truly understand it to build customer trust, empathy and brand relevance. It’s not enough to simply deliver research. We need to design customer behavior research thoughtfully for people’s real lives.

At C Space, we have embraced this philosophy by developing research tools and complimentary ethnographic approaches that we tailor to each audience. Our new mobile app is designed for a phone-first world, but more importantly, it is created for real-life moments. Whether someone is on a train or in a coffee shop, our activities are quick, responsive and designed to meet customers where they are —physically and mentally.

And with our growing AI capabilities, we’re able to synthesize insight community engagement data faster. But we never confuse speed with insight. AI helps us analyze; human expertise helps us interact and interpret. Because it’s one thing to know what people say. It’s another to understand what they actually mean, and what they didn’t say.

It’s why we’ve spent 25 years honing our relationship expertise, developing the skills of our strategists, researchers and designers to deeply understand the audiences brands are desperate to know, from Gen Z to luxury car owners. We know how to read between the lines, refine the ask and create experiences that feel less like “research” and more like meaningful dialogue. It’s called audience intelligence.

Meeting your customers where they are isn’t just a strategic advantage — it’s the only way to build real, long-term relationships and brand relevance in an age of endless digital noise. It’s not just about designing with technology, but through genuine empathy, curiosity and human insight and expertise.

And that’s what we do best.

Ready to connect with invested customers who give you the competitive edge your brand needs? Contact us . Ready to deep dive into our approach about connecting with your next generation of customers today? Learn more in our guide below, Customer Inside: Building the Next Generation of Insight Communities.