The world has evolved, greatly, with the effects of globalisation and mass commercialisation leading to a significant difference in marketing techniques used by corporations to target the emerging new generation of social media users. Long gone are vintage corporate marketing techniques of flyers, billboards, and direct mail. Marketing in the 21st century has morphed into a new (some may even say insidious) form of profit-making. Generation Z (‘Gen Z’) is directly defined as the generation that is born between 1997 and 2010. In the year of 2022, Gen Zers are defined as between the ages of 13 and 26.
The Silver Generation relied on print advertisements and traditional family values to establish a good brand image. Visual irony was key, and since men were the target breadwinners of that era and had disposable income to spend, they were often catered to in terms of the nature of the advertisement. The Silver Generation also valued traditional family values like family, community, and respect, and it was evidently incorporated in terms of the messages embedded in the advertisements.
A vintage 7 Up ad campaign (left) McKinsey& Company Report on the difference in consumption taste between the Different generations. (right)
However, time has progressed, and here in the modern era, the ways of marketing have evolved so much that courses are popularly offered in universities for students to grasp the fundamentals of it.
#Mental Health, #Self Care
Catered towards GenZ and our community, who are increasingly more concerned with social issues and social justice, there are now expectations of companies to take a stand on social and political issues. According to McKinsey, Gen Z generally have strong values related to racial justice, climate change and sustainability. Mobilisations like the Global Climate March, led by Gen Z activist Greta Thunberg, thrive on the activism of young people.There has also been a steady increase in the trend of #climate quitters, with workers walking out on companies whose environmental policies were at odds with their own values. According to research by carbon removal marketplace Supercritical, 35 percent of the 2000 UK office workers surveyed mentioned that they were willing to quit their jobs over weak climate action from their employers, with the figure increasing to 53 percent for Gen Z employees.
As an employer, if I had people publicly quitting … it would be such a big PR problem that I would immediately announce a set of measures to show that we care about this stuff
– Alexis Normand
Corporations are now being held by the public to an even higher standard, with company neutrality being seen in a negative light, together with poor corporate ethics. Companies like SHEIN have been having mounting ethical concerns over their use of sweatshop labour, poor working conditions, fast-fashion, high levels of lead in its clothing, copying of independent designers, as well as mishandling of company data. Companies’ strategies of ‘corporate social responsibility’ are thus oriented not only to create a good image through doing good, but also bring financial benefits to them, as people are less likely to boycott companies that have ethical practices. This brings them to reap profit instead — when done correctly, of course.
Consumer boycotts seem to mostly originate from the political left, dating as far back as the early 19th century of British abolitionist campaigns against slave-produced sugar. Boycott culture is so prevalent that a Gallup tracking poll measuring partisan sentiment for decades found out that in the three years since George Floyd’s killing in 2020, the percentage of Republicans who said that major corporations have too much influence has nearly doubled. The decoupling of businesses from the Republican coalition is one of the great recent changes in American politics, according to Eitan Hersh, a political science professor at Tufts University who surveys US Business leaders. This, coupled with the fact that Gen Z is now even more liberal and left-leaning than Millennials and show no indication of becoming substantially more conservative as they age, only goes to show the impact that this generation has on corporations.
SHEIN has attempted to rehabilitate its public image in the eyes of critical consumers, by flying a group of social media influencers to China’s SHEIN warehouse in order to generate positive content about SHEIN’s working conditions. This, later known for being a publicity stunt, was criticised by the public. However, it does go to show the importance companies place into their public image, now that it has a direct correlation to their profits.
SHEIN Brand Influencer Trip on June 2023
Companies have also embraced the idea of stakeholder capitalism, which entails the system in which corporations are oriented to serve the interests of all their stakeholders while buzzwords like effective altruism — which is the use of evidence and reason in search of the best ways of doing good — have also come into play. This was utilised by Sam Bankman Fried to justify his cryptocurrency endeavours in order to attempt to provide a more favourable image towards companies and their profit driven behaviours.
