As Gen Z (currently 12–28-year-olds) come of age, so does their influence and their spending power. In the US in 2023, they held $984 billion of spending power. And this is only the beginning: Gen Z is expected to make up 27% of the workforce by 2025, according to What's the Big Data. As a result, many marketers have been targeting their marketing on a generational basis.
But should they? Marketers are aware that age cohorts are an artificial way to define target audiences when it’s attitudes and behaviour that matter, regardless of your date of birth. And to grow your brand, you need to predispose more people, not target them in ever decreasing circles.
Brands need to engage in two-way communication between them and their consumers, understanding that a brand’s content will generate conversation, whether it’s intended or not. Brands need to understand each generation’s format and content preferences, as well as their media consumption habits and attitudes, to reach out effectively.
Gen Z expects to be a part of the conversation, unlike previous generations who grew up with brands talking at them before social media evolved. They are digital natives and naturally spend their time online, but they are also fascinated by real (offline) life and nostalgia. They are creators and engage in brand conversations directly.
However, Gen Z feels misrepresented: nearly three quarters (74%) of 18-24-year-olds feel that young people are misunderstood, according to the Food Standards Agency, and so they may assume that brands aren’t for them. They need marketers to speak to them in their own language, but not at them. Marketers need to know their audience and cater to them if they want genuine interactions with consumers. To connect with Gen Z, marketers need to understand who they are, rather than have preconceived notions. So, let’s look at the data.
For Gen Z, good music increases receptivity the most, with half of them preferring it over any other creative element. However, good music is still only 1% behind humour for the overall population, meaning every generation welcomes it in advertising. To appeal to a wider audience in today’s age of diverse cultures, effective advertising needs to rely on more than a single element.
Good music is a key influence on ad receptivity for Gen Z
As the generation who have lived and breathed social media and been hit by the pandemic at a vulnerable age, it is essential that marketers connect with them responsibly. A significant 43% of Gen Z between the ages of 15-25 say they feel depressed, anxious, and hopeless (Murmuration report), almost twice as many as older generations. Ethical content as well as leveraging content creators, influencers or even celebrities are paramount, but also avoiding automated repetition, excessive targeting, and ad overload. Brand safety – the practice of placing your ads next to safe, non-extreme content – is also important, not just for a brand’s reputation, but also to protect your consumers. Staying alert to how your communications get exposed to consumers is essential to ensuring your Gen Z consumers feel understood.
Gen Z also shows some similarities with other generations, most closely with Gen Y and to some degree with Gen X (currently age 44-58) in how they view advertising. Traditionally offline media channels are preferred by all, but 20-25% of Gen X, Y and Z enjoy ad interactivity, liking, sharing, or commenting. The favorite interactive element for each of these three groups is “a way to find out more about the brand,” such as a link to their website. In general, all generations except Boomers (currently age 59+) are positive about topics in media, advertising, and GenAI.
Authenticity is key, especially when more serious subjects need to be addressed. This 2024 Kantar Creative Effectiveness award winner from the Danish Road Safety Council struck a delicate emotional balance to gain attention and resonate with its Gen Z audience. Regardless of category, creativity remains key: ING bank in Romania won a gold Effie for their awareness campaign on ‘self hate’ spending. The campaign highlighted the cost of toxic self-hate spending on food, alcohol and clothing, using influencers who shared their own self-hate spending costs to reach their target audience.
Communicating via new spaces and innovative channels can stretch and differentiate your brand. As a generation who have missed out on ‘real-life’ events, third places, (anywhere that facilitates social interaction outside of the people you live or work with) have become a phenomenon, for example, brands sponsoring pop-up events. Branded social media interaction can also bring groups together before they attend real life events, helping to reduce social anxiety, and encouraging greater attendance.
