In addition to blind boxes and Bilibili, how will the post-95s lead new marketing trends in the next 10 years?

1. Three characteristics of future consumption through Generation Z

Generally speaking, Generation Z refers to the generation born after 1995. They represent a new consumption model and have their own set of behaviors and attitudes, with many preferences that are novel and puzzling to the "older generation". But if you think about it carefully, these characteristics are actually well-founded.

Feature 1: The catalyst method is more intuitive and more "stimulating"

The four most popular media sources for Generation Z are video, mobile games, online music, and mobile comics. From the perspective of type, it can be seen that Generation Z attaches more importance to sensory stimulation and participatory experience.

Video is the most time-consuming media mode for Generation Z, with the average person spending nearly 2 hours per day on video entertainment. Among them, short videos, videos, and APPs with strong two-dimensional attributes are very popular, and the main behaviors are watching short videos, chasing dramas, variety shows, and watching live games. The video viewing time of Generation Z exceeds that of all Internet users by 20%, and is mainly infiltrated on mainstream platforms such as iQiyi, Douyin, Tencent Video, Kuaishou, and Bilibili .

Generation Z is the mainstream group of mobile gamers, and they particularly love large-scale mobile games. This has also driven the development of game live streaming and communities. Online music is also a gathering place for Generation Z. They spend 15% more time on music apps than all netizens on the Internet. They love to listen, sing, share and comment.

As for mobile comics, they are almost dominated by Generation Z users. Because they were born in the Internet era with a strong two-dimensional culture, their preference for the two-dimensional world is more direct than that of other circles, and the themes are broader and more open, and they account for more than 50% of the two-dimensional traffic.

The preference for catalyst method directly affects the future direction of Internet content. Some people believe that the rise and explosion of entertainment is a sign of "degeneration"; others say that entertainment is merely a carrier, behind which is a change in the way information is received. For Generation Z, they were born into such a new entertainment world, and their brains are already adaptable to these stimuli. The directness of entertainment content will not shake their lifestyles and opinions. This brings us to the next feature – changes in consumption habits.

Feature 2: Consumption habits are becoming increasingly superficial

The word "superficial" here is just a simplified description for everyone's convenience. To be more precise, Generation Z is more direct in their expressions - they care about their feelings and like to express them directly; they are also more straightforward than other generations in satisfying their preferences. This also makes them appear to be more "superficial" on the surface, which is mainly reflected in the following three "supers" .

Super concerned about consumer experience

Generation Z pursues a richer experience. In the information age, people's pace of life is getting faster and faster. Time is a scarce resource, so people are increasingly pursuing efficient use of time. Generation Z hopes to get the richest experience possible within a limited time. That is, when purchasing a product, they want to feel a sense of gain that goes beyond the product itself.

This is reflected in consumer behavior preferences. While Generation Z pursues product quality, they also pay more attention to the consumption experience, that is, a sense of achievement from shopping. They focus on the service + social attributes of the entire chain from product promotion to review and sharing. Compared with other generations, they have obvious differences in consumption preferences - they are not blindly price sensitive and no longer worship brands (this is described in more detail in Part 2 of the article). Generation Z is very willing to pay for the fun they experience in consumption. Just think about the popular blind boxes and various doll IPs and we can get a taste of it.

Super value product appearance

This is first reflected in the willingness to pay for self-pleasure. Generation Z is the main force in beauty, cosmetics, and health products. Its consumption power far exceeds that of other generations, ranking first. In addition, they pay attention to the appearance, quality and design of products. From packaging to content, they tend to be exquisite and beautiful. This is also an important reason for the popularity of high-value "new retail categories": Santonban Coffee, fancy milk tea, plant-based vegetarian food, Internet celebrity coffee shops, and Internet celebrity restaurants. . . From behaviors such as posting high-value orders, taking photos to share with friends, and commenting on videos, it can be seen that Generation Z is keen on all things with "high value".

