People
With a purchasing power of 360 billion dollars, and accounting for 25% of the global population, Gen Z has become the new target market for companies (Schneider et al, 2023). According to the US healthcare company Cigna, Gen Z is the loneliest generation due to the majority being chronically online (Cigna, 2018). Social media has become a vital tool for Gen Z in modern society, as it is a place for self-expression. This alongside the fact that Gen Z has an obsession with romanticizing the mundane, fashion and aesthetics has become such an integral part of many young adults’ lives (Francombe, 2023). With TikTok and Instagram micro trends pushing for curated vibes, it is hard to ignore the importance of understanding the youth.
When trying to attract Gen Z to the brand, understanding their behavior is the most important. The Business of Fashion provided an insightful graphic that showed a modern way of categorizing customers. This modern form of categorizing is called clusters (Schneider et al, 2023). Rather than categorizing by gender, age, education, place of birth, and where one grew up, which are very superficial facts that ignore that people might grow up the same way but have varying different interests and values. With clusters, researchers can understand the psychology of what intrigues a person, it helps to understand are person’s character. This allows for new categories such as The Foragers, the rebels, or the Satellites. This gives a better understanding of a person’s behaviors and interests, as well as, how to target people more accurately by sorting people into clusters based on behavioral psychology(Schneider et al, 2023).
One concept of attracting Gen Z to a brand is through the idea of rebranding. An example brand that executes this concept well is Aimé Leon Dore. They take the 90’s Ralph Lauren archive and put a modern twist on it. There is very little innovation in the product, but more so in how it is presented, with the focus being on the four Ps in business, product, people, place, and price (American Marketing Association, 2023). So, it is not about trying to appeal to Gen Z but rather, giving them an aesthetic, or culture that the Gen Z crowd might want to be a part of. A movement, or a trend shift that would appeal to young adults. Having stores in Soho, pricing items with premiums to make it seem luxurious.
The other thing that a brand can do to appeal to Gen Z is to have a strong brand identity with a message that people can get behind. Brands such as Denim Tears or the leading fashion brand Nike, have an incredibly strong brand identity. With Denim Tears, founder Tremaine Emory brought African heritage and history to the center stage. Including themes such as African Diaspora, or putting a twist on the classic polo American flag sweater by featuring an African American flag. These ideas and concepts speak to people, and in many ways transcend fashion becoming part of culture. Similar to Aime Leon Dore, who not only copied a concept but rather created a culture based on memories of the past, in a sense nostalgia core.