If there was anywhere to be yesterday, it was at Sydney’s Ace Hotel for Snapchat’s Marketing and Media Planner / Buyer Finalists lunch ahead of B&T’s 30 Under 30 Awards.
The lunch gathered the finest Gen Z talents in the industry ahead of the Awards for a lunch of networking and debating the hottest topics in the market—from brand authenticity and diversity in channel mix to, you guessed it, AI. Gen Z is near and dear to Snapchat, with the app reaching over 90 per cent of people aged 13-24 in Australia and with a community of over 8 million Australians coming to Snapchat monthly.
Ella Keddie, Snapchat Australia’s head of agency sales told B&T after the lunch: “We’re thrilled to bring this group of industry-leading Gen Z talent together to celebrate their creative and impactful approaches to marketing and media. Their thoughtful insights into how brands should connect with Gen Z makes Snapchat proud to support the B&T 30 Under 30 awards.”
There’s still time to buy your B&T 30 Under 30 Awards tickets, too.
Amidst the stracciatella and scallop aguachile starters and the exceptionally tender steaks, conversations broke out picking apart what’s hot, what’s not and what everyone in the industry needs to be keeping an eye on to meet the increasingly influential Gen Z market.
You’ve likely heard it before, but these leading under 30 adlanders believe that brands need to be natural in their interactions with consumers. Authenticity is crucial but not a forced, faux authenticity. Brands need to be believable, human, perhaps even fallible.
There was also a sense that Gen Z is turned off by brands that are too corporate. Again, not an uncommon idea. However, that doesn’t mean it needs to be bean bags and arcade machines in the office. Instead, brands need to be approachable, understandable and familiar rather than aloof.
But it was felt that channel mix, as much as messaging and brand personas, were key to reaching Gen Z. Linear, one-to-many communications channels are now less important.
Instead, many spoke about how they were employing niche, micro-influencers on platforms to deliver outsized brand lifts at a time when consumers are more perfidious and mercurial than ever. In fact, it’s one of the reasons that many lauded Snap for its ability to have deeper, more meaningful conversations with Gen Z consumers in channels that the demo enjoys and is already using. Nowadays media plans need the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel to cut through.
With that said, there is nuance—particularly for brands that play at a national level. With marketers and media agency faces descending on Sydney from Melbourne, Queensland and beyond, it was clear that operating in Australia is not a one-size-fits-all game.
Much of that was down to regional differences—AFL being more popular in Victoria than in New South Wales and affecting brand tie-ins as a result being a classic example. But there was more. Australia’s demographics are changing. Migrant communities are interacting with brands in different ways and, again, these nuances are brought into even sharper focus when an age lens is applied over the top.
AI, as ever, was a hot topic. How were different agencies and brands using it? Was it improving results? How did it change the day-to-day?
The feeling in the room was that AI was now nothing to be feared, whereas in the past, it perhaps was. It was clear that the tool was being deployed to save time on mundane tasks. It is not, or perhaps isn’t yet, a revelatory piece of technology that will turn the world upside down. Many felt it was also coming in handy as a search tool.
If there was an overriding feeling in the room, it was of excitement. These were not the anxious Gen Z that you hear about in the popular press from time-to-time (many were even enjoying the excellent wine on offer, again contrary to some headlines). This is a generation that is not only excited for changes that may come down the line. They’re ready to make them happen.
