Designing for Gen Z: Key Trends & Best Practices from a Christian Approach
These are some of the top 5 things Gen-Z care about according to marketing research, especially in the United States (see sources below). However, due to globalization and especially social media, many of these principles carry over here to Slovenia their own unique European and Slovene way. Following are some questions we can be asking ourselves as we approach this generation with the love and truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Later, a YouTube channel dedicated to social media content scheduling, creation, and education, posted a video highlighting five values that Gen-z market research has identified called, “Marketing to Generation Z: 5 Gen Z Marketing Strategies in 2022.”
They identified the following five strategies (also below).
Gen Z Design Trends
What you believe
Transparency
Embrace Personality
Create Entertainment not Marketing
Build Community
I have taken those five strategies, condensed their conclusions, and then evaluated and applied them from a Christian perspective, particularly with the lens of evangelistic outreach camps, in order to explore how we might care for the next generation well and provide services that meet their needs.
1 - WHAT YOU BELIEVE
“Youth care about social responsibility, they're 3x more likely to believe companies (not individuals) have the ability to transform society” (Marketing to Generation Z: 5 Gen Z Marketing Strategies in 2022). Hmm... that lingo sounds familiar.
What would it look like for us as Christians to approach relationships as individuals who follow Jesus, rather than as “representatives of an organization” (which by default may be fundamentally associated with corruption, greed, or manipulation in a young person's mind)?
What would it look like to champion the values of the Kingdom of God and to promote causes for social justice in a way that Jesus also valued and proclaimed that his Kingdom cared about in offering lament over the way things are and an alternative and other-worldly solution?
What if we also championed protection, care, and provision for the vulnerable and weak and the care of our planet?
2 - TRANSPARENCY
“On your website they want to know what you're about, they care about authenticity even more than millennials and they can see right through you” (Marketing to Generation Z: 5 Gen Z Marketing Strategies in 2022).
This goes for our “evangelism” as well. If we are “sharing the gospel” to “make a convert,” this generation will feel that manipulation and be able to sense that your interaction with them is more about you fulfilling your idea of what obedience looks like than it is about you loving and caring for their soul and eternal destiny.
3 - PERSONALITY / INDIVIDUALITY
As the video points out, this generation goes against the millennial minimalism. The pendulum has swung. “Be yellow and silly, be bold and cheeky, don't be false - be gritty and raw and full of flavor - but don't over-produce or be inauthentic. Be you” (Marketing to Generation Z: 5 Gen Z Marketing Strategies in 2022).
This generation celebrates individuality and personal preferences and needs more than anyone else. The hero of the story is “them.”
Rather than rejecting this, perhaps we could consider what of the character of God we see in such unique and beautiful personalities.
How can we celebrate the strengths we recognize in our young people and affirm their beauty.
Oftentimes, people who feel the need to self-express are crying out for connection and relationship. How can we offer and communicate that connection and “being known” so wholly and intimately by God, their creator?
How can we invite them to be known by God and also bravely be willing to know and love this generation, flaws and strengths and all, ourselves?
4 - ENTERTAINMENT, NO SALESY PITCHES
From the video: While millennials liked clean polished marketing, “Gen z just wants you to make them laugh” (Marketing to Generation Z: 5 Gen Z Marketing Strategies in 2022).
They have a highly developed marketing filter; they've been raised with a filter that has grown stronger and thicker as they've had to combat psychologically engineered apps and marketing that are out to get them and consume their attention for most of their lives.
The question is, do we also then create empty and trivialized content or messages that feed into this thirst for numbness, criticism, and denial of depth?
Or do we boldly dive deep into their and our authentic selves and how Jesus meets us in those places? How do we do this?
How do we call them out of the dissociation of empty amusement (“a-muse” meaning absence of or anti- thoughtfulness or deep pondering)?
Or do we indeed use humor as an avenue to reach them with truth?
5 - GROWING COMMUNITY
From the video: Gen Z likes to relate to like-minded peers. They want to find real people who stand for something real. They care about relationships, not just transactions. They want to know their opinion matters when it comes to your brand and decision-making, so “invite them into the conversation and decision-making process” (Marketing to Generation Z: 5 Gen Z Marketing Strategies in 2022).
This is huge! This is the good news of Jesus Christ: that he was and is a real person. He became like us. He got down on our level. He felt and experienced our needs, hurts, and longings.
How do we share this “realness” of Jesus with this generation?
How do we also listen well and communicate that their opinions and depth of thoughts and ideas don’t scare us but are valuable?
How do we leave space for the Holy Spirit to work in those thoughts and opinions?
How do we point and guide them to Jesus as they are in the good and necessary and beautiful process of exploration and decision making? Even deciding who they will become and what they want to be like?
Examples of Amazing Gen-Z Marketing
Gen Z are content creators not content consumers.
Come alongside them in their content creation, don't create consumable content for them.
If you want a fun immersive gen-z experience... you can dive into the sites and the video below... just dip your toes in, the water is... interesting... notice who they target and how they target them.
What are the values and principles... What is the hook?
https://www.helloprzm.com/
This is a crazy site, interviews, pushing all the limits... you almost have to be Gen Z to know how to navigate this.
https://www.innbeautyproject.com
Notice they have just three menu items: shop (how to get what you want), ingredients (authenticity), and sustainability (transform society)... and the tagline isn't about their brand or product per se, but about how they're changing the world by not using plastic.
https://starface.world/
They take the "be bold" and show personality to a whole new level. This is Gen Z personality. Trivial, entertaining, raw, real, not afraid to show acne, etc.
Gen Z explains how to market to themselves:
Source of the original 5 strategies… that I then expounded upon.
Gen Z explaining how to market to themselves (this is where the 5 tips came from) - https://youtu.be/pG-vm2fxJYU
