In today’s hyper connected culture, with a multitude of social media platforms, brands are facing different kinds of challenges than what they’ve known in the past.
It’s no longer nearly enough for brands to produce attractive, useful products at a decent price. It’s not enough for them to use effective ad campaigns to draw audiences in and make their products appear more desirable. Today’s brands must also maintain an extremely clean reputation, which is defined by a society that sees definitions more fluidly than generations before them.
Gen Z, the up and coming consumer generation, already has significant purchasing power at $170 billion per year with their combined personal money and family money spent on them. Their favorite brands are Google, Netflix, and YouTube, all of which make significant contributions to societal trends in ethics and inclusivity.
Although Gen Z is still very young (ages 10 – 22), they already make up 40% of the consumer base in the US, and their influence is more powerful than that of previous generations at the same age.
Less than half of them report any strong loyalty to a particular brand. Instead, they are loyal to ideas and values. They don’t trust traditional outlets such as government and news media, but rather they are constantly flooded with ideas and information from the many social media platforms on which they spend hours browsing every single day.
Gen Z wants brands that are in line with their ideals; particularly regarding sustainability and inclusion. The traditional methods of getting consumer attention are no longer relevant and brands must find new ways to engage with a generation that has more information than ever constantly at their fingertips.