Does this really mean that the vision of those born after 1995 has become superficial? The author believes that the emphasis on appearance is just one of the by-products of technological progress: the result of the younger generation being domesticated by modern information technology. First of all, there is almost no technical threshold for those born after 1995 to express information. They can use mobile Internet to send voice and video messages and communicate in real time anytime and anywhere. Information transmission has become faster than ever before, even the typing process has been eliminated. Generation Z spends much less time on wording than any previous generation, which directly leads to their direct attitude towards things, which is most evident in their directness and their tendency to judge things based on their appearance first. Related to this thinking habit is the next super feature.

Super Label Zatui

Generation Z grew up in an era of rapid information expansion - a large amount of information surrounds them in the form of flashes. This leads to fragmented attention, making it impossible to carefully examine every piece of information unless one is paying special attention to it - attention is limited, and people can only focus their limited energy on topics that interest them. This leads to a generation that grows up in this environment having very clear label attributes.

In other words, when Generation Z buys a product, they not only pay attention to the product itself, but also the label behind it. What I use represents what kind of person I am. Therefore, we can see that new consumer product merchants will definitely clearly label their products when promoting their products.

Behind this label, it represents a personality or common preference, and to put it more deeply, it means that there are certain common values. For example, social networking now tends to be more vertical, and Generation Z is more willing to be active in a circle or community of like-minded people, because this reduces a lot of communication costs in the era of information explosion.

The current trend of voting for idols, supporting idol endorsements and their peripheral products is essentially a community formed by a group of people with a sense of identity. This is also the reason why, in addition to top stars, Generation Z also likes UP hosts and Internet celebrities in vertical fields. The essence of these phenomena is the result of social labeling, the purpose of which is to reduce the cost of social communication.

Feature 3: “Strict” requirements for products. After reading the first two features, it is easy to have an illusion: Generation Z likes flashy and shiny things? They expect to have a rich experience beyond the product itself. They value the label value represented by the product and are easily captured by good looks. Will they despise the product itself?

That’s wishful thinking. Generation Z also has one most important consumption characteristic – a preference for certainty. In other words, they have very high requirements for the certainty of product quality and service, and very low tolerance for errors, which can even be described as "harsh".

The "3.15 Chinese Internet User Internet Consumption Complaints Research Report" shows that since 2019, for two consecutive years, those born in the 1990s and 2000s have topped the list of "Internet consumption complaints", accounting for more than 60% of the total complaints. Data from the food delivery, car rental, and travel apps we often use also show that users born after 1995 give lower average scores to services, 23% lower than the overall average. All this shows that young people of Generation Z have a lower tolerance for mistakes and uncertainty than other generations.
Of course, the reasons behind this are similar to those for the first two characteristics, and the essence is still due to technological development. As technology becomes more advanced, people gain a stronger sense of certainty. Those born after 1995 happened to have grown up in this environment. They are more thoroughly surrounded by the sense of certainty brought by technology and have a stronger preference for certainty.
This leads to a very direct impact. Concept marketing, which has been on the rise since 2000, likes to "play with concepts", but the effect cycle of this method will become shorter and shorter. From the promotion of new concepts to the real recognition of products by consumers, the cycle left for merchants will become shorter and shorter. That is, the marketing promotion model of "first promotion, then product" will become increasingly difficult to implement.

2.How should marketing strategies change under new consumption characteristics?

The consumption characteristics of Generation Z influence each other, and gradually form a new consumption effect. The characteristics have been sorted out. Here we need to emphasize a concept, which is also the starting point of this article's discussion of marketing trends from Generation Z: the Generation Z effect.

The Generation Z Effect:
Due to the invisibility of technology, the previous generational boundaries have been broken down and the boundaries between circles have disappeared. People of different ages, social classes, and educational backgrounds can use the same technology, experience the same culture, and receive the same information. At the same time, the speed of technological iteration will become faster and faster in the future, and the distance between generations will be shortened to the point where it is difficult to clearly define.
Therefore, the above three new consumption characteristics will be the major trends for all generations. So, where should our marketing strategy go?

