Earnest Millennial Marketing is Out, Chaotic Gen Z Marketing is In

If your social feeds are filled with chaotic organic content and unhinged ads of people being messy, blunt, or downright wild, you might have wondered when this era of marketing came about and how it took over so quickly. The answer is simple: when Gen Z reached the workforce.

When millennials were primarily in charge of adverts and campaigns, everything was extremely earnest. Slogans and one-liners came from a place that yearned for a better future, a wholesome approach to life, a meaningful relationship… everything was just so optimistic. It’s really the generation that completely ate up the “We’re Not Strangers” craze, and it’s exactly how we ended up with so much inspirational graffiti everywhere. The approach Gen Z takes on the other hand, is one that disrupts the status quo and makes people feel mildly uneasy.

But as @eugbrandstrat said on TikTok, brands did eventually realize that being “authentic” (and fake “woke”, tbh) wasn’t going to solve the world’s problems, or even begin to change it. Instead of serving us an ad that commands us to do better, maximalist fun took top priority. The idea of creating a spectacle out of an ordinary product became the new norm (i.e., KFC posting a fried chicken prom corsage, just to literally sell chicken).

As the marketing world quickly changes, there’s no time for brands to sit around and contemplate whether they want to join in on the Gen Z way of advertising and social media. Just do it, while you still have the chance to be in the game, or risk being left on the sidelines as your brand name gets deemed “old school”.