How to market to Gen Z / Gen Alpha – directly from them.

Last week, we had high school student, Grace, join us for work experience.  As a part of her time here, she wrote a piece about how businesses can market better to her generation.

What we find particularly interesting is that many observations align with the direction we’re seeing with wider marketing across brands.

Here are some key takeaways directly from a 15-year-old.

Key marketing lessons for businesses to learn

• Authenticity beats polished content.

Gen Z can quickly identify when content feels overly corporate, too sales-focused, forced or inauthentic. They want honest, genuine, human and relatable.

Show more of the real people behind the business, the real work and the real results rather than focusing on polished marketing messages.

• Educational content is highly valued.

Rather than simply telling people you’re good at what you do, show it. Use tips, practical advice, how-to content and real examples. Help people rather than promote services.

• Proof, not promises.

Put an emphasis on results. Show before and after examples, customer testimonials and successes, transformations and improvements. They trust evidence more than claims with no back up.

What brands should stop doing

• Overly polished, corporate videos are less appealing than more natural content.
• Her generation don’t want to be sold to, they want to learn, be entertained and get value.
• Don’t hide company culture. Show who works there, what it’s like and what your business stands for.

What captures attention

• Short form video. Her and her friends do not want to watch long videos. These are one of the biggest opportunities. They like behind the scenes footage, day in the life videos, customer stories and real projects and visual stories.

On what platforms?

TikTok is what she sees as the strongest platform for reaching her generation, with Instagram still highly relevant. These are what they most commonly scroll.

Younger professionals are also increasingly active on LinkedIn and use it to assess your brands culture, find opportunities, check out values and seek professional development.

If you’re recruiting, what makes a company attractive to Gen Z employees?

• Learning and development – new skills, training and growth opportunities.
• Flexibility – hybrid working, work-life balance and companies that think about wellbeing.
• Positivity – supportive colleagues, creativity being encouraged.
• Purpose – companies that make a difference, want people to succeed and have a clear purpose.

Salary alone isn’t enough to attract younger employees.

Trends

Trend 1: Short-form video continues to dominate

Trend 2: Employee-generated content

Trend 3: User-generated content or real experiences

Trend 4: Transparency – how you operate, who works for you, what do you believe in as a business

Trend 5: Educate and entertain

Summary

Nearly every part of this comes back to building trust through transparency, authenticity, real people, real results and stories.

For this generation, marketing isn’t about having the loudest voice, it’s about being the most believable.

“Show me the people, show me what you do, show me how it helps people, and let me decide whether I trust you.”