1. Online and offline layout, two-way integration of “people looking for goods, goods looking for people”

We can roughly divide the evolution of the consumption path into three stages:

a. The earliest was “goods find people”, relying on traditional brand advertising to spread influence and popularity;

b. The second stage is “people looking for goods”. The rise of online marketing has given people more choices over information. After being attracted by content, they can make purchases directly through search or e-commerce platforms.

c. Now we have entered the third stage: “people look for goods, and goods look for people at the same time”. This is a process of strong linkage and two-way integration.

The marketing layout needs to match this trend. In the two-way search and matching process between consumers and goods, a large amount of consumption trajectory data will be generated, and it is difficult for us to avoid any online or offline scenario. Moreover, because people pay more attention to the experience, offline or simulated scenes will not decline but will become more prosperous.

This is also the reason why e-commerce companies are now starting to expand offline and offline stores are starting to expand online traffic. Because, in the future consumption path, online and offline are inseparable and cannot exist independently. Therefore, it is very important to layout both online and offline channels for marketing.

To give a recent example, since 2021, more and more online K12 companies have chosen ground-based customer acquisition methods. Many people would simply think that this is just a forced choice as the traffic has peaked and the supervision of investment has become stricter. But the author believes that this is the emergence of a new marketing layout for diversified customer acquisition.

According to the latest report from Duozhi.com, Yuanfudao is working on building a field sales team of more than 1,000 people; Zuoyebang has identified ground-based customer acquisition as one of its key channels and has been seeking to acquire ground-based institutions since last year; in the earnings conference of GSX, it was mentioned that GSX is seeking offline customer acquisition methods; 51Talk also mentioned the progress of its offline experience stores in its earnings report. In addition, many online education brands including Xueersi Online School, Qingqing Education, Coding Cat, and Walnut Programming have begun to actively deploy ground-based customer acquisition methods.

Among them, marketing through offline experience stores is one of the commonly used customer acquisition methods for online K12 education. New Oriental Online and 51Talk are both expanding their offline experience stores, and each has expanded to more than 100 stores. The role of the experience store is not to actually take classes, but to establish a good consumer trust relationship through offline experience stores, aiming to divert traffic from the ground to the online.
It can be seen that while paying attention to online networks, offline marketing is likely to be neglected by many marketers. Little do people know that this may determine whether the entire marketing closed loop can be connected and whether true consumer trust can be established through online and offline linkages.

2. Narrow the audience and impress vertical groups more accurately

Under the Generation Z effect, the most important thing to attract your audience is: don’t be greedy.
Companies now understand that products and services must be integrated to create greater consumer stickiness. However, as mentioned above, consumers' demands are becoming increasingly fragmented, and they are becoming more and more demanding on the richness of the experience - at this time, the group that can be satisfied by a product or a category of products becomes very limited, and ultimately, we may only be able to capture a certain type of segmented user.

As shown in the figure above, the circle that users belong to will affect their touchpoints and consumption decision-making methods. Companies need to create a venue for each segmented circle that suits their consumption habits. This means that narrowing the audience will allow for more targeted strikes.
Not being greedy also means that we need to make choices based on the consumption frequency of our own categories, cultivate super users and word-of-mouth communicators in our own segments, and attract precise users in the same circle through the circle effect. In terms of tone, quality, and even region, there is always a group of people who are more sticky users. By accurately meeting their needs and continuously improving the accuracy of recommendations, services, and repeat purchases, we can firmly grasp this vertical circle.

Another reason why it is not recommended to cast a wide net when it comes to audiences in future marketing is that the stratification of consumers will become increasingly detailed. This segmentation is the result of the "community culture" mentioned above: people will gather together based on the same topic or the same cultural values ​​and prefer a certain type of content. Therefore, it is difficult to cover all aspects of marketing. It is obviously a more practical and efficient option to focus on one group of people, maximize the experience, and serve the segmented group of people.