Strong Gen Z connections can also be made by appealing to their morality. A rebirth of eco-active consumers is currently taking place, and climate change is an issue that younger generations are engaging with more. When asked if they believe the earth is warming due to human activity, 54% of Gen Z and 56% of Gen Y agree, according to Pew Research Center. This falls to 45% among Boomers. Authentic sustainability of brands is a hot and growing topic.
As the next big spenders, it’s crucial to take Gen Z seriously while devising marketing strategies. This is a diverse generation that values individuality. The environmental factors they have grown up with have shaped their behaviours, but there is too much stereotyping and defining of this generation on an age-only basis. Every age-defined generation encompasses extremes and has overlaps, so to predispose as many of your Gen Z consumers as possible, it’s crucial to focus on their behaviours and attitudes to build meaningful connections. Age is, after all, ‘just a number’.
Get in touch to discuss what this means for your brand.
But should they? Marketers are aware that age cohorts are an artificial way to define target audiences when it’s attitudes and behaviour that matter, regardless of your date of birth. And to grow your brand, you need to predispose more people, not target them in ever decreasing circles.
Brands need to engage in two-way communication between them and their consumers, understanding that a brand’s content will generate conversation, whether it’s intended or not. Brands need to understand each generation’s format and content preferences, as well as their media consumption habits and attitudes, to reach out effectively.
Gen Z expects to be a part of the conversation, unlike previous generations who grew up with brands talking at them before social media evolved. They are digital natives and naturally spend their time online, but they are also fascinated by real (offline) life and nostalgia. They are creators and engage in brand conversations directly.
However, Gen Z feels misrepresented: nearly three quarters (74%) of 18-24-year-olds feel that young people are misunderstood, according to the Food Standards Agency, and so they may assume that brands aren’t for them. They need marketers to speak to them in their own language, but not at them. Marketers need to know their audience and cater to them if they want genuine interactions with consumers. To connect with Gen Z, marketers need to understand who they are, rather than have preconceived notions. So, let’s look at the data.
Receptivity to advertising and the media landscape
The media landscape today offers an overwhelming amount of choices when it comes to platforms, each with different benefits and strengths. On top of that, the audiences are fragmented with different wants and needs from each platform. In 2016, 61% of consumers said the creative element they were most receptive to in advertising was humour. Humour remains number one in 2024, but with important nuances. Its lead has decreased significantly. In Kantar’s Media Reactions 2024, only 48% of people said humour made them most receptive to advertising, with good music and an interesting story close behind at 47% and 42% respectively.For Gen Z, good music increases receptivity the most, with half of them preferring it over any other creative element. However, good music is still only 1% behind humour for the overall population, meaning every generation welcomes it in advertising. To appeal to a wider audience in today’s age of diverse cultures, effective advertising needs to rely on more than a single element.
Good music is a key influence on ad receptivity for Gen Z
We looked at each generation’s preferred choice of advertising platforms. Surprisingly, Gen Z’s top three are made up of more established online players like Facebook and Google, and not the media platforms that are thought to appeal to younger consumers, like TikTok or Snapchat – whose advertising is in fact preferred by older generations. Ads on brands like Amazon, for example, appeal to all generations.
These controversial results highlight that age alone might not be the only determining factor of what people prefer, and remind us that marketers should refer to data before making assumptions. This misunderstood generation might love the content on TikTok, but advertising is a different beast altogether.
Each generation has its own media brand preferences for ad receptivity
The way Gen Z consumes media and advertising shows some differences. On average, Gen Z has an attention span of 8 seconds, which is a whole 4 seconds behind that of Gen Y (currently age 29-43). According to Kantar LINK+ Norms, Gen Z is slightly less engaged with ads in general. Engagement tends to increase with age, and this is reflected in ability to remember the brand. Brands focusing on short-form content for Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and TikToks are currently winning the Gen Z attention battle. Engaging with them in the first few seconds is key. At the same time, it is important to understand that this disenchantment isn’t specific to Gen Z. Just over 31% of people globally claim that ads on social media platforms capture their attention, which is a marked decrease over last year’s 43% (Kantar Media Reactions 2024). This means that the race for media engagement needs to span generations.
