A Brand potential Thought-piece
There is a lot being said about Gen Z at the moment. Some say they are fundamentally different, impossible to understand and presenting new threats to brands. But at Brand Potential, we think it’s time to stop pigeonholing them as the latest victims of generational marketing. Instead, we see them as people currently aged 12-27, who are becoming adults in our always-on world, which in recent years has thrown new chaos into all of our lives - think climate change, economic turmoil, globalisation, AI, a pandemic… Gen Z have been born into this; this is the only world they know. So they are finding ways to navigate with inherent fluency, and in so doing offering new and insightful advances that are benefitting all of us…
We believe that Gen Z represent the latest wave in human understanding. We see them as challengers, more than challenging. We speak to them in our consumer research and insight work across multiple categories, where we listen intently to their needs, wants and desires. And what we’re finding is that they are truly leading the way, for all of us. They are challenging assumptions, setting standards and in many cases, emphasising the importance of long-standing ‘human’ values – community, connection, purpose, determination – and they are redefining what they mean in our modern world.
We also see them over-indexing for personality traits the media claims they are lacking. Where they’re portrayed to be distant, isolated and lonely, we’re finding them present, engaged and with multi-generational mindsets. For instance, we hear tales of grandparents who want to learn to use TikTok just so they can communicate with their grandchildren in new, interesting and relevant ways, with Gen Z providing the education to make this a reality.
We think it’s time to stop misrepresenting them and instead celebrate and discover the ways in which we will all be interacting with brands moving forward, following new fundamentals inspired by Gen Z. So we put together our Gen Z thought piece as a springboard that enables brand teams to think about and stress test their own understanding of Gen Z and in turn, how their brand might evolve and better-adapt for the world Gen Z are leading us into.
The thought piece presents 3 provocations which explore how brands can position themselves, acquire users and retain customers in this new landscape. We speak about brands like Sneak, who successfully support thriving gaming communities built around commonality in a mindset, not commonality in age. And Amazon, who despite being demonised for exactly the principles Gen Z are ‘more likely’ to hold, are actually providing extremely well-executed services that help Gen Z (and all of us) navigate this world more seamlessly. We also discuss some of our work with other organisations that offer meaningful human touchpoints to enable greater connectivity and consumer salience. We’re seeing that whilst digitality is embraced, Gen Z are consistently valorising the human touch and (re)emphasising its importance for us all.
We are running bespoke workshops around our Gen Z thoughpiece, where we can help your team hone your understanding of and approach to Gen Z. If you’d like to know more, please reach out to Dr Andy Burns (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) or Christina Philpott (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
