The rise of TikTok has also been part of a fundamental shift in how culture is being defined. In the 80’s and 90’s cultural references came from the media, by way of celebrities and sports stars wearing the latest Nike Air Jordans. As the rise of social media became more apparent, influencers emerged, first as celebrities then as everyday folk who were open to sharing their lives. This shift of power has moved further still towards the consumer, where culture is now being crowd-sourced by the users themselves.
In the words of Gary Vaynerchuk ‘We’re living in an era where word-of-mouth is on steroids.’
The power of consumers has never been stronger, nor has the need for brands to match the culture by being more human, than ever before.
The name of the game now is relevance and scale, where audiences are segmented into thousands of little pieces of the puzzle and we need to talk to each microsegment in their own unique way. Marketing is no longer about one key message advertised to a mass audience, but rather a thousand key messages conveyed 1:1 to a thousand different segments in an extremely human and relatable way.
And we’re not talking about a young audience here that’s not yet got the spending power to be worth pursuing. On the FMCG front, Gen Z have entered the main grocery buyer set, and will continue to infiltrate the segment with each year that they get older.
Gen Z has an expected spending power of $360B. They are bold trend setters and digital natives that are the hardest generation to market to, and they are the consumers of the future. So if you’re not investing heavily on platforms like TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram Reels then you’re likely already losing brand relevance at a staggering pace.
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