Empire State Building, Nutter Butter and Chili’s represent different lessons in Gen Z marketing
As marketers throw every tactic at the wall in order to build loyal Gen Z audiences, many dos and don’ts have emerged.
From leaning into bizarre and questionable TikTok trends to allocating budgets to experiential activations and developing offline strategies, marketers speaking at Ad Age’s NextGen Summit shared their top tips for effectively reaching Gen Z.
The workplace, cryptocurrency and financial institutions, education systems and the corporatization of social media—Gen Zers are distrustful of faceless entities that infringe on their spaces and lives. Brands successfully reaching Gen Z have found multiple ways to humanize their relationships, such as by making brand leaders present and interactive on social channels or by developing content as if the brand is an influencer itself rather than carrying over ad-break assets from other channels.
“Human value is trusted and sought after the most. We call it the founder-led mindset … Mark Zuckerberg is out in every single podcast, every single thing—you get a glimpse into his life, because they’re trying to humanize a corporate billionaire that seemed untouchable in the past…[Humanizing brands and leaders] resonates with Gen Z when it comes to marketing to them, driving culture, driving community and driving commerce,” said Karan Dang, co-founder and CEO of Gen Z marketing consultancy Dang.
One TikTok brand account that has done a good job of marketing to Gen Z by generating influencer-like content and giving an inanimate entity a human face—literally—is the Empire State Building, said Erifili Gounari, founder and CEO of Gen Z agency The Z Link.
Gen Zers want to put their money behind their beliefs; 55% of those in the age group have aligned their values to their shopping behaviors, often as a form of protest, according to Libby Rodney, chief strategy officer, The Harris Poll. Brands can tap into this by making their values and mission visible to Gen Z consumers, and they should be vocal about differentiation from competitors in subjects like sustainability, philanthropy and inclusion, for example.
Read more: Find out which brands resonate with Gen Z
“What we've noticed is Gen Z really wants to participate, to have a voice, to feel like they’re not just coming to be a passive consumer of your brand’s messaging, but they’re actually invited to have a seat at the table,” said Nomi Leasure, managing director at experiential agency Pinch.
Multiple marketers at Ad Age’s NextGen Summit described a rising demand for in-person experiential activations as Gen Z seeks to have a physical relationship with brands in addition to their digital lives.
“The days of buying media and targeting [Gen Z] with glossy campaigns are over,” said Tara Loftis, global president of dermatological skincare, Galderma, adding that the brand is taking budget away from linear TV spend in order to put on more events. Similarly, other marketers pointed to the lack of modern meeting spaces, such as malls, that past generations have used to congregate as teens as a gap for marketers to fill.
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“It’s not very sexy, but if you think about Gen Z, they’re not used to getting stuff in the mail—snail mail is a bit of a novelty. We’ve had an opportunity to create unorthodox catalogs or little magazines or mailers, and it’s fun and different, particularly for younger people,” said Pinch’s Leasure.
Multiple speakers at Ad Age’s NextGen Summit described a heightened demand for marketing that Gen Z can hold, such as magazines, or that they can use to signal their interests in social settings, such as stickers.
Activating experiences or creator events in less-visited markets is one lesser tapped way to build loyalty with overlooked Gen Zers, said Galderma’s Loftis.
The power of viral social trends is the mass of users who want to experience it for themselves or to recreate their own version of it. And brands can play their part in making those moments accessible to young consumers. Fast food chain Bojangles, for example, added a revamped version of its Bo-Berry Biscuit with sausage after seeing college students and social creators making the combination themselves, said Tom Boland, chief marketing officer, Bojangles.
And Chili’s made a social push around its Triple Dipper appetizer sampler when Gen Zers started filming themselves testing the elasticity of the restaurant’s mozzarella stick cheese. Jesse Johnson, VP of marketing, Chili’s, said the trend led to the sale of 29 million Triple Dippers in 2024.
It’s been well established that nostalgia is a trend with Gen Z, but rather than digging up merchandise and assets from the past, brands should find the modern take on nostalgia. JanSport, for example, uses its heritage silhouettes for nostalgia launches, but mixes them with contemporary patterns and materials, according to Alexandra Reveles, VP of global brand, JanSport. And 7-Eleven, which launched a fashion capsule brand in 2022, takes inspiration from eBay listings for old products to develop new merchandise, said Alex Crawford, senior marketing specialist, 7-Eleven.
The combination serves the purpose of updating the retro vibes Gen Z loves and can also grow relationships with all age groups simultaneously by honoring or reminiscing in trends familiar to older generations, said Bojangles’ Boland.
“Empowering and asking your fanbase to review your product, that is a powerful strategy. And if people love the brand, they’re going to want to talk about it,”said Bojangles’ Boland.
Talking to individual consumers both online and in stores can be a powerful marketing tool in itself. Cava Chief Experience Officer Andy Rebhun said the Mediterranean fast casual chain allows its store leaders the ability to “push the love button several times a shift” by giving a first-time customer, loyal visitor or someone having a bad day a free meal, which has resulted in significant organic media including a TikTok by Cody Premer that had 40.8 million views as of this writing.
Similarly, tech company The Light Phone, which creates minimalist devices for consumers looking to escape social media, has found developing long-term trust with Gen Z consumers one of its most meaningful marketing tactics—particularly since it loses significant social contact with its customers after they buy the product, said Joe Hollier, the company’s co-founder. Its brand building over time ultimately leads people to buy and, in turn, creates better word-of-mouth marketing when those using their Light Phones in public tell others about the product.
Social trends move fast, sometimes faster than marketers are able to jump on them. The speed of virality creates a tough balance in allowing brands to be both timely and thoughtful in which moments they choose to join in on.
“Make sure you’re listening and understanding the reason a trend exists. There’s a common mistake of jumping into something without fully understanding the context behind it. You have to be willing to move fast, but also be intentional,” said JanSport’s Reveles.
It’s not the largest budget that creates the most effective marketing for Gen Z. Nutter Butter has found a niche fandom on TikTok built on the strength of its size compared to larger Mondelēz International brands such as Oreo, which have missed out on viral moments due to the layers of approval for brands of that scale to activate, said Kelly Amatangelo, digital consumer experience lead, Mondelēz. Instead, Nutter Butter has developed a relationship with its agency, Dentsu Creative, that allows for fewer guardrails and more quick creative freedoms.
Nutter Butter has developed its bizarre TikTok persona, which includes a cast of cookie-themed characters and psychedelic, often unexplainable sequences of surreal sounds and imagery, over years. Nutter Butter was the first Mondelēz brand to launch a TikTok, per Amatangelo, and has curated its videos based on fan comments and feedback in deciding what to do next. Zach Poczekaj, senior social media manager, Dentsu Creative, said it’s all in an effort to grow Nutter Butter’s insider lore, or the brand’s social media mythology, with fans.
“Commit to the bit,” said Poczekaj, adding it’s important to let people see that it’s not just a stunt, but a brand developing its story and identity. “We really let the [commenters] write the briefs in a way.”
Nutter Butter’s strange TikTok presence hasn’t always been easy to let roll, said Amatangelo, explaining that when it was first beginning to grab attention, the snack brand’s marketers weren’t sure if the virality was good or bad.
“Sometimes brands get afraid when they see virality, because you lose all control of your narrative and brand when creators [jump on a social moment],” said Amatangelo. “We just had to ride it out and not issue an apology and be laid back about it.”
