NinetyEight’s Gia Lee on how a viral TikTok moment helped her shop break through

Ad Age is marking Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2024 with our Honoring Creative Excellence package, for which we asked members of the AANHPI creative community to write about pivotal projects or turning points in their careers. (Read the introduction here.) Today, guest editor Gia Lee, co-founder of marketing agency NinetyEight, writes about learning to “move from justifying our agency and talking about it to showing it and allowing it to speak for itself.” “I’m Gia, and I’m the chief strategy officer at NinetyEight.” This is how I introduce myself over email or in person, met by varied levels of cringe. I’ve been told I look 15 (though I’m a decade older) and that I should be grateful for my good Asian genes. I don’t look like a chief anything officer. Being a Gen Z entrepreneur sounds fancy at best and pretentious to most (myself included). Looking back, I can differentiate the past four years at NinetyEight by our eras of justification for the importance of Gen Z as consumers and the need for Gen Z marketing. Having grown up in the Philippines, I wasn’t new to the practice of justification. Being raised in a collectivist society came with an expectation of “groupthink” where you’re subject to unforgiving scrutiny at every turn—what you wear, how you act, your study or career of choice, within a predetermined measurement of what was deemed acceptable, even successful. I wasn’t raised to have a voice and never claimed an opinion on anything until I moved to Los Angeles for college and the bubble burst. In marketing, voice is everything. In the midst of our justifying-the-need-for-Gen-Z-marketing era, we’d been struggling to get our name out as an independent boutique agency. At one of our weekly social brainstorm sessions, it struck me that instead of hopping on trends and tracking what others were doing, we needed to focus on our own voice and what made us us. We needed to move from justifying our agency and talking about it to showing it and allowing it to speak for itself. And so, by a stroke of luck, strategic experimentation and sacrifices to the algorithm gods, we burst our bubble. We went viral with a TikTok on how we sign our emails as a Gen Z company that garnered over 7 million views. It sparked a movement for a more “real” workplace culture—one where we could be our honest selves—that resonated with Gen Z and beyond. The results snowballed from there: We became the trendsetters that others copied. We got featured in Newsweek, The Independent, Upworthy, New York Post and Parade. From this viral moment, we landed our biggest client at the time, Meta. It was our “big break,” and since then we’ve partnered up with some of the world’s most innovative brands, including Bumble, Turo and Honda. We’ve continued to utilize TikTok as the perfect marketing playground that breaks free from past marketing rules, parameters or limitations. In it, we unscrew the grip of perfection and allow ourselves, our brand and our clients to speak their truth—freely. To be bold enough to have an opinion and risk criticism from others. Today, I’m shouting through the rooftops: Consider “CSO & Gen Z entrepreneur” officially #claimed! Sliving, slaughing, slaying, Gia Sign up for Ad Age newsletters From influencer marketing to agencies, get the latest news and analysis delivered to your inbox Click here

NinetyEight’s Gia Lee on how a viral TikTok moment helped her shop break through

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