When it comes to Gen Z, "contradiction and exploration are built in." Reid Litman, Ogilvy Consulting
Reid Litman of Ogilvy Consulting speaks to AdForum about engaging with Gen Z through co-creation, creativity, and partnership.
As a Global Director with Ogilvy Consulting, Reid Litman focuses on growth strategy, community-building and innovation projects for top brands and creators looking to connect with youth culture. Reid also contributes to Ogilvy’s Center for Behavioral Science and Ogilvy’s Gen Z Pulse offering – a platform to connect brands with the pulse of youth culture and the creator economy through ‘instant panels’ and youth councils. He is passionate about how brands can impact social change.
Reid speaks to AdForum about engaging with Gen Z through co-creation, creativity, and partnership.
What seems to be the biggest obstacle when it comes to grabbing the attention of Gen Z’ers? How are you cutting through the noise to engage with them?
We hear so much about Gen Z – how they are the largest and most influential generation now making up 40% of all global consumers. Yet today only 30% of Gen Zers believe brands truly understand them. So there remains a massive opportunity to capture their attention – and more importantly, to build lasting relationships.
What’s driving this gap? For me, the biggest obstacle for brands is that Gen Z is a cohort of plurals. They’re hard to pin down because they refuse to be pinned down in a world so used to the binary. This group is poised, but also paradoxical. Highly entrepreneurial, but also highly cautious. Highly confident, but also highly anxious. We are disruptors, but nostalgic. Contradiction and exploration are built in.
Despite the dualities, nuances, and contradictions within this massive cohort, there is one thing we see consistently: Gen Z views creativity and individual expression as a core attribute of daily life. To this end, I cut through the noise by building with Gen Z rather than for them – tapping into their individuality and self-expression. Co-creation, creativity, and partnership WITH youth culture sits at the heart of our approach.
I really believe the long-term success of community-building, marketing and brand will depend on your willingness to co-create. It’s not about pushing products or asking users to take a poll; it’s about giving them a voice and shining a light on their ideas, experiences, and beliefs. At its best, this engages Gen Z in shaping what the brand means to them, while the brand itself grows into something more meaningful for their consumers.
Gen Z is one of the first generations to have grown up with access to the internet. With the purchasing power Gen Z’ers now have, do you see them as informed consumers? How do they differ to past generations of consumers?
Gen Z is absolutely informed – both in the traditional sense as they have instant access to every bit of news, history, opinion, tutorial, and media gallery ever created… and in the more modern sense, that they have inherent comfort and influence in a digital world built for commerce and communities.
In terms of how this drives differentiation compared to past generations, you have to remember that Gen Z arrived already thinking of themselves as creators. They think about and act on personal branding from a young age, meaning today brands aren’t just competing against each other, they’re competing with (or potentially working with) the personal brands of millions of emerging creators – as evidenced by the fact that about 75% of the content Gen Z consumes comes from a fellow creator rather than a traditional media outlet or brand.
Is AI useful for connecting with younger audiences?
It sure can be.
But the truth is that our work comes to life in several forms, which means no one AI can tackle all of our goals. From co-creation workshops, to the formation of bespoke Gen Z boards and business councils, to product and sustainability initiatives – no two projects are exactly alike. So, for me, AI tools have proven most useful and interesting in the strategy phase – brainstorming, workshopping, copywriting and video editing – rather than in the communications or outreach portion of a brand project.
As for which tools and where to look for new ones, I’m constantly searching the “There’s an AI for that” site to test and trial new tools that improve ways of working, speed to concept, or something completely new I hadn’t even thought about. Check it out!
Which social platforms are still relevant and how brands are using those to sell to Gen Z?
For young people, entertainment, gaming, shopping, learning, and discovering have largely become one. We’ve all heard about the platforms in vogue right now, from TikTok to Pinterest, YouTube, Discord, and Snapchat. For me, it’s less about which social platforms are still relevant, and more about making sure you have a strong pulse on where your community or desired target is hanging out. Where are they sharing content, creating new POVs, having dialogue and remixing the status quo?
I try and follow these three steps as it relates to prioritizing and engaging Gen Z (rather than just selling to them) on certain channels in a world where we all have finite time and budget:
(1) WHO: Which communities or cohorts within Gen Z do I actually care about? Think interest point and passions.
(2) WHERE: Where are these communities most active? Is it FoodTok? A Corner of reddit with passionate mods? More private spaces like Discord or WhatsApp? Or perhaps right on a broader and more public platform like Instagram or YouTube.
(3) HOW: How are we tapping into Gen Z’s desire for creative expression to build our brand WITH, not for them across a mix of these private vs public and large vs small channels?
With the overwhelming amount of information we have today, nostalgia for simpler times seems to be on the rise. Do you feel that the advertising industry will, or has already, shifted towards leaning into early 2000s nostalgia trend?
One of the “fun” parts of the instant and unlimited access we talked about earlier is that today’s youth get to explore all of the trends, lores, and cores of past generations of kids. I think whereas Millennials swiped on dates, Gen Z swipes on aesthetics and vibes – 90’s, Brat Summer, Beyond Country, Y2K, etc.
Brands and advertisers are already having a lot of fun with this – dipping in and out of trends the same way consumers are. But I think there’s a lot of opportunity to take it further. Taking the early 2000s nostalgia trend as an example, how can brands go from simply communicating or individually dipping into these trends by re-launching throwback products like flip phones or digital cameras to actually world-building within them? Working with Gen Z to co-create experiences that bring nostalgia into a modern context. If simplicity, privacy, and wellness, for example, are the parts of 2000’s nostalgia we miss most, how can we find new ways to bring youth culture into that world?