Marketing to gen z. | Willow & Blake

We’re digital natives; we fell right out of the womb and onto our social media accounts. That’s why Millennials and boomers ask for our help in the online realm with a deference that gives our gen enormous power. Millennials may have more spending power than us, but we’re the ones deciding what is cool and what is cancelled. 

So, it’s worth understanding how we think and why we buy.

We appreciate (thoughtful) takes on trends. 

The first thing we want brands to know is that they do NOT have to participate in every social media trend. In fact, they shouldn’t. We’ve seen a million brands jumping on trends in cringe-inducing ways. It only reminds us just how out of touch they are. Selectivity is key.

Gucci selectively jumps on trends particularly well. We admire how they manage the precarious balancing act of retaining their exclusive air without alienating younger audiences. This includes campaigns like #guccimodelchallenge where the brand asked TikTok users to create Gucci-inspired outfits with non-Gucci clothes in their closets. 

This is an example of Gucci stepping a fluffy, loafered toe into our world and making us feel like our own creative flair is valuable and worth sharing (even if we can’t yet afford a closet full of Gucci products, it gets us yearning for the day we can and maybe buying a small accessory to tide us over)

We love a bold stunt.

We have the highest mobile phone ownership (98% globally) and usage (4+ hours daily) of any generation. So, we are exposed to more content than every other gen. We’re therefore more desensitised to the vanilla ads populating the feed, and tune them out on autopilot. 

These days, campaigns that catch our attention are no longer just a tagline and a set of images. Campaigns need to tell a full story, play out over multiple channels (owned, bought and earned), and engage meaningfully with the current moment.

To give you an idea of what we like, look at Olaplex. They’re one of the most duped haircare brands on TikTok. They clapped back to incessant duping by releasing a fake product almost identical to their No. 3 hair perfector in a dupe-the-duper type of play. They called the campaign Oladupé and sent out PR packages of this ‘product’ to over 700 influencers–some in on the joke and some not.

When the packages were unboxed and the joke revealed, the humour and surprise led to over 58 million views of #OLADUPE and 1.1M in earned media value (EMV). 

This campaign perfectly engaged with the current moment and cleverly proved Olaplex could not be replicated by a cheaper version–without any of the typical campaign trimmings. 

We don’t like try-hards.

Try-hards ferociously repel our generation. Not to be confused with enthusiastic, passionate people who are actually trying to contribute something (which we love), try-hards are the simpering “pick me” brands. These brands will compromise their morals, aesthetics and mission just to swing into favour with passing trends. 

This can manifest in many a cringey way. Here are a couple of examples to stay well clear from:

1. “Getting on our level.” Please don’t try to use our own slang to talk to us. We don’t need slang to understand you. It’s like that one relative who calls your cargo pants “hip to the jiggy.” shiver

    

2. Manufacturing authenticity. Authenticity has to be… authentic. Faking or forcing it feels totally uncanny and untrustworthy. Think of the Victoria Secret’s “VS Collective” rebrand. The company 180-ed from being the epitome of a singular ideal of beauty, to suddenly championing diversity. It was clear this move was an attempt to recover drastically declining sales and improve a reputation in shambles (the brand was known for their lack of inclusivity, cultural insensitivity and affiliations with Jeffrey Epstein). Safe to say, it didn’t land. 

3. Virtue signalling. Exploiting our enthusiasm about social causes for your own clout always backfires. A perfect example of this is Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi ad, wherein the model is shown leaving a photoshoot to join a protest. The climax is Kendall handing the police a Pepsi can to drink. Everyone smiles and cheers. This gesture of a white supermodel supposedly solving police-protester issues with a can of Pepsi did not go down well. Not only was this ad released during a particularly tense social period, but the appropriation of protest symbols and marginalised cultures was tone deaf. Kendall and Pepsi both suffered reputational damage. 

In conclusion. 

Gen Z can sniff out inauthenticity from a mile away. The underlying reason that we don’t react well to simpering campaigns and thoughtless trend hopping is that it doesn’t ring true. And the common factor between campaigns and stunts we appreciate is that they hold fast to a brand’s identity and values.

The best way to appeal to gen z isn’t just getting trigger happy on TikTok or calling your latest release ‘demure’, it’s figuring out who you are and staying true to it.

Don’t know who you are yet? Or want a refresh? Look no further.