Zeldis is hard at work on our next thought leadership study – a deep dive into how consumers use social media for financial education and advice. Recent research by Zeldis for the FINRA Foundation and The CFA Institute has shown that nearly half (48%) of Gen Z investors use social media as a learning source for financial topics, along with 42% of millennials and 26% of Gen X. We hope to explore how these generations are using social media, which specific platforms and sources they are using, and how they evaluate the credibility of these sources. We also plan to investigate the role of traditional financial services companies in the social media space and explore how these companies can fully integrate into the social media world. We will be doing online focus groups with consumers, followed by a quantitative survey with this population. Please reach out to our Investments and Insurance Practice Lead, Kathrin Schumacher (kathrin@zeldisresearch.com), to share your needs for this research – we welcome your ideas.

We are happy to launch our series of Zeldis Buzz Podcasts. The first in the series is a discussion with my colleagues, Kristina Witzling and Kathrin Schumacher, our P&C and Insurance and Investments Practice Leads, respectively. We discuss the importance of optimizing your research using techniques that lead to stakeholder investment and buy-in on the front end and effective research activation on the back end. Kristina, Kathrin, and I discuss some examples of how we’ve worked with our clients do to this to make sure research dollars are being leveraged in the most impactful way possible. Listen to the audio or watch the video.

Zeldis was incredibly privileged to partner with Equitable for a two-phase research study that explored how women engage with money and how that differs and evolves based on their relationship status. We collected quantitative data from 1702 respondents (1002 gen pop* women, 200 additional divorced and widowed women, and 500 men as a comparison group) and explored topics such as financial needs and behaviors, confidence and stress around managing finances, decision-making, and impact of professional financial advice. Please take a moment to look at the findings of this important research using the links below.



Overview of Research



Full White Paper

I am very excited to be attending and/or speaking at several upcoming industry conferences. Please reach out and let me know if you will be attending, so that we can connect in person!



• Feb 28-29, Quirks Event in Dallas: I will present a session called Avoiding Research Limbo: How to Keep Your Research from Sitting on the Shelf, based in part on content from the podcast above.

• Mar 26-27, Quirks Event in Chicago (attending)

Thanks to all of you who helped select a charity for our annual Zeldis donation in honor of our clients. I was really pleased with how many folks engaged, and I found it fascinating that we had nearly identical numbers of folks choose each of our three charities! Based on your selections, we distributed our donation proportionally as follows:



• 34.5% to Feeding America
• 34.5% to Mental Health America
• 31% to American Humane

We’ve been behind in announcing some fabulous additions to the Zeldis team. Please welcome our stellar newest Zeldis team members (even though they have been with us for over a year):

Leo Gibney, Senior Research Director, Healthcare Practice

Leo has over 20 years of turnkey experience consulting in primary marketing research, including healthcare, financial services, and other industry sectors, both quantitative and qualitative research, global and domestic. He has a passion for detail. Whether writing a proposal, developing a screening instrument or survey/discussion guide, or writing a report, attention to details is critical in everything he does.

Jacob Ratner, Senior Research Director, Investments and Insurance Practice

Jacob has 20+ years of experience in market research. Jacob is well versed in all aspects of survey research, from design to field management, through analysis, reporting and presenting key findings. He has an MBA from Rice University, is a RIVA-certified moderator, and recently completed a graduate certificate course in advanced data analytics from SMU.

Cheri Hopkins, Field Operations Director, Healthcare Practice

Cheri’s market research career began at a top-rated recruiting firm in Tampa, Fl where she wore many hats, from Phone Room Supervisor, Hostess, Facility Manager to eventually Vice President of the company. From there she started her own company offering Qualitative Project Management services for over 20 successful years before joining the Zeldis team.

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