This cultural stratification will further aggravate the "dispersion of traffic" - the cost of obtaining traffic across groups will be very high. Therefore, an enterprise relying on a certain type of traffic and becoming a high-quality service provider for this group of audiences will become a new direction for the long-term integration of the "service side and the traffic side".

3. Rather than building a brand, it is more important to build trust through “place”

The attitude of Generation Z consumers towards brands has changed, from the previous "recognition + love" to "no longer excited about the brand".

Consumers' perceptions have changed as the environment has changed. Marketing actually starts with consumers not trusting the brand. Over the past few decades, massive marketing campaigns have made consumers begin to believe in brands, become obsessed with brands, and ultimately, even love brands.

However, brands will not develop indefinitely. With the great abundance of commodities, people's perception of brands has changed again. Generation Z has shown itself to be less and less excited about brands. To put it simply, “I think brands are just so-so.”

According to a research report in November 20, brand appeal has fallen behind quality and price. In other words, if the brand premium is too high, Generation Z will not pay for it. This statistical result is indeed somewhat beyond people's expectations, because all new retail now are still focusing on branding, so how could a brand decline?

In fact, it is not the decline of the brand, but the change in people’s attitude towards the brand. From the previous unconditional trust in brands to the current situation where brands are just a plus point in trust.

To explain with an example, platforms like NetEase Yanxuan and Xiaomi Youpin sell everything and bring together various brands. They help consumers choose products. What consumers trust is no longer the brand, but the product selection and positioning capabilities of these platforms. Once consumers recognize that the positioning of this platform is suitable for them, they will have more faith in the "consumption field" built by the platform.

As shown in the picture, the field here does not refer to the physical shopping scene or the virtual experience scene, but refers to "the overall impression and feeling that consumers get when shopping." The field here is essentially a kind of trust established through marketing content, products, and services. Because of the existence of this trust, it helps consumers solve an important shopping problem: the problem of choice.

With a reliable venue, consumers are relieved of their "fear of choice" when purchasing - because the audience is more precise and the entire set of services is complete, so the "venue" as a merchant will not make random recommendations to consumers. What "I" recommend to "you" is the most suitable for "you". And because "I" have "your" multi-dimensional data and know what suits you, I don't give you many choices, maybe just one out of two, or one out of three.

In this way, the marketing strategy changes from asking consumers to add to the logic of subtraction. The now very popular life styles, family healthcare institutions, and comprehensive education solutions for children were actually all born under this trend.

In addition, the currently popular IP empowerment and content empowerment actually follow the same idea. With IP or content, there is an additional dimension for distinguishing preferences, and the product has new connotations and value, making it much easier for segmented consumers to make choices.

To put it bluntly, if I choose you, you should at least give me more reasons to choose you. If companies help consumers create such a "field" in all aspects and make marketing a subtraction, they can solve the problem of choice. Future consumers will be willing to pay for “information filtering services.”

3. From the perspective of marketing strategy changes to marketing technology trends

1. Multi-dimensional data analysis under multiple business formats - traffic cost issues

First of all, the concept of multi-format actually comes from the new retail industry. For example, HEMA Fresh is a multi-format business: warehousing, supermarkets, restaurants, and fresh food delivery. . . Nowadays, many online industries have developed multiple business formats. For example, Zebra AI recently launched art courses to compete with Artbao; KFC launched instant coffee and is entering the new retail industry, etc. You may wonder, does this conflict with narrowing the audience?
The answer is no conflict, but rather a matter of going with the flow, because of the depth of data that the company possesses. Under multiple business formats, the user data that can be collected is more multi-dimensional, and more information about the same audience can be obtained, so as to better serve them.

