The COVID-19 pandemic is a primary global event that is affecting anxiety across the board. Fear is generally grounded in uncertainty—something which we are experiencing in spades at this moment. However, the American public was primed and ready for these unsettling emotions, even before the crisis hit. Our research at found that fear is nothing new for consumers.

When we conducted among a nationally representative sample of 1,002 adult U.S. respondents, we sought to examine the data through multiple lenses. One of these was how fear is affecting different generations. Some marked similarities emerged among people of all ages and, less surprisingly, some key differences that illustrated how fears shift due to life stages.

The Top Fears of Each Generation

As it turns out, we may be more like our parents than we thought. When we tracked the top fears of all generations, we found that there were three areas that everyone—regardless of age—was worried about. From the maturing Gen Z young adults to the often-ignored Silent Generation, all were concerned with healthcare, personal finances and climate change. This cohesiveness was heartening to see, especially surrounding such a diverse set of challenges. Perhaps we can even lessen our combined impact on the environment if we’re all aligned across age groups.

As we , we found other age-related concerns that made sense. Gen Z and younger had education at the top of their list of concerns, as the oldest of this group are just now graduating from college. millennials and Gen X, the most likely to-be parents of school-aged children, were both concerned about gun control laws. With nearly since the highly publicized Sandy Hook disaster, this comes as no surprise.

When we looked a bit closer at the older generations, we found some interesting concerns. In a time when situations abound that should be causing immediate worry, even before the pandemic, baby boomers were most concerned about immigration laws, national debt and protection of religious freedom.

Optimism and the Generations

among the generational groups, combining them into Gen Z and millennials, Gen X on its own and, lastly, boomers and older. The overall picture that we found was one of little enthusiasm for current circumstances or prevailing societal trends, but pervasive optimism that better days lie ahead.

Specifically, younger groups were less likely than older counterparts to report optimism related to financial (29%) or personal issues (42%), but were more optimistic concerning political issues than their older counterparts. They were less likely to feel satisfied with their lives and are less confident overall. However, these younger respondents were also more likely than older generations to think that their future will be better. Respondents ages 55 and above were more likely to be personally happy with their situation (55% positive), but still viewed macro trends negatively, such as the political situation (21% positive).

How Brands Can Address Consumer Fear

Brands must ask themselves questions such as: How is our brand managing the pivot from addressing the needs of boomers to the cultural expectations of younger generations? What areas of social action make sense for us and what are ways to begin testing or developing these positions?

It’s important to deeply understand the changing needs of audience members. If a brand’s target audience is made up of diverse generations, providing services, products and communications that will resonate with all of them can be tricky. Many will be looking to brands to provide assurance during unstable times, taking on the challenge of boosting morale and rebuilding confidence. The right approach to market research and consumer insights can help brands develop consumer-centric actions in the months to come.

The fact is that people are operating from a place of insecurity, driven by long-running trends and emerging concerns. Brands and organizations need to adapt to this reality to maintain authentic, trusting and engaged relationships with consumers.

Photo by Giulia Bertelli on .

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If the “OK, boomer” meme demonstrated anything, it’s how quick many are to categorize and stereotype by generation. But of course, any millennial who’s had to scroll through headline after headline of “How Millennials Killed…” knows this.

Generational stereotypes are easy fodder for pop culture jokes and clickbait-y headlines, but they’ve crept into the workplace as well. In 2015, IBM’s Smarter Workforce Institute published a white paper titled, “Generational Differences at Work Are Much Ado ���������t Very Little,” which study co-author Sara P. Weiner says was written in part because she became fed up with articles making blanket statements about different generations in the workforce.

“It just sat wrong with me,” says Weiner, who currently serves as principal organizational development science consultant at Glint. “I felt that, as a consultant, my clients were getting sent down the wrong path and were focusing on things that were really not actionable.”

According to the IBM paper, a meta-analysis of 20 studies found small-to-moderate differences and inconsistent patterns across generations’ work attitudes. IBM also analyzed data from more than 115,000 employees collected over 18 years and found similar results: that differences in work attitudes were small. Only 0% to 2% of work attitude differences were attributable to generation. But Weiner says that the media latched onto what small differences some studies did show, and beat the drum on those figures.

In turn, some companies started using generational stereotypes to inform how they viewed their workforce.

“The problem is that a lot of organizations are using these heuristics, these generational labels to make decisions about selection or how they target certain groups,” says Margaret Beier, a professor in the department of psychological sciences at Rice University. “I’m not sure how valuable those things are going to be because it’s dangerous in some ways. What it’s doing is relying on stereotypes to recruit, select and retain employees, and that can lead you down a slippery slope.”

Assumptions are made that a millennial worker will be drawn to businesses that offer Friday happy hours, or that baby boomer employees are simply no good at using technology. But these lump categorizations don’t always hold true, and it removes the individual’s needs from the equation entirely.

The Problem with Generational Stereotypes

People are somewhat naturally drawn to using generations to easily categorize others.

“It goes back to this idea of social categorization theory,” says Elora Voyles, assistant professor of psychology at Southern Illinois University. “[It] states that humans naturally group people by their characteristics. It’s easier to think about people as distinct groups, rather than acknowledging that age is a continuum. It’s, for example, easier to say, ‘This person is Gen X,’ rather than just stating their age. When you conclude that they’re Gen X, then it’s easier to assign those stereotypes that you would associate with that category that we’ve, as a culture, developed.”

The stereotypes assigned to these generations don’t always track for each person. For example, someone born in 1982—who would be considered a millennial—likely has more in common with someone born in 1978 and considered a Gen Xer than a fellow millennial born in 1993. The time range we assign to generations tends to be relatively arbitrary.

“When you target any kind of effort on the basis of a stereotype, you’re really going to miss the mark with a lot of people because there’s just a ton of variability within each of these generational groupings,” Beier says. A lot of organizations use these heuristics or generational labels to make decisions about selection or how they target certain groups, but Beier is skeptical about the value of such categorization. Like other stereotypes—such as those based on gender, race or religion—it may not only miss the mark, it could be offensive. “It’s dangerous in some ways,” she says. “It can be as detrimental for different age groups as it can be for any other kind of group to rely on stereotypes to target individuals.”

Voyles outlines three variations on stereotypes and how they can be detrimental in the workforce. First are meta-stereotypes, or the ways in which people internalize how others have stereotyped them. “I found in my own research that when people are faced with certain negative stereotypes [about themselves], they are less likely to step up to challenges related to that stereotype.” For instance, if millennials internalize the stereotype that they’re narcissistic, they may not be as forthright in team projects.

Similar to meta-stereotypes, there’s also the issue of stereotype threat—the idea that when you’re aware of a negative stereotype regarding your group, it’ll negatively affect your performance. “For older workers, this has been shown in research, for example, with memory,” Voyles explains. “It’s been shown with training and technology that when they’re aware, or when they’ve been reminded of negative stereotypes regarding their memory abilities or training abilities, it can produce a decrease in their performance.”

Lastly, there’s evidence that even positive stereotypes related to age—which are stereotypes nonetheless—can have negative effects on workers. In a way, it’s a combination of both meta-stereotypes and stereotype threat. In her own research, Voyles found that people can feel threatened by not living up to a positive stereotype that’s ascribed to their group. For example, there’s an assumption that older workers are wiser and can be looked up to for guidance; however, an older worker who hasn’t been at an organization for long or who recently changed careers can feel threatened by this stereotype and unable to live up to the assumption.

Focus on the Individual

People want to be seen as multidimensional, as the sum of the unique puzzle pieces that makes them who they are as a person. Recognizing them as such—not just as their generation—gives workers due credit.

Just as well-rounded individuals make for strong employees, a strong team should have workers of varying backgrounds. In this way, it’s beneficial not to target specific generations to fill the ranks. Beier says research suggests that age-diverse teams benefit from the expertise of some of the older members and the energy or achievement focus of some of the younger members. Even then, don’t make too much of the differing generations in an organization or team. “When we focus on generational stereotypes, this can increase the likelihood of team fault lines appearing based on age,” Voyles says.

Much as marketers have learned the value of personalization over segmentation, the best course of action is to avoid the natural temptation to assign characteristics to demographics and instead focus on the individual. In fact, there is one driver that most workers agree on: a sense of purpose.

“What they really want is work that provides them with a sense of meaning,” Beier says. “And they want autonomy to be able to engage and work when they want to do it.”

There are five generations participating in the workforce right now, from the silent generation to Gen Z. But that’s only a fraction of the variation in a single company, and not every person from a generation will exhibit the stereotypes ascribed to their age group. As Beier jokes: “You’ll find just as many people in my generation who use their cell phone way too much as you will in the millennial generation.”

Illustrations by Bill Murphy.

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Like many members of my generation, I have a morning routine that starts with the most important meal before breakfast: checking my social media. Instagram first, then Twitter, Snapchat and TikTok. If I’m not busy, I’ll do another lap through them. There are always new posts to see, which makes it hard to ever look away.

In addition to these endless posts, there are countless ads. Google a product, and the item suddenly pops up in a sponsored post in your Insta feed minutes later. Twitter’s full of branded accounts launching memes hoping to go viral. Snap puts ads at the end of one friend’s story, making you tap through it to get to that of another friend. Even TikTok—in its infancy a Gen Z sanctuary from the constant inundation of ads we endure—has been blitzed by brands sponsoring video challenges on the platform.

As a marketing consultant, I enjoy analyzing how companies attempt to connect with my generation. But as a member of Gen Z myself, I more often annoyingly scroll through poorly executed branded memes instead of laughing at the .

Ads have become so omnipresent to my generation that they’re difficult to recognize. It’s not a classic TV commercial asking us to “Buy now, while supplies last!” Instead, it’s . Or Chipotle encouraging Gen Zers to make a . Or influencers promoting a product and sneaking in a subtle “#ad” at the end of their caption to admit to their followers that yeah, this is a paid advertisement. But you might not have known that if you didn’t read the whole caption (or, in the approximately one second we spend looking at each post, didn’t read it at all).

When guacamole is free chipotle when you order online/in-app on July 31st  #ad

As a marketer and Gen Zer, I’ve found that the ads that perform the best (going viral on the macro-level, or making me laugh on the micro-level) are those that camouflage themselves best.

Ads that resemble those of decades ago—think “here’s our product, now come buy it”—are completely ignored by Gen Z, and cause eye rolls as we scroll past them in our feeds. But those ads that are camouflaged in a brand account’s funny meme, roast of a competitor or video challenge—these are the ads that catch fire with our generation. Whether we as a generation don’t notice them to be ads in disguise—or simply don’t care—is up for debate. But one thing is certain: The more an ad blends in with our generation, the more we accept it as just another social media post.

I’m impressed by how well some brands have learned to blend in with us Gen Zers. We had a great time keeping up with the #ChickenWars last summer among Popeyes, Chick-fil-A and Wendy’s. It’s interesting, as a Gen Zer, to see my contemporaries willingly tweeting in support of these brands—acting as unpaid brand ambassadors, even if they don’t realize it (or don’t really care).

But does it matter? I’ve retweeted my fair share of funny branded memes as well—and if I think my followers will find it funny, too, does it really matter if it’s technically an ad? Do any of us care anymore, as long as it makes us laugh?

My answer is no. Like in any era, brands do what they can to connect with their target audience. Of course, many brands fail miserably, wasting our time and clogging our feeds with memes from the Stone Age and lingo your grandma would fine lame. But for the brands that have taken the time to understand us, Gen Z is willing to reward them with social media exposure and love. As a Gen Zer, I love a good meme, no matter who posted it. And as a marketer, I’m looking forward to seeing what brands come up with next.

And for the record, Popeyes won the #ChickenWars.

Illustration by Bill Murphy.

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Lifestyle branding, once a term reserved for brands with intangible benefits and aspirational vapor, has blanketed the landscape. Examples of lifestyle branding can be found in even the most functional categories. But through the lens of lifestyle, we still see the powerful strategies of traditional demographic targeting: the semiotics, tone and brand voice of marketing strategies that appeal specifically to age groups or generations.

We can see these strategies manifest in the insightful and psychology-informed differences between ads directed at baby boomers versus their Generation X and millennial counterparts.

There is an inherent tension between customized brand experiences and universal, purpose-driven brand building. How can brands find their happy place, a resonant position in the landscape where every segment feels like the brand experience is uniquely designed for them?

First, let’s look at the attitudinal and behavioral diversity of consumers at large, and how brands are instigating connection and conversation.

Boomers: Respect and Control

The United Airlines Explorer Card campaign is about collecting maximum travel rewards for everything you do. Actress Tracee Ellis Ross, and the dynamic spokesperson for United’s Chase credit card, makes indulgent proclamations of getting ‘rewarded!’ with every move she makes, while service people around her treat her like a VIP. Her expressions of delight and sideways glances signal the deep need for relevance, respect and well-deserved indulgence. Baby boomers are moving into the phase of their lives where they feel entitled to ‘cash in’ on their lifetime of hard work and wealth-building, and it’s clearly reflected in these spots.

Anoro, a medication that manages COPD, is another example that manifests overlapping codes of meaning in its creative campaign. One testimonial-style line declares, “COPD tries to say go this way—I say, I’ll go my own way.” In this clever message, we see consumers’ desire for control and autonomy in their health decisions as they age—control they fear they’re losing. The music choice is perfect: Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way” hearkens to a generational zeitgeist of freedom and rebellion, while remaining benign and optimistic. The brand deepens resonance by delivering its message with an overarching tone of individualism, confidence and empowerment.

Gen X: Cynicism and Self-Soothing

When insurance company Esurance rebranded, it tapped into a meta-universe where cynicism is hero and self-deprecation rings true. Its dry-witted spokesperson Dennis Quaid constantly breaks the fourth wall, acknowledging that shopping for insurance is an inherently miserable process. “Let’s be honest: Insurance isn’t sexy. It’s confusing, it’s a hassle.’ Esurance’s approach to radical transparency lays bare the crux of the Gen X condition: deep skepticism about marketing, advertising and, in a broader sense, capitalism itself. As the first generation of economic decline that didn’t do as well as their parents, Gen X wears this cynicism on their sleeves.