This phenomenon might have also been exacerbated by the rise of ‘cancel culture’ in recent times — a phrase used to refer to a culture in which those who are deemed to have acted or spoken in an unacceptable manner are often ostracised, boycotted, or shunned. More often than not, it is high-profile celebrities and corporations that are often subject to this sort of ostracism. The power of the internet is often tremendous, and the power of cancel culture is its equivalent.
Gen Z has their consumption anchored on ethics, and will gladly boycott those who do not conform to a moral way of living. A 2018 Edelman study had shown that 64 percent of consumers (now two-thirds of consumers worldwide) would purchase or boycott a brand solely on its stance on a social or political issue, The Dentsu 2022 CCS report had also shown that, globally, 44 percent of adults stopped using a brand because of a company’s social or political stance. This only puts increased pressure on corporations to showcase the ‘right’ political stance and avoid the loss of profits from a boycott as well as favour social justice causes that are approved by the masses.
The thing about Gen Z, is that collectively, they believe in consumption as an expression of individual identity, and consumption as a matter of ethical concern.
This also comes into play with Gen Z’s idea of how the brand is a representation of themselves. For example, a T-shirt worn must be ethically sourced, as it would be a reflection of themselves. Given that by 2025 Gen Z will eventually end up accounting for one-third of the workforce, it is absolutely crucial for companies to dedicate time and effort into attempting to retain Gen Z workers.
Report from Mckinsey & Company in the mobilisation that Gen Z engages in.
However, this could potentially lead to another huge problem of tokenism.
Greenwashing and rainbow-washing, are both pitfalls that corporations could potentially fall into should they become tokenistic in their endeavours for social justice. A brand may change their social media avatar to incorporate rainbow colours, run advertisements featuring same-sex couples and sell branded rainbow merch but in real life not support queer staff in their workplaces. The same is true for greenwashing — corporations could spend more time and money marketing themselves as environmentally friendly than actually minimising its environmental impact. This level of performative activism and surface-level marketing can often backfire given that Gen Z is often a generation that places a high value on authenticity and transparency in marketing.
According to research, 90 percent of Millennials had mentioned that authenticity was important when deciding which brands to support in general. This trend has carried over to Gen Z, who place an even greater emphasis on authenticity to increase sellers as well. This makes corporations who use social justice as a way to market their products easy to spot and publicly shame. Some salient examples of these companies are Toyota, AT&T, Amazon, and Comcast, who altogether have donated over S$1.4 million to candidates with anti-LGBTQ+ agendas. It is absolutely unacceptable for these companies to utilise Pride symbols to lift their public perception when their funding ultimately works against the fight for equal rights that Pride represents, and Gen Z can spot this and debunk it easily.
Similarly with the #BlackLivesMatter movement, Nike was one of the many brands who voiced their support and backed it up with public actions as well as ad campaigns, yet again attention was drawn to the fact that in 2019 less than 100 percent of its 300-plus vice presidents worldwide were Black, leading many to accuse the brand of hypocrisy and tokenism.
Greenwashing and rainbow-washing will not work on this generation, who have a vast resource of economic power of over $140 billion (S$180 billion). A recent report from the Bank of America had also found out that Gen Z’s combined income will reach a whopping S$58 trillion by 2030, accounting for 27 percent of the world’s global income and surpassing millennial’s income starting in 2031.
Gen Z are also digital natives — individuals who have grown up in the information age, which means that they spend a lot of time on their technological devices, but also have access to the profilerated information of the World Wide Web and are generally incredibly harder to fool. With Gen Z students being on track to become the most educated generation of all time, with higher high school graduation rates and lower dropout rates. (In 2018, 47 per cent of 18 to 21 year olds were in college, as compared to 52 percent of Millennials as well as 43 percent of Gen Xers at similar ages). This means that they are more able to critically analyse, understand the givings of current society, and see through these insincere marketing tactics by big corporations. It is going to take more to fool this generation, who don’t buy into gimmicky marketing or hollow culture, nor do they tolerate those whose values are incongruous with their own.
Toyota’s PRIDE attempt (left). Just like any teenager, Gen Z sniffs out disingenuous practices and overpandering easily. (right)
“No Dad, you’re not Troy Bolton from ‘High School Musical’.” — Just following the book isn’t enough to risk catering to Gen Z through cringy marketing. Another term for it would be “cheugy” marketing, a slang term used to describe something or someone who is outdated, or trying too hard to be trendy, or severely in style and originality, which is why corporations have been hiring social media content creators, such as teenagers well versed in TikTok to promote their events.