As shown in the above figure, multiple business formats will further intensify multiple touchpoints, and various jumping and disordered links will appear in the consumer purchasing path. In this process, it is necessary to establish more accurate online and offline link data monitoring and analysis.

For example. In fact, today’s powerful merchants have used technology to drive the digitization of offline store scenes, combining data from online apps or shopping malls to identify and analyze traffic. The advantage of doing this is that after the online and offline data are connected, the real behavioral data in the area can be obtained by the merchants. They do not need to know who a specific person is (this involves data privacy), but they know how to market in this area, what kind of services to provide, and how many resources to prepare.

This will drive companies to make new investments in data infrastructure and try to collect more comprehensive data in marketing to drive the final marketing decisions.

In order to cooperate with an enterprise's multiple business formats, future multi-dimensional data analysis tools will still approach from two dimensions: traffic dimension and operation dimension. The final indicators to focus on are traffic costs and operation and maintenance costs. Therefore, the technical strength of planning these two issues in advance will determine your future marketing strength.

2. Personalization ability – the issue of trust

At present, there are numerous emerging marketing technologies, and there are many places to spend money if you want to improve your company's marketing capabilities. However, if I were to choose the capability that requires the most investment in the next five years, it would definitely be the ability to personalize marketing.

There are two reasons:

First, personalization is the most powerful tool for building trust with Generation Z. The persuasiveness brought by personalization is just right for Generation Z consumers. Whether it is the richness of the experience or the matching of cost-performance, these are what Generation Z values ​​most. By the way, it also solves the "field" trust problem mentioned above.

Secondly, personalization is a standard feature when network effects reach their extreme. As mentioned earlier, Generation Z has rich interests and preferences, which are divided into detailed categories, and their attention is fragmented. This means that if consumer products want to capture consumers, they must position themselves in more segmented circles, and at the same time use personalized technology to make consumers trust and rely on marketing recommendations.

So, how to enhance personalization technology specifically?

The author believes that we can start with the delivery process. For example, first establish the basic characteristics of the target population based on tags, and then push advertisements with different strategies based on the industry penetration rates of different circles and related channels. Then, through automated tools, the delivery results are constantly verified to find the dynamic optimal delivery combination.

At the same time, personalization can also feed back to operations: by continuously testing the marketing effectiveness of each potential customer, operations and sales can further utilize this personalized information to improve conversion efficiency.

At this point, some marketers may worry that knowing too much about consumers may disgust them, right? But the future trend may be just the opposite. Generation Z will require businesses to pay more attention to their behavior than they do themselves, so that they can get a consumption experience that meets their needs and tastes at a low cost.

Are you thinking, wait a minute, this is too scary, is it possible for someone to know everything about me? However, in the future, Generation Z will regard information filtering and screening as a very energy-consuming and costly task. Therefore, marketers really don’t need to worry that consumers will reject the “system’s” understanding of them.

The essence of personalized marketing is “evidence-based marketing”, which requires predictive marketing based on a long-term understanding of consumers. It is actually different from the A/B testing and segmented marketing we are doing now. We are now doing trend analysis among mass consumers, which is essentially a form of short-term marketing.
True personalization is a long-term marketing investment. Therefore, the construction of personalized capabilities is similar to long-term investment. The whole process will be relatively long. You must start early, invest small amounts, continuously replenish your positions, hold for a long time, and not let go easily.

Conclusion

We all like to call our own era the best era, because we have learned the skills and abilities for survival with great difficulty. Especially smart people tend to become more obsessed with past skills. However, when we realize that we are living in an era of such rapid iteration, we really need to be vigilant and not use our current experience to think about the future. As stated in the article, the characteristics of Generation Z are the characteristics of future consumers. When faced with any incomprehensible changes, marketers should understand that the new generation is always more adaptable to the future than the old generation. Therefore, always learn from people in the future, and you will most likely not suffer any loss.

Author: Lingqi Marketing Notes

Source: Lingxi Marketing Notes (getlx007)