Buick’s holiday campaign is a manifesto for the “S(YOU)V”: the vehicle that you gift yourself. In a series of simple vignettes where consumers surprise themselves with a Buick (one vehicle has a tag inscribed with “From: me to: me”), the campaign taps powerfully into the deeply felt tension that Gen Xers live with—that their pride of independence and self-sufficiency comes with an undercurrent of resentment. No one is going to hand them anything, so they might as well treat themselves. The celebratory energy and signoff copy (‘Don’t forget you this holiday season’) puts a lighthearted spin and softer edge on a sharp but crucial insight.

Millennials: Idealism and Uncertainty

With the millennial generation came a new perspective on living: “You only live once,” “living your best life” and “fear of missing out” are all modern aphorisms that, though cliched, uncannily define their approach. In the face of climate collapse, economic shifts and workforce instability, millennials live with a cognitive dissonance between high expectation and profound uncertainty. It’s no wonder that brands are tapping into their longing for fairness and even entitlement more so than with messages of indulgence and lifestyle fantasy. One of the most aspirational of demographics, this generation of dreamers longs for luxury on a budget.

In response, the Jaguar E-PACE ad campaign below presents dynamic, creative lifestyle vignettes of entrepreneurs in the gig economy—an accurate representation of urban millennial lives. The copy, “I spend too much time in my car to drive something boring” and “I need the utility of an SUV, but I want the beauty of a Jaguar” projects an air of confidence and expectation that millennials working for themselves can find a reasonable option in the brand. But the lifestyle dissonance is obvious: The two young Jaguar owners depicted in the commercial are a florist and a painter with median salaries in 2018 of $42,000 and $53,000, respectively.

It’s true that the principles of lifestyle branding dovetail neatly with demographic insight. In broad strokes, generations deal with unique cultural contexts, seismic economic shifts, civic and political realities, and rapidly evolving technology in totally different ways. Their coping mechanisms and internal narratives about the world they live in can be drastically different. Indeed, their lives are drastically different. This is why lifestyle branding has been such a powerful force in our industry in the past 20 years, and shows no signs of slowing down.

The question for marketers is how can keep up with these rapidly shifting landscapes instigating a slow collapse of more conventional generational insights. As generations begin to rapid-cycle every two or three years, how will we respond?

Illustration by Bill Murphy

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To connect with younger generations in 2020, marketers might want to consider populating their materials with pictures of feathered hats, tarot cards and marijuana plants. , which compiles data from the company’s more than 1.9 million users, notes that popular images in 2020 will likely highlight “The Roaring ’20s”—the occult, floral prints and cannabis iconography.

The methodology behind the report includes analyzing query growth in each of the major categories. The phrase “gold pattern,” a staple of the 1920s, was searched 4,233% more than in previous years, with “’20s retro” at 189% and “linear geometric” at 106%. Searches for “magic” and “spiritual,” which return images associated with the occult, also increased by a triple-digit percentile. Shutterstock specifically notes that “alt-faiths and age-old beliefs are enchanting millennials, Gen Z and Gen Alpha.” In the following two plant-based categories, “flowerscape” results were up 141% while “marijuana” increased 154%.

Like cannabis, other entries in the nine-item list reflected societal shifts toward activism. The presence of “Wild life” demonstrating an increase in outdoor behavior and a mindset of nature and sustainability. No. 9, noted as “one to watch,” was “protest art,” in which searches for the inequality icon were up 465%.

Last year’s report was dominated by “everything old is new again” motifs. The 1980s featured prominently in the 2019 Creative Trends Report, including searches for “chain print,” “snakeskin pattern” and “leopard print.” The “Yesterday’s Tomorrow” theme featured bright neon light grids and trippy visualizations, and “romance” captured the historical timeframe with cherubs and bards abound. Most notably, the No. 1 trend, “zine culture,” included images that appeared to be assembled from analog magazine cutouts but were prominently featured on social media.

In a statement accompanying the report, Shutterstock’s associate creative director Flo Lau views this year’s trends as an indicator that consumers are hungry for answers and action. “The 2020 Creative Trends Report is filled with a sense of uncertainty, resilience and demand for change,” she says. “We’ve already started seeing these design elements being leveraged in various ways across the world in campaigns, social media, packaging and even fashion—from major retailers like Amazon and Coach leveraging elements of astrology online to help customers shop according to their horoscope, to florals exploding on the runway in major ways for Dior Cruise 2020 as well as Ralph Lauren pre-Spring 2020.”

to learn more about upcoming image trends and how your brand can utilize its findings to create a distinct look that roars into 2020.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock

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By 2020, Healthcare leaders, take note: This is an enormous opportunity.

The oldest of this cohort, arriving on the heels of the millennial generation, are graduating from college and are ready to launch their careers. They’re hungry for specific kinds of opportunities and healthcare organizations are uniquely positioned to deliver them.

That is, if health systems take time to understand what Generation Z truly wants from their workplace.

Research from NRC Health reveals insightful information about Generation Z’s professional preferences. In it, leaders will find some promising trends that can give healthcare organizations a distinct advantage in the battle for high-quality talent.

Who is Generation Z?

Generation Z is not Generation Y.

Generation Y—also known as millennials—entered the workforce in the shadow of 2008’s Great Recession. When many of them graduated from college, they faced relatively scarce job opportunities and felt unprepared.

Generation Z, by contrast, has the benefit of the millennials’ experience. As millennial researcher puts it, “Gen Z has a clear advantage over Gen Y because they appear to be more realistic instead of optimistic, are likely to be more career-minded … [and] since they have seen how much Gen Y has struggled in the recession, they come to the workplace better prepared, less entitled and more equipped to succeed.”

So how can healthcare leaders entice this new generation to join their organizations?

What Does Generation Z Want?

One survey, conducted in 2018, asked 970 Gen Z healthcare workers about what keeps them engaged in their work.

Fifty percent of respondents said that good communication with colleagues is the primary driver of satisfaction with their job. Pride also plays a role: 82% said they want to be able to talk up their organizations among their friends.

And finally, on a daily basis, Gen Z healthcare workers want to feel that they’re making a difference: 71% reported that this makes them feel that they “love coming to work every day.”

These statistics should be encouraging to healthcare leaders. After all, “making a difference” is an intrinsic part of working in the industry, and large health systems frequently command an eminent position in any community.

What Are They Afraid Of?

This shouldn’t suggest that Gen Z will flock en masse to healthcare roles. They have real fears about their future in the workforce that could become serious liabilities for health systems that want to hire them.

Foremost among these fears is a general sense of declining opportunities. Cooling rates of economic growth and the rise of automation leave them feeling uneasy about their professional futures.

“much harder than previous generations” to have a satisfying career. Reflecting that fearfulness, than one they’re passionate about.

Such large-scale pessimism aside, Gen Z also worries about interacting with their colleagues: 45% of Gen Z believe that working with the baby boomer generation will be “very or somewhat difficult.” They worry that boomers will not take their ideas seriously.

How to Create Loyal Gen Z Employees

With this fuller understanding of Gen Z’s expectations, it becomes clear how health leaders should approach recruiting and retaining them. They should strive to create the workplace culture Gen Z is looking for, while simultaneously allaying their fears about an uncertain future.

Easier said than done. But here are a few important steps to emphasize, in order to secure Gen Z’s enthusiasm.

Listen to them

Reservations about working with boomers reflect Gen Z’s fears that they won’t be heard in their new jobs. Fortunately, this is a concern that leaders can tackle with face time.

Despite having grown up in the era of ubiquitous messaging technology, 53% of Gen Z report that face-to-face conversations are the most meaningful way to communicate in the workplace. Simply taking the time to talk in person with Gen Z staffers will go a long way toward assuring them that their voices matter.

Offer work-life balance

Unlike millennials, who consider work-life balance to be something of a perk, Gen Z sees it as a baseline expectation: 40% say that it’s an important career goal.

This is a challenge in healthcare. Direct patient care can be a 24/7 job and affords few opportunities for remote work or telecommuting. But leaders should bear in mind that Gen Z workers will appreciate any flexibility that organizations can afford.

Deliver security and growth

that job security is important to them, and 64% say the same about opportunities for advancement.

Careers in healthcare have long been prized for their stability. The industry is about as “recession-proof” as any employee could hope for.

Career advancement, however, is another question. Gen Z is a very ambitious generation; presumptuous as it might sound, within the first five years of their career.

To retain them, it may help to give them clear, fair and straightforward criteria for promotion into managerial roles. This will help spur high performance and incentivize them to stay.

Conclusion

Managing a multi-generational workplace will always be a challenge, but it’s not insurmountable. By keeping an ear tuned to what each generation demands, leaders can find ways to bring everyone’s concerns into consideration and cultivate the kind of workplace that works for all.

While compromise is an inevitable part of working together, disengagement is not.

Illustration courtesy of

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Gen Z, now the largest generational group, is quickly getting more spending power.

Millennial Marketing’s “” reports that Generation Z—the generation born in or after 1996—already spends $44 billion a year on themselves and influences $600 billion in other people’s spending. Earlier this year, research from Epsilon found that Generation Z is than any other generation.

Francisco Serrano, CEO and president of and author of Brain-Ding The Strategy: A successful marketing plan has to include brain-ding as the ultimate strategy, says that he’s built his company on the principles needed to reach Generation Z: Reach them fast, provide instant gratification, be relevant and engaging.

“Brand marketers that currently market to Gen Z successfully are doing so by appealing to this sense of freedom,” he says. “Being transparent, creating brand experiences and marketing tactics that subvert gender and racial stereotypes are all ways some of the best brands are getting through to Gen Z.”

Marketing News spoke with Serrano about how brands are currently marketing to Generation Z, what must change and what will happen to brands that don’t change to meet the desires of the youngest generation.

How do most brands currently market to Generation Z?

Many brands market to Gen Z as if they are millennials. This is largely due to both generations being technologically savvy, as most millennials and Gen Z members can maneuver the digital world with ease. However, these two generations should never be lumped together. Millennials are cord-cutters while Gen Z never had cords to cut. Their use of devices that aren’t tethered to a physical location is a symbol of the freedom Gen Z feels from traditional social norms.

Gen Z will represent 40% of the market by 2020. How must brands change to meet their desires?

Brands must be willing to be as diverse as this young generation when it comes to messaging. Gen Z has been miscast as not being loyal to brands—that simply isn’t true. Appeals based solely on the weight of a brand’s name are not as effective, but brands that prove they care about the same issues as younger consumers can turn perceived apathy into genuine loyalty.

Telling authentic stories that allow for an intimate look into the purpose behind the brand is one of the best ways to capture the attention of Gen Z. This is risky, as oftentimes this may result in taking sides on an issue, but this generation isn’t moved by neutrality.

If you aren’t visible and engaged with the media outlets they turn to, then it’s a moot point. Gen Z members are far more likely to be browsing social media on their smartphones than sitting down and watching television. The health and beauty industry, specifically makeup brands, has been a shining example of how to reach members of Gen Z where they already are.

Cosmetic brands, by taking advantage of mobile devices, Instagram and YouTube, have started steering away from celebrity endorsements and toward opinion leaders within the communities where younger people interact. These micro-influencers are proving to be a great investment for brands, but brands can and should be looking at a targeted mix of popular content formats such as podcasts and livestreams, which are great for engagement.

You said that brands must reach this generation of consumers quickly and provide instant gratification. What’s the best example of this you’ve seen on the market?

Amazon is one example of a brand that is reaching consumers quickly and creatively. We all know about two-day shipping, but they are constantly looking for new ways to innovate their delivery systems. Amazon is doing some cool things in the world of marketing as well, such as subscription services and the ability to make purchases with voice through their Amazon devices. These tactics highlight Amazon’s speed and innovation and are strongly pushing CPGs to market these capabilities.

Because of their size and ubiquity, Amazon has multiple niches and the luxury of being selective, so they invite influencers to sign up instead of seeking them out. A lesson that many brands can take away is how Amazon is able to lead Gen Z members to its own platforms. The company concedes space on their website to these influencers, which not only goes further than putting products in the hands of influencers, but links Amazon to Gen Z’s preferred sources for purchasing decisions.

What tools must brands use to provide content that’s not only fast and gratifying, but relevant and engaging?

Speed really is the name of the game. One of the more exciting tools available that can help deliver quality content efficiently is artificial intelligence. Providing mailing lists as an example—it is possible with AI to go further than just including the recipient’s name in the subject line while keeping body copy the same. Real-time data collection can deliver hyper-targeted information that is truly personalized, making for much more effective communication. It really should be the ace in the hole for brand and content marketers.

What do you think will happen to brands that don’t change their techniques to meet the next generation of consumers?

Saying brands will disappear sounds like an overstatement, but it’s corporate Darwinism. Seemingly eternal names such as Blockbuster and Kodak are famous cases of brands not being agile or fast enough to think about what’s coming and act.

Gen Z is driving what is to come and what is thriving here in the present. As brands are starting to tap into what makes Gen Z, well, Gen Z over time, it will become harder and harder to be appealing to a maturing generation.

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After decades of junk food marketing——the health sector has tried to market healthy food to children with little success.

But a recent study published in may have a solution: rebellion.

In 2016, researchers went to a Texas middle school and had a group of students read “fact-based, exposé-style” articles on food companies. The articles framed food companies as manipulative marketers who use addictive food for financial gain with little care for public health. In a second group, the researchers gave another group of students the usual material for educating kids on healthy eating. The group exposed to the exposé-style pieces chose fewer sodas and junk food over the next day.

The researchers set up another study where teens read the exposé-style articles, then did an activity called “Make It True.” In this activity, the students received images of food advertisements on tablets and were asked to “deface” the ads—essentially mark them up with digital graffiti—to make them true.

In this second study, students who did the Make It True activity reduced the amount of soda and junk food they consumed for the next three months. Teenage boys—a notoriously difficult group to convince that junk food is bad, researchers say—consumed 31% less soda and junk food in the three months after the study.

“Food marketing is deliberately designed to create positive emotional associations with junk food, to connect it with feelings of happiness and fun,” according to what Christopher J. Bryan, assistant professor of behavioral science, . “What we’ve done is turn that around on the food marketers by exposing this manipulation to teenagers, triggering their natural strong aversion to being controlled by adults. If we could make more kids aware of that, it might make a real difference.”

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There’s something illusory about marketing materials given to prospective university students. Shiny pages featuring shiny smiles with shiny white teeth in the foreground, cloudless blue skies in the background and copy that promises fun times today and bright futures tomorrow. But is this actually what the college atmosphere is like? What, exactly, do students do all day? Prospective students want genuine answers to important questions about where to spend their college years. 

Action

To answer these questions, Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown University launched , a first-person video series curated by Georgetown students. The campaign, which launched its third year at the end of September, altered the school’s entire social media strategy, according to Laura Wilson, director of digital engagement and social media at Georgetown University.

Beginning in 2014, the social media campaign followed 12 students, who filmed their experiences across the hilly campus. Videos were posted on popular platforms such as Facebook and Twitter using the hashtag . 

Initially, the goal was to keep a connection with donors and alumni. However, there was a more lucrative group to target: incoming freshmen.

This year, the campaign follows 16 Georgetown students from the mundane events of college life—studying at the library at 2 a.m., doing laundry and walking around campus—to fun, and sometimes once-in-a-lifetime, events—attending football games, on-campus concerts and events with U.S. Olympic gold-medal winners.  

As quick-hitting videos on Snapchat and in-the-moment photos on Instagram gained cultural clout, the campaign shifted its goal toward attracting prospective students with “a first-person, raw perspective” ethos. This is done in the hopes of a Georgetown student sharing a story that allows a potential Georgetown Hoya to feel a connection to life on campus. 

Georgetown Stories’ transition to a younger audience occurred naturally, Wilson says, as high school and college students are heavy users of Snapchat, an app with a monthly active user base of 800 million. 
“All the evidence was that typical prospective undergrad students in the U.S., meaning high school-age students, were spending a ton of time on Snapchat,” Wilson says. “A lot of schools were not really leveraging it yet. We thought this was a good opportunity to do something different.”

Approximately 23% of Snapchat’s user base, , according to Statista. This is the demographic Georgetown Stories is targeting. However, the vast majority of Snapchat users, 37% (296 million), are between 18 and 24 years old, the age range of the Georgetown students telling the stories of life on campus. This, in a big way, has expanded the target audience and led to much of the Georgetown community following the hashtag. 

Students were natural social storytellers for the school’s target audience, Wilson says, as the campaign was already “almost exactly the behavior people take on Snapchat.” In fact, shooting video and taking pictures in this way is likely how many millennials and members of Generation Z communicate in their free time.  per day, according to Bloomberg, with approximately a , Business Insider reports. 

“That’s what they do anyway,” Wilson says, adding that they likely give Georgetown Stories videos a different lens for public consumption than they would with friends. “We just asked them to make sure they take an extra minute and capture something [at events], but 99% of the time it’s something the student is doing anyway. We want it to be authentic to the person.”

Wilson’s team hunted for a Snapchat dashboard to help them gather data. They adopted , a tool that measures analytics, allows Snapchat stories to be scheduled and manages user-generated content on the app. In turn, Snapchat has become central to the Georgetown Stories campaign.

Thomas Harding, co-founder of Mish Guru, says Snapchat can be a blessing and a curse for marketers. Snapchat stories bring gaudy engagement rates, sometimes north of 75%, but most marketers can’t measure or track followers. With analytics in place, he says Georgetown Stories learned which Snapchat stories followers enjoyed and which they skipped. By controlling which pieces of student-generated content go up as a story, Harding says the university gains the advantage of “being authentic, peer-endorsed and truly crowd-sourced.”

“That’s especially important when communicating with audiences known to be distrustful of traditional advertising,” Harding says. “They might not trust an ad telling them something is good, but they’ll trust one of their peers endorsing that same message.” While Snapchat is the engine that drives Georgetown Stories, it is not the sole focus. Georgetown’s social team and storytellers have spread content across Instagram posts, Pinterest pins, Spotify playlists and YouTube videos. 

On the world’s most popular social network, Facebook, Georgetown Stories has become a screening area for alumni, as well as parents of current and prospective students. Wilson says parents are very engaged and prominent in Facebook comments since , according to Statista. 

“The parents have a huge influence in deciding where their child goes to school,” Wilson says. “In many cases, they are either the sole funder of their experience or are paying for a good portion of their child’s education. It makes a huge difference to have parents engaged from the standpoint of prospective students.”

A quick scroll through Facebook video comments will show many proud alumni (“My lovely Georgetown <3” and “Missing my second home”) and even prouder parents (“You are growing so much already!” and “Pretty sure my Hoya just touched the [Olympic gold] medal”). 

“They probably learn more about what their student is doing watching videos and things than they do from their child,” Wilson says, laughing as she recalls her own college-aged parental coyness. “The parent engagement is really important. That’s a really active demographic on Facebook.”

Results

The first two years of Georgetown Stories has paid huge dividends. The focused goal of targeting the incoming freshman class led to 7,027 students sending in early applications in 2015, a record-breaking number for Georgetown. This is up from 6,840 in 2014 and 6,624 in 2013. This increase does not correlate entirely to the student-generated content of the campaign, of course, but Wilson says she believes much of the surge in applications can be tied to the increased engagement with prospective students. 

Perhaps the most telling success metrics from the campaign came after its first year on social media, as the school saw a 2,007% increase of engaged users on Instagram and a 348% increase of engaged users on Facebook. While the second year of social growth wasn’t quite as large, it was still sizable: Instagram saw a 162% increase in engaged users and Facebook saw a 105% increase in engaged users. 

So far, Wilson says the adoption of Mish Guru has paid off, as the analytic dashboard shows a total of 165,000 Snapchat story views during the 2015-2016 academic year. This means the tool and Snapchat will continue to play a big role in the campaign in coming years, Wilson says.

“We stumbled upon some magic here, but the future of the project will only continue to evolve,” she says. 

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They are increasingly taking stands on political issues, issuing opinions to the courts, and injecting politics into their advertising. For example, when the Trump administration announced plans to eliminate federal protections for two national monuments in Utah, Patagonia sued the administration and launched a that proclaimed: “The President stole your land.”

Recent investigations have included examining how consumers react when ���ǰ��� becomes politically active; however, little is known about how it might affect recruiting of soon-to-be graduates like us.

So, as part of a course on corporate responsibility management during this academic year, Drexel students conducted a nationwide study of graduating college students. Their findings paint a different picture of how college recruits react to corporate political activism than industry leaders might expect. 

Millennials Are Politically Aware

Recruiting talented college graduates is a constant struggle for companies. Many don’t yet know how to speak to young job seekers, with one recent  finding that 92% of companies believe they have a “brand problem” when it comes to recruiting millennials.

Politics can add another layer of complexity to what is already a difficult challenge. For example, imagine how a college senior, about to enter the job market, may have reacted when Pepsi launched a television commercial invoking the contentious Black Lives Matter movement and featuring Kendall Jenner. The company came under intense fire almost immediately, and many of the student’s peers chimed in on social media to mock and boycott Pepsi. 

Despite their best intentions, companies like Pepsi sometimes underestimate how different the millennial generation is. Born in the late 1990s, their formative years are defined in part by 9-11, the 2008 market crash, and the elections of Barack Obama and Donald Trump. A recent study shows that they are  than other generations of college graduates, and yet their approach to activism is quite different.

They express their political views through social media and other nontraditional channels. And they seek less separation between their work and home lives than that of previous generations. Instead, they to provide opportunities to solve important social and environmental  challenges..

Insights Right from the Source

To understand how the current generation might react to companies’ political activism, a group of Drexel students invited graduating seniors from around the country to take a brief online survey on their awareness of companies taking political stands, and when such stands influenced their job search.

Their sample (419 participants) came from over a hundred universities including Harvard, Penn State, Stanford, Texas A&M, and University of California. Participants represented a cross-section of the country’s student population: 45% report a GPA of 3.5 or above, 19% attend a top 50–ranked university, 55% are women, 11% are ethnic minorities, and 78% major in either business or one of the STEM fields. 

How Much Do Millennials Really Care?

The research team began by looking at awareness. They found that 68% of respondents said they were aware of a company having taken a stand, and 72% reported that they would be likely or extremely likely to try to learn more about a stance or statement made by a company. 

In terms of the potential influence on their job search, a full 69% said a company’s political stand would be “likely” or “extremely likely” to influence where they send a job application, and 74% said it would be likely or extremely likely to influence whether they would accept a job offer. 

When the team looked more closely at the coveted group of students with a reported GPA of 3.5 or above, responses were even higher; a company’s political stand would be likely or extremely likely to affect their decision to apply for a job (72%) and to accept a job offer (79%; see Figure 1). 

Figure 1: How Students are Influenced by Corporate Political Activism During the Job Search​

When participants ranked the political issues they care about most, gender equality, race relations, and health care topped the list (Figure 2). Surprisingly, free trade, the issue that will perhaps most directly impact workers in the decades to come, was consistently ranked at the bottom of their priorities. 

Figure 2: Top-Ranked Political Issues for College Graduates

One might think that college students are most concerned with whether the company’s stand matches their own. However, when asked what factors were most important to how they would react to a political stand, participants placed this as the third most important. The two most important factors were that the stand be communicated respectfully and that it appears to be genuine. This held true no matter how we cut the data—by college major, GPA, or top 50–ranked universities. 

Going Forward  

If your company is hiring college graduates this year, the lesson is clear. That talented applicant you have your eye on cares about your company’s politics. They don’t demand that the company necessarily share their political views, but they do seek a workplace with respectful and genuine dialog on issues that are important to the country and to the world. In short, companies should feel freer to express political opinions than they have in the past. 

So, make your political statements. Let the millennials know what you stand for. And keep in mind that they’re listening for sincerity, respect, and truth. In the words of this generation: Stay woke.

���������t the Authors: Kallie Rogers, Sanjana Mehrotra, Erin Maguire, Rajeshwari Elangovan, and Conor Brosnan are graduating seniors at Drexel University. They are advised by Daniel Korschun, the Stephen Cozen Research Scholar in Marketing, and Associate Professor.

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