Monday, September 14, 2020

Capturing Gen Z in the blink of an eye


One of the biggest challenges for brands, particularly legacy brands that have been around for a long time, is how to best connect and engage with Gen Z.  They are the digital-native generation, and develop relationships with brands that are meaningful, that help them develop and define their personal style.  So how can brands without a digital-first presence hope to capture the generation that could most influence their futures? 


A new study from Snap and Kantar delivers some interesting insights that are quite surprising in terms of the way Gen Z consumes digital ads, that could prove very useful for all brands, legacy or brand new, digital-first or not.  The study shows that even though Gen Z consumes less advertising than older generations, Gen Z’s retention and recall of what they do see is very strong.  They can generally remember a skippable ad better than Millennials and Gen X, and are likely to even remember it when they consume it for less than two seconds.  


What this means for brands is that there is a lot of opportunity that can be unlocked if digital advertising is shorter, more grabby, and much better tailored to the Gen Z consumer.  Gen Z develops earlier, more meaningful relationships with brands than older generations, and being the youngest adult consumers have the most longevity potential, so now is the time for even the least digital brands to leverage Gen Z’s rapid information processing and digital nativity to move the needle in terms of ad spend ROI.  


This is a bit of a separate issue, but one thing I am still curious to know (and see play out) is how legacy brands that are just starting to move their sights toward Gen Z plan to re-structure their brand messaging in order to capture them, if at all.  If they key to capturing Gen Z is “communicating brand and product messages as early as possible,” how much will legacy brands have to re-calibrate their brand identity to do so?  Is this more likely to come in the form of brand extensions, new products that are Gen Z focused, or more general brand restructuring?  If it is the latter, presumably brands will be leaving a portion of their loyal consumers behind in the process, so what is more beneficial? In many cases it may be a choice between abandoning the “old” to a degree in order to engage the “new”, or maintain and grow the old with the hopes that what is gold can stay.


 Source: https://www.mobilemarketer.com/news/gen-z-shows-higher-ad-recall-than-older-age-groups-snap-study-finds/584956/

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