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Unknown: You may have noticed brands are getting weirder online. They're joking with customers in the comments, jumping on memes and internet trends, and sometimes they're behaving more like influencers than actual companies. Food and Bev specifically, everyone tries to make you know all their imagery and everything look so delicious. We were doing things that were completely the opposite, like putting pickles in condoms and putting pickles on stilettos and things like that, it created a reaction. Gen Z's growing spending power is helping drive that shift. Gen Z, who's between the ages of 14 and 29, is projected to become the largest, wealthiest, and highest spending generation in
history. Even though many Gen Zers are still in school or early in their careers, they're already spending 16% more than millennials did at the same age, adjusted for inflation. And Gen Z spending power is only expected to grow as time goes on. Gen Z consumers are expected to spend a total of 12 trillion dollars by the end of 2026. By 2036, that amount is projected to grow to over 22 trillion dollars, surpassing Boomers' projected spending in the same time period. Brands that are really focusing on Gen Zs are in it for the long game, right? They know this generation is going to be gaining significant wealth, not only through, as we talked about, career progression, income progression, but also
through pass on of generational wealth. But they're also highly influential. So if I'm a retailer or a brand. I want to focus on households that have those young consumers as well, because even though they may not show up right in terms of they're the ones spending the money, they're influencing those decisions, and so it's just more reason to really focus on that consumer. As a result, brands are changing how they look, sound, and even behave online to cater to an audience that has grown up bombarded by social media and advertisements. Historical tactics of retail have been about: I have this product. I'm going to tell you the features and function of
this product, or I'm going to tell you how much it costs or how much it's on sale. That's not what Gen Zs are buying. Gen Zs are buying the culture around those products. You just can't get a Gen Zer's attention. You have to get this permission to be part of their story, and that permission is somewhat granted through not only them but their peers and the interaction of how you show up in their social media circles in ways that are authentic and in ways that help them express who they are. Few companies have embraced that strategy quite like Duolingo.
The digital education platform gained massive attention through its green owl mascot Duo and its often chaotic social media presence. All the girls will go loca. All the girls will go But its strategy wasn't even originally designed to appeal to Gen Z. Duolingo has sort of built over time this really authentic voice that, frankly, accidentally started speaking to Gen Z. And early on, actually, we discovered that sending push notifications from the voice of Duo, our mascot, that were like, let's just say, very mildly threatening, was a really effective way to get people to learn.
Hello, Roo. You owe me money. The internet kind of jumped on this and made their own memes based on the notifications, and from that, the duo mascot and all of his antics and social media were born. Today, the company has built an entire marketing strategy around participating in internet culture, but according to Chan, Gen Z branding isn't quite as simple as just copying the latest meme or learning the right slang. There is like nothing less Gen Z than presenting a deck of like, here's how we're gonna reach Gen Z. I try to resist codifying it too much because I think really what it is that it should be something that you kind of entrust a strong creative team
with. Hopefully, that is made up of Gen Z. But if I were to codify it, I think there's three things. Yes, one is like be in conversation with the community. You should be participating with your audience and not just kind of preaching at them. Two is I think moving at the speed of culture. So like Gen Z is more media savvy I think than any generation that has come before, and is very aware of how much they're being marketed to. And so you have to sort of jump into conversations that are already happening versus like just trying to make your own moment happen, and then lastly, sense of humor. Don't take yourself too seriously. I think there's a real awareness that like behind every brand on social media is a social media manager like
posting and trying to come up with ideas, and winking at that is sort of like a self-awareness that I think Gen Z really appreciates. According to Duolingo, this type of marketing has brought in real results. Yes, it's like great to get millions of organic views on social media, but virality ultimately is meant to help drive the business and get more learners on the app to like accomplish. Our mission, and so we do look beyond the views and actually see that social media is a big driver of new user growth in the app, which we're really proud of.
It's not just established companies that are leaning into these Gen Z branding methods. Young startup founders don't really have to learn how Gen Z communicates because they're Gen Zers themselves. Take Good Girl Snacks for instance. It was founded by two Gen Z entrepreneurs, and their flagship product has a very Gen Z name. It's called Hot Girl Pickles. We always kind of want people to feel like our brand is approachable, so we speak to people like they're our best friends. A lot of our content and behind the scenes kind of feels like we're on FaceTime, which, again, wasn't super on purpose. It's just what felt natural to us being Gen Z. That young audience on social media has helped the company grow
without having to spend so much on traditional marketing. Well, we post every single day on social media, and we have for three years, so we've been able to maintain for majority of those three years a $0 CAC because we didn't have to run ads, we didn't have to you know pay influencers. All of our sales were coming from our own social media and our own short form content. So yeah, that was a huge win for us, and we were able to save a ton of money. We didn't have to raise as much money, things like that. The founders say the key to their success was understanding how Gen Z wants and expects brands to communicate.
I think with Gen Z, we're a generation that really hates being advertised to in a very overt way, and so I think the more you can talk about your product and talk about your brand in just a very natural, authentic way. The more it'll resonate with people. Experts say that's why successful Gen Z branding isn't technically about a particular look or feel. It's about a brand's ability to convince a customer that using their products can help them express part of their identity to other people. The best Gen Z brands announce to us that they are Gen Z brands by being, in terms of their ethos, less like a billboard and more, more like a box of identity Legos. And it really is very clear that they're going to try to attempt to, in terms of
how they're talking to Gen Zers, help these Gen Zers communicate something, whether it be, hey, I am creative. I'm iconic. I'm environmentally aware, health conscious, rebellious, inclusive, culturally informed, or you know, just simply, hey, I'm in on this joke. Now, eventually, Gen Z is not going to be the youngest generations of consumers anymore. Gen Alpha is already beginning to develop their own unique taste, senses of humor, and online culture, instead, the biggest lesson from learning how to market to Gen Z may stick around longer. The brands that learn how to successfully interact with consumers instead of simply marketing to them may be better prepared to work with whatever generation comes next.
