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With the holidays quickly approaching, you may be scratching your head and wondering what to buy the young people in your life. Just like in years’ past, YMC has your back. We’re here to help you determine what to buy for the Gen-Zers and Millennials in your life.

About Our Gen-Z and Millennial Community

The YMC community, including our @youthmarketing followers, comprises more than two hundred thousand highly-engaged students and young adults across North America and the U.K. Over 90% of our network is between the ages of 18-34. In other words, our community represents Gen-Z and Millennials. 

What We Learned

We reached out to our community via Instagram Stories and a Google Survey to find out what gifts they plan on giving and would like to receive this year. Here’s what we learned:

We’re Back! (in the office)

44.2% of respondents are back in the office full-time, and 21.2% are working hybrid schedules and spending some time in their offices. While they’ve decked out home offices for the past few years, 2023 is shaping to be the year many will ditch the comfy sweatpants and style some more professional clothes. Knowing that the young person in your life might need to refresh their wardrobe, consider giving them a subscription to a fashion box, like Stichfix or Nuuly, so they can try out new clothes and pick their favorites.

UPS, FedEx, USPS, DHL, oh my!

Holiday (and all) shopping largely took place online over the past two years, and this trend is here to stay. All of our respondents said their holiday shopping would largely take place online, either exclusively or with a little in-store shopping. None of our respondents indicated they would do most or all of their shopping in person.

Let’s Get Practical

An overwhelming majority of respondents prefer to both give and receive practical gifts. This includes both items and services that they need and will use frequently. This is a shift from the past two years, where respondents wanted fun gifts that they may not have needed but definitely wanted. This shift can be attributed to the return to more in-person activities in the past year, Gen-Z and Millennials getting more established in the workplace, and inflation pressures.

Is Cash Still King?

2021 marked a year where respondents wanted to be showered in cash and gift cards. This year, items are the preferred gift. Inflation might be the reason behind this, as people understand that budgets are being stretched and shifted. Our respondents also indicated that the thought behind a chosen gift makes an impact more so than cash or gift cards.

Seal it with a Monogram

A recurring theme we saw in our survey responses was personalization. Many of our respondents indicated getting gifts like leather passport covers or stationery with their loved one’s initials or names embossed. Even when discussing gifts that did not lend themselves to personalization, our respondents indicated that they wanted to purchase gifts that show that they’ve been paying attention to what their friends and family like.

Looking for More Than Shopping Tips?

If you’re a brand manager interested in reaching more Gen-Z and Millennial consumers, we can help! We’ve built a strong community of young people to tap for unique custom research and insights. At YMC, we’ve been connecting brands with 15- to 34-year-old consumers for two decades—and we’d be happy to share our wealth of knowledge with you. Contact us today!

 

Happy Pride Month from all of us here at YMC!

As society shifts towards more accepting attitudes, those who identify as LGBTQ+ are empowered to come out and live authentically. Gen-Z youth in the United States have grown up surrounded by an increasingly accepting culture, and their widespread access to the internet has allowed information about LGBTQ+ identities to be more readily accessible and relatable. 

A recent Gallup poll (pulling data from Bedbible.com research) has shown that Gen-Z is increasingly identifying as LGBTQ+. Overall identification of LGBTQ+ individuals among all ages grows, sitting at 7.1% compared to 3.5% in 2012. 20.8% of Gen-Z identifies as LGBTQ+, a truly remarkable figure compared to previous generations. Much of this explosion in Gen-Z’s identification can be attributed to Gen-Z entering adulthood and becoming increasingly more comfortable with openly identifying their sexuality and gender.

Is This a Trend?

Some have deemed past societal shifts as passing trends and fads. There are individuals today who are attributing the rise in queer identities as such. Bill Maher, the bombastic political satirist, has recently landed himself in hot water by claiming that gay and trans youth are trying to be trendy, sparking criticism from many, including LGBTQ+ advocacy groups like GLAAD.

So what’s the cause of this significant increase? If we look back at the history of LGBTQ+ people, many were unable to be open and public with their identities due to societal norms, discrimination, lack of accessible knowledge, and fears of violence. The 1969 Stonewall Riots sparked the modern LGBTQ+ movement, and while there have been enormous strides in LGBTQ+ rights and acceptance, these newly gained grounds are shaky and uncertain. That being said, society as a whole is more accepting of LGBTQ+ identities now than ever before, leading to many becoming more comfortable with being out and proud. 

The internet has given rise to safe spaces for marginalized communities and provided people with the ability to share previously suppressed information. Many older LGBTQ+ individuals have talked about the lack of knowledge and language to express themselves in the past and how drastically different that is for young people today.

Becoming Mainstream

With the passage of marriage equality and strengthened rights for LGBTQ+ Americans, many more have been empowered to come out and publicly identify as LGBTQ+. With conversations about sexual orientation becoming increasingly mainstream, increased and explicit representation in media, and acceptance from some political and religious institutions and society, LGBTQ+ individuals are more easily able to live their lives without fear of discrimination. Gen-Z has benefited from the struggles of their queer predecessors and faces fewer challenges in identifying as LGBTQ+.

While pollsters like Gallup have conducted similar surveys about the sexual orientations of Americans in the past, there were issues with inaccurate counts of marginalized communities. Due to the fear of violence and non-acceptance, many self-censored their answers, resulting in undercounting queer populations.

Let’s be clear: there have always been LGBTQ+ individuals, many more than we could ever possibly know. But it was not safe for these people to come out, and thus their stories and identities were erased. 

Rainbow Capitalism

As LGBTQ+ identities have become more widely accepted, corporate America has increasingly started to market and message around these groups. Pride month inevitably is accompanied by brands changing their social media profile images to some rainbow iteration. Companies like Target, Walmart, and Amazon have released Pride-themed collections with mixed results. While some items from these collections have resonated with queer communities, others have read as tone-deaf and borderline offensive. 

Suppose your company is planning on releasing a pride-themed collection. It’s imperative to have LGBTQ+ decision-makers at the table and in all steps of the process to ensure that the message and products you are delivering are authentic and meaningful. It’s also essential to step back and figure out why your brand is messaging around Pride and LGBTQ+ identities. Is this an issue that your brand is passionate about beyond Pride month? Is there a benefit to the queer community to releasing these collections? Is your brand doing more than trying to get the queer dollar? Your company should be using this as an opportunity to empower the LGBTQ+ community, whether it is through giving queer creators a platform, donations to LGBTQ+-related causes, