How TBWA completed 200 Gen Z interviews in under 24 hours - saving 20 hours while capturing richer insights through AI probing and voice notes on WhatsApp.
How TBWA completed 200 interviews in under 24 hours using Yazi's WhatsApp-based AI Interviewer — saving 20 hours of research time while capturing richer, deeper Gen Z insights through dynamic probing and voice notes.
TBWA South Africa partnered with Yazi on behalf of a large South African retailer to explore Gen Z consumer preferences, brand perceptions, and purchasing behaviours. The study needed to reach a notoriously hard-to-engage demographic — digital natives who ignore traditional survey formats — and extract insights that went beyond surface-level data.
Yazi's AI Interviewer, deployed natively on WhatsApp, gave TBWA a way to meet Gen Z on their preferred platform, conduct dynamic one-on-one interviews at scale, and capture rich qualitative data through voice notes and conversational probing — all within a single day.
The retailer needed to understand and connect with Gen Z — a demographic that prefers digital engagement and mobile-first platforms. Traditional survey methods were falling short on multiple fronts.
Gen Z ignores email surveys and web-based forms. Traditional methods consistently failed to achieve the participation rates needed for meaningful research.
Static survey formats captured basic preferences but missed the nuance — the why behind Gen Z's choices, their emotional drivers, and their real brand perceptions.
TBWA needed insights quickly. Traditional recruitment and data collection timelines couldn't deliver the speed the project demanded.
The retailer wanted to hear Gen Z in their own words — not just ticked boxes. Standard tools weren't built for the kind of interactive, exploratory questioning the project required.
Yazi gave TBWA a direct line to Gen Z through WhatsApp — the platform this demographic already uses and trusts. The AI Interviewer conducted dynamic, conversational interviews that adapted in real time based on each respondent's answers, while voice note support let participants share their thoughts in the most natural way possible.
Gen Z respondents were invited via WhatsApp. The AI Interviewer guided each participant through a personalised line of questioning about the retailer — probing on pricing perceptions, brand preferences, advertising attitudes, and environmental concerns. Participants could reply with text or voice notes, on their own schedule.
Gen Z respondents received an invitation via WhatsApp, tapped to start, and answered a dynamically personalised interview about the retailer — responding with voice notes or text, at their own pace.
By meeting Gen Z on WhatsApp with an AI-driven conversational approach, TBWA achieved results that would have been impossible through traditional survey methods — both in speed and in the quality of insights captured.
The data collected via Yazi revealed clear patterns in Gen Z consumer behaviour — insights the retailer could act on immediately.
TBWA accessed the study through the Yazi dashboard — full interview transcripts with auto-transcribed voice notes, a live completions tracker, and the underlying response data, all in one place.
| Traditional Surveys | Yazi AI Interviewer on WhatsApp | |
|---|---|---|
| Reach | Low response rates from Gen Z | 200+ interviews in under 24 hours |
| Engagement | High drop-off, superficial answers | High completion via familiar platform |
| Qualitative depth | Static questions, surface-level data | Dynamic AI probing per respondent |
| Voice capture | Not supported | ~30% shared voice notes with emotional depth |
| Time to insights | Days to weeks | Under 24 hours for data collection |
| Research savings | Baseline | 20 hours saved on the project |
A single platform that reached Gen Z where they already are — WhatsApp — and extracted insights that static surveys couldn't. The AI Interviewer's real-time probing turned each conversation into a rich, contextual interview, while voice notes captured the emotional dimension of brand perception. All delivered in under 24 hours, saving 20 hours on the project.
Actionable intelligence on their future customer. Clear data on price sensitivity, advertising preferences, social media habits, influencer impact, and environmental attitudes — backed by first-person voice testimonies that brought the data to life. The retailer now has a playbook for connecting with Gen Z on the channels and in the tone that actually resonates.
The results Yazi delivered were outstanding. Their platform allowed us to engage with Gen Z on their preferred platform — WhatsApp — and the AI Interviewer provided deep insights that we hadn't captured with traditional methods. The real-time feedback and rich qualitative data from voice notes gave us the edge we needed to understand our future customer better. We're excited to apply these insights to the retailer's marketing strategies.
The TBWA partnership demonstrated what happens when you meet Gen Z on their terms. By deploying Yazi's AI Interviewer on WhatsApp, TBWA completed over 200 interviews in under 24 hours — saving 20 hours of research time while capturing richer, more actionable insights than traditional surveys could deliver.
The combination of dynamic AI probing and voice note capture gave the retailer something rare: not just data on what Gen Z thinks, but how they feel. Price sensitivity, advertising authenticity, social media preferences, influencer scepticism — each insight was grounded in the respondents' own words and voices, making the findings immediately actionable for marketing strategy.
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