Gorton’s Seafood is celebrating its 175th anniversary this year with a multifaceted ad campaign including TV ad spots, influencer partnerships, and a line of Gen Z-approved merch. The line includes trendy bucket hats, Andy Warhol-inspired graphic tees, tote bags, and fish stick-covered beach towels.

The merch is part of Gorton’s larger ongoing mission to reel in a younger consumer. Last year, the company rolled out a series of air-fried fish products to ride the air fryer craze, and it’s been leaning more into influencer partnerships to reach millennials and Gen Z.

A large portion of the merch is inspired by vintage Gorton’s assets, rather than modern-day memes—a strategy that still works for a younger consumer, given the current popularity of vintage and retro aesthetics. 

Read more here.

Additional coverage:
Ads of the World: Gorton’s Seafood 175 Merch Store

Ashley Campbell, Brand Director

From their social media habits to purchasing behaviors, Gen Z, as with any emerging generation, is a dynamic and mysterious audience for most of us in advertising. I, for one, was shocked to learn that my 6 and 3-year-old are considered Gen Alpha. While the name is fitting for the role they play in our household, I am not quite ready to consider them as a target audience for advertising! 

Generation Z has been a hot topic for many of my clients, especially as we continue to see TikTok rise as a top-performing channel. I was lucky to recently attend the Ad Clubs’ In the Now: Marketing to Gen Z Event, where we explored trends, preferences, and the unique ways brands are adapting to stay relevant.

The Evolving Demographics of College-Age Students:

According to the recent GenZology study by HerCampus, women currently outnumber men in college. Windsor Western, HerCampus Co-founder & President, and Katrina Campanale, HerCampus SVP Sales & Business Development, also noted that contrary to the seasonal emphasis on “back to college,” Gen Zers have discretionary income to spend year round and that 77% of them make their own spending decisions. College-age young adults (ages 18 – 24) are the halfway point of the generation which spans 14 – 28. This middle-aged group sets the stage for a generation with a powerful influence, with many of them wielding unprecedented digital native prowess.

Social Media App Usage Habits:

Gen Z’s relationship with social media is intricate and ever-changing. Despite being precious about in-feed posting, they share stories multiple times a week. The once-coveted live event social presence has shifted, with platforms like TikTok and Instagram taking center stage. But also, Gen Z females and Gen Z males use social media very differently. According to HerMedia, Instagram is the app with the most commonality across both genders. Having an account on TikTok is more common for Gen Z women than Gen Z men, 92% and 60% respectively. Also, Reddit and Discord are very popular for men, but less so for women.

When it comes to shopping, TikTok emerges as a powerhouse for product discovery among women, while men gravitate towards Instagram. The buying journey often involves scrolling, with a significant number claiming to make purchases after seeing products on TikTok. However, trust issues arise as HerMedia notes that only 34% of users have actually made purchases off of TikTok Shop directly. This is a crucial detail that brands need to consider when identifying the KPIs associated with each TikTok campaign.

Influencer Marketing Has More Influence Than Traditional Marketing:

In the era of Gen Z, traditional marketing is not breaking through. Authenticity is the linchpin, and influencers play a pivotal role. Leading brands are adapting their strategies to cater to Gen Z’s unique sensibilities. The Ad Club’s panelists Andrew Grillo, Director of New Product Revenue at Boston Globe Media / B-Side, Sarah Morgan, Director of Media at Fidelity, and Lindsay Sutton, SVP of Strategy and Connections Lead at Digitas, spoke about the trends they are seeing. The use of green screen formats, the incorporation of influencers and modern storytelling showcase the versatility of adapting to Gen Z’s language and preferences. Also, it’s still critical that brands tailor their messages to ad formats. Understanding that one size doesn’t fit all, brands continue to find success in tuning messages to specific channels rather than a blanket approach. While also keeping in mind that Gen Z is extremely privacy-conscious. So, if you are too customized or they feel like they are “being followed” there could be a lapse in trust.

As I reflect on this event, it’s evident that understanding Gen Z requires a nuanced approach. Brands that prioritize authenticity, leverage influencers effectively, and adapt to the rapidly changing social media landscape will undoubtedly thrive in this dynamic and influential generation. The future belongs to those who can decode the intricate dance of Gen Z preferences and values.

Recent pop culture has tended to revere more glamorous influencers in the beauty and travel sphere. But as of last year, the rise of finance-focused ‘finfluencers’ is helping people demystify money advice in easy-to-digest, punchy messages. And traditional financial institutions like banks are beginning to take note. In an interview with IMAGE, Director of Public Relations & Social Media, Alyssa Stevens, weighs in on how money talks in the digital age.

Read more in IMAGE here

Neal Malone, PR and Social Media Management Supervisor

Four hours. That’s the average amount of time that Gen Z users spend on social media per day.

Once you layer in working, eating, and sleeping, there isn’t a whole lot of time to do much else.

This isn’t a generation that spends time reading articles in the morning, they don’t watch a ton of TV…and the shows or movies that they do watch are through streaming platforms or YouTube. Heck, there’s even data out there now that tells us members of Gen Z are ditching their email in favor of social DMs.

Talk about a hard advertising target, right?! Let’s put it this way…if you’re a brand trying to reach Gen Z – a generation that is already playing a big role in shaping our society and culture – investing in traditional ad formats would be like setting a pile of money on fire. Sorry, it just isn’t going to work.

So that brings us back to social media – quite literally the epicenter of all things Gen Z. There are plenty of ad formats across the various social media platforms, but the more traditional ones are quickly losing their luster. Gen Z users are experts at sniffing out ads and will quickly scroll past anything that feels too promotional. Instead, these users gravitate towards edgy, raw, authentic content featuring real people, real stories, and very little “sales speak.”

Because today, consumers are tired of being sold to. They’re over logos flashing everywhere, voiceovers that cram in talking points, and hired talent that isn’t representative of them or their communities. Consumers in 2022 are savvy and the expectations they have for brands are at an all-time high.

At Social Media Week – a three-day conference hosted by AdWeek in New York City – PepsiCo Chief Marketing Officer, Todd Kaplan, may have summed it up best when he said that “brands should make consumers feel invited, not chased.” Now, you could argue that a company with the history, scale, and brand recognition of PepsiCo doesn’t really need to sell itself to consumers anyway, but Todd’s point is an important one – and all brands should take note.

It’s not that Gen Z (and younger Millennial) consumers are allergic to all marketing and advertising – they just want brands to engage them in a different, more personalized way. The word “authentic” was mentioned more than any other word at Social Media Week (to the point where it started to generate some laughs from the crowd), but the reason why it came up so often is because consumers today demand authentic, relatable content. If it’s anything otherwise, it’s not worth their time.

So what does this mean for brands who want to reach Gen Z and other like-minded consumers?

It means engaging with influencers who can bring a trusted voice to their products, it means leveraging user-generated content to power their brand channels, and it means using social listening to identify trends and keep a pulse on evolving consumer conversations. In a general sense, it means rethinking and modernizing everything we’ve been taught as marketers over the years.

Speaking at Social Media Week, Hootsuite Chief Marketing Officer, Maggie Lower, encouraged brands to be “courageously creative” with their social media strategies and campaigns. She acknowledged that it isn’t easy for some companies to take this leap of faith into a more organic and less buttoned-up content world, but it’s a critical step that brands must take if they want to grab the attention of younger consumers.

If one thing was clear at Social Media Week across all the companies and brands that presented (you may have heard of a few: Google, Meta, Twitter, Snapchat, Glossier, Anheuser-Busch InBev, PepsiCo, and others), now is the time to dive head-first into the world of short-form video, influencers, and creator-driven marketing. After all, Gen Zers will soon be the key decision makers and content curators at our favorite brands, and this type of content won’t be a choice…it’ll be an expectation.

Now, onto the Metaverse and NFTs…just kidding! Next time, maybe.