(Otherwise, you might just end up publicly shamed on the Twitter account ‘Brands saying Bae’, depicting the level of second-hand embarrassment it portrays when corporations try way too hard.)
This has opened up an entirely new wave of careers, allowing information to be obtained straight from the horse’s mouth.
The Need for Glamour
The rise of influencers as actual career paths also speak to the change in marketing strategies in the 21st century. Public relations firms rush to invite influencers to media events to promote their brand. There are stories of young adults skipping college in order to be influencers, which today, may actually lead to higher potential earnings than if they were to head to college.
Earnings in the influencer industry can even be quite lucrative, with micro-influencers earning between $267 SGD and $1337 SGD per sponsored post. Influencers with 500,000 or more followers can command $4,000 SGD to $20,000 SGD per sponsored post, and those with over one million followers may actually earn even more, with the absence of a barrier to entry in the form of a college degree.
The knowledge of these successful marketing tactics, of having young, attractive, dancers and content creators advertise one’s brand is so effective and prevalent that China has also been having ‘influencer farms’, of hundreds of e-commerce influencers used to sell products while livestreaming on social media platforms. The appeal of being an influencer is understandable, with its high visibility, big paychecks as well as the outwardly glamorous lifestyle that it appears to have.
Research from a Chinese technological company Tencent had even shown that 54 percent of college-aged respondents had picked “online celebrity” as their top career choice.
Parasocial connections and relationships online have almost become a necessity in this modern era, as people almost seem to satiate their need for travel and a glamorous lifestyle through the lives of others. This sobering age of social media has led to the drastic shift of marketing outreach tactics, with research conducted by Microsoft in 2015 finding out that the average attention span of Gen Z individuals was actually only eight seconds, four seconds less than that of millennials. The study had attributed this decrease to the generation’s constant exposure to digital content as well as multiple screens. This also explains the type of marketing tactics that corporations have been pushing on applications like TikTok. Short-form content on Tiktok, Snapchat and Instagram Reels are all that holds the younger generation’s attention nowadays, as our civilisation slowly gravitates towards catering to instant gratification, as TikTok builds itself into an ad juggernaut.
The Impact of Gen Z’s Shorter Attention Spans
Gen Z’s shorter attention spans can perhaps be attributed to larger charges in the economic landscape.
For most Gen Z’ers, consumption is now about access rather than ownership. The gig economy is booming, as Gen Z’ers flock to the idea of collaborative consumption.
This can be irrevocably seen by how Gen Zers subscribe to streaming platforms instead of fully purchasing films or music like the older generation did from DVD rental shops. Applications like Spotify, Netflix, streaming services and even services like car shares, BlueSG, and bike rental services depict consumer trends as more about temporary borrowing than the desire to own a piece of product forever.
Sociologically, this might make sense in a gig economy and a recession, as consumers feel less likely to invest in anything that holds more of a permanent value, prioritising short-term enjoyment instead. This only goes to show continued marketing trends and phenomenons.
The Importance of Data
Since the rise of technology, many corporations now risk engaging in insidious and aggressive marketing tactics that toe the line between an invasion of privacy with its aggressive data mining behaviour.
Data mining is rampant, and even more so on popular social media applications like Instagram, TikTok, and even through the voice recorder application on your own mobile. When in default settings, everything that we say may be recorded through our device’s onboard microphone. Though there’s no concrete evidence, Americans have been suspecting that their phones routinely collect their voice data and utilise them for marketing purposes. The company Amazon has also come under massive fire for violating the privacy of its users with Alexa, the famous voice assistant, which was revealed to be recording users’ inquiries and storing the recordings for human reviewers to analyse. The exposure had forced Amazon to make several drastic changes to their products as well as their privacy policy.
Though the privacy paradox exists, the fact that
- Users are unwilling to break convenient habits or behaviours,
- Users choose immediate gratification over protecting their privacy
- Users find it difficult to associate a specific value to their privacy and therefore, the value of protecting it
- Users completely lack awareness of their right to privacy and believe their desired goals outweigh the potential risks.
