Browsing by Author "Axcell, Shana Mary."

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Exploring the attitudes and behaviour of generation Z students towards branded mobile applications.
(2017) Axcell, Shana Mary.; Ellis, Deborah Ann.
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.