Gen Z’s attitudes about dining out, restaurant discovery, apps and more

Welcome to Ad Age Datacenter Weekly, our data-obsessed newsletter for marketing and media professionals. Don’t miss Ad Age’s Data-Driven Marketing Playbook event Where will you be on May 22? We have a suggestion: at City Winery in Manhattan for Ad Age’s Data-Driven Marketing Playbook event focused on unlocking the power of data to shape marketing strategies, refine media buying decisions and elevate customer interactions. Speakers include Jamie Barnard, co-founder and CEO of data tech company Compliant; Obele Brown-West, president of Stagwell’s Colle McVoy; Jeremy Cornfeldt, president of Tinuiti; Arielle Garcia, chief operating officer for digital advertising watchdog Check My Ads; Daniella Harkins, senior VP of go to market at LiveRamp; Kyle Shank, director of media technology, analytics and operations for Hershey Co.; and Dirk Shaw, co-founder and head of product at Veylan, the first AI-native operating system for advertising. Learn more about the event—and sign up for it—here. Macroeconomic news and data in a nutshell • “Recession fears ease as jobless claims remain at low levels,” from MarketWatch • “Consumer sentiment plunged on Monday amid tariff chaos,” Axios reports • “CEOs Brace for Recession Even After Tariff Reprieve Boosts Stocks,” Bloomberg News reports • “Fed Minutes Flag Worry Over ‘More Persistent’ Inflation,” from Barron’s Plus: Early warnings signal a recession may already have begun—what brands need to know ICYMI: Ad industry employment fell again in March “Employment in advertising, public relations and related services fell by 600 jobs in March, dropping for the fourth month in a row.” Ad Age’s Bradley Johnson reports. Keep reading for Johnson’s drill-downs by Bureau of Labor Statistics ad industry classifications. Revealed: Gen Z and other generations’ attitudes about dining out, restaurant discovery, apps and more Performance marketing company Wunderkind is out with the 2025 edition of its Restaurant Consumer Insights Report—shared first with Datacenter Weekly. Among the key findings of a March survey of U.S. consumers conducted for Wunderkind by research platform MX8 Labs: • When it comes to restaurant discovery, 33% of Gen Zers, 30% of millennials and 23% of Gen Xers turn to online review platforms such as Google, Yelp and Tripadvisor, while only 11% of boomers do. • Just 26% of Gen Zers say they rely on word-of-mouth recommendations for restaurant discovery. Gen Xers land at 32%, millennials at 34% and boomers at 64%. • Gen Zers (29%) are the most likely to use third-party delivery apps such as Uber Eats and DoorDash. Millennials land at 18%, Gen Xers at 15% and boomers at just 7%. • Just over a third of millennials (37%) and Gen Zers (35%) say they dine out two to three times per week—significantly higher than Gen Xers (26%) and boomers (20%). More Gen Z news: Gen Z demands accountability amid corporate DEI rollbacks 27 That’s the number of women hired as CMOs in March, per tracking by executive search firm Taligence. As Ad Age’s E.J. Schultz notes in the latest edition of CMO job moves and hiring trends to watch, that number continues “a streak of female CMO hires outpacing men. In 2024, 58% of the 310 CMO hires made were women.” Keep reading here. Just briefly • “The plans to put data centres in orbit and on the Moon,” from the BBC • “Google will let companies run its Gemini AI models in their own data centers,” CNBC reports • “Acting IRS commissioner plans to resign after data-sharing deal with immigration authorities,” from ABC News • “Microsoft says it’s ‘slowing or pausing’ some AI data center projects, including $1B plan for Ohio,” per The Associated Press • “Trump Wants to Merge Government Data. Here Are 314 Things It Might Know About You,” from The New York Times The newsletter is brought to you by Ad Age Datacenter, the industry’s most authoritative source of competitive intel and home to the Ad Age Leading National Advertisers, the Ad Age Agency Report: World’s Biggest Agency Companies and other exclusive data-driven reports. Access or subscribe to Ad Age Datacenter at adage.com/datacenter. Ad Age Datacenter is Bradley Johnson and Joy R. Lee.

Gen Z’s attitudes about dining out, restaurant discovery, apps and more

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