Gen Z has slightly lower brand recognition and overall engagement in ads
Gen Z behaviours
Social media isn’t the only place we can find Gen Z online. Just under one third (32%) shop online (Jungle Scout) at least once a day, which is significantly higher than any other generation, where the range falls between 7-25%. So, a lack of online brand presence could certainly be a dealbreaker. Gen Z expects a smooth process when it comes to customer experience.As the generation who have lived and breathed social media and been hit by the pandemic at a vulnerable age, it is essential that marketers connect with them responsibly. A significant 43% of Gen Z between the ages of 15-25 say they feel depressed, anxious, and hopeless (Murmuration report), almost twice as many as older generations. Ethical content as well as leveraging content creators, influencers or even celebrities are paramount, but also avoiding automated repetition, excessive targeting, and ad overload. Brand safety – the practice of placing your ads next to safe, non-extreme content – is also important, not just for a brand’s reputation, but also to protect your consumers. Staying alert to how your communications get exposed to consumers is essential to ensuring your Gen Z consumers feel understood.
Gen Z also shows some similarities with other generations, most closely with Gen Y and to some degree with Gen X (currently age 44-58) in how they view advertising. Traditionally offline media channels are preferred by all, but 20-25% of Gen X, Y and Z enjoy ad interactivity, liking, sharing, or commenting. The favorite interactive element for each of these three groups is “a way to find out more about the brand,” such as a link to their website. In general, all generations except Boomers (currently age 59+) are positive about topics in media, advertising, and GenAI.
How brands reach Gen Z
So how and where do brands reach these diverse, less engaged, fragmented consumers? One example is this ad from Currys that treats the topic with irony and became a ‘talk like Gen Z’ trend on TikTok recently. If you hit their sweet spot, Gen Z will take to social media for you, as they did for McDonald’s Effie-winning campaign where they introduced a limited-edition purple milkshake, celebrating Grimace's birthday, a nostalgic character McDonalds first used 52 years ago. Gen Z used TikTok to breathe a whole new life into Grimace.Authenticity is key, especially when more serious subjects need to be addressed. This 2024 Kantar Creative Effectiveness award winner from the Danish Road Safety Council struck a delicate emotional balance to gain attention and resonate with its Gen Z audience. Regardless of category, creativity remains key: ING bank in Romania won a gold Effie for their awareness campaign on ‘self hate’ spending. The campaign highlighted the cost of toxic self-hate spending on food, alcohol and clothing, using influencers who shared their own self-hate spending costs to reach their target audience.
Communicating via new spaces and innovative channels can stretch and differentiate your brand. As a generation who have missed out on ‘real-life’ events, third places, (anywhere that facilitates social interaction outside of the people you live or work with) have become a phenomenon, for example, brands sponsoring pop-up events. Branded social media interaction can also bring groups together before they attend real life events, helping to reduce social anxiety, and encouraging greater attendance.
Strong Gen Z connections can also be made by appealing to their morality. A rebirth of eco-active consumers is currently taking place, and climate change is an issue that younger generations are engaging with more. When asked if they believe the earth is warming due to human activity, 54% of Gen Z and 56% of Gen Y agree, according to Pew Research Center. This falls to 45% among Boomers. Authentic sustainability of brands is a hot and growing topic.
As the next big spenders, it’s crucial to take Gen Z seriously while devising marketing strategies. This is a diverse generation that values individuality. The environmental factors they have grown up with have shaped their behaviours, but there is too much stereotyping and defining of this generation on an age-only basis. Every age-defined generation encompasses extremes and has overlaps, so to predispose as many of your Gen Z consumers as possible, it’s crucial to focus on their behaviours and attitudes to build meaningful connections. Age is, after all, ‘just a number’.
Get in touch to discuss what this means for your brand.