This means that corporations are still able to benefit from the consumers’ data so long as the application is addictive enough.
Data is now the new currency, and the word on the street is, “If you’re not paying for a product, then you are a product.”
Data is mainly used to gather consumer insights in order to create targeted advertisements. An example would be the idea that female customers between the ages of 30 and 40 are more likely to purchase shampoo and conditioner at the same time. With that particular information, a retailer can then promote conditioner to the customers that are looking at shampoo or vice versa, and entice them to purchase duo at one go.
There is also an emergence of consumer insights companies, ranging from Canvas8, CultureGroup and Meltwater, whose specific purpose is to ensure that consumer insights can drive every business decision that others make as well as advise businesses on how to market to others. This incessant need to dig up consumer behavioural insights, while legal, can still be a huge invasion of privacy, but also only goes to show how aggressive marketing tactics are.
Recommendation engines also often enjoy relying on association rules. Service providers like Netflix, Hulu and Spotify all recommend shows, movies as well as songs to viewers based on their watch and listening histories and those of users with similar viewing habits.
Corporations also enjoy capitalising on other Gen Z insecurities which involve FOMO, otherwise known as the Fear Of Missing that was further exacerbated by the pandemic. 64 percent of Gen Z adults feel like life was not going as planned, while 54 percent of Gen Z teens felt like they missed out on typical teenage experiences because of the pandemic. The discontent expressed by Gen Z presents an opportunity for brands and marketers to tackle this feeling of disappointment head-on, and create messaging to Gen Z focused on easing this discontent. This phenomenon has been further exacerbated by the usage of social media. Because of applications like Instagram and Snapchat, everyone now has a front-row seat to the highlights of the lives of our peers, exacerbating feelings of comparison with everybody. Corporations exploit this through marketing stunts that lurk behind the scenes.
A sample three-step advice a travel agency received to do just that instructed as follows:
1. Before the trip
– Maximise anticipated regret by encouraging people to like and ‘share’ the vacation offer.
2. During the trip
– Increase regret among non-participants” by encouraging social media activity and enabling travellers to post ‘fun’ pictures daily.
3. After the trip
– “To confirm that non-participants have missed out, provide incentives for travellers to display ‘good times’ photos on social media […] Run a competition for the best destination pictures depicting group fun.”
This fear of missing may encourage conspicuous consumption, so that one would not be seen as lacking in comparison to their peers. Companies may thus exploit FOMO to motivate consumers to purchase more of their goods. The goal of marketing after all, is to convince others that goods they originally never knew existed were suddenly a necessity.
The new generation is also extremely good at maintaining a perfectly curated social media presence regardless of reality. It’s all about the image, and creating a ‘perfect feed’ for a corporation’s Instagram account, is now a legitimate career path. In fact, the average salary for a social media marketing position is S$11,400 per month in Singapore.
Unsurprisingly, however, this generation’s obsession with image crafting also contributes to their unhappiness due to the promotion of extreme comparison. Research has even shown that Gen Z’ers spend an average of an hour and 11 minutes crafting their pictures before posting. This level of curation often highlights an unrealistic picture of perfection, unbeknownst to their peers.
Preying on Habits
Corporations have thus preyed on Gen Z’s digital native habits — and even the fact that they are less fluent in softer skills such as in-person and interpersonal communication.
Can’t pluck up the courage to talk to a stranger and ask them for their number in real life? Welcome the emergence of online dating applications. The usage of Tinder, Bumble, Okcupid, Hinge, CoffeeMeetsBagel have soared, especially during the pandemic as meeting people in person becomes even more difficult. Swipe left to find love, has been a common joke or catchphrase in the modern era, as many have found long-term relationships through online dating. A once stigmatised topic, online dating has entered mainstream habits, with t nearly 40 percent of American adults in heterosexual relationships finding their partner through dating sites or applications — a more than formidable feat.
All in all, there are plenty of different methods to leverage a target demographic’s different interests to gain profit. The evolution of corporate marketing is definitely interesting to witness, and it is curious to think about how it may further evolve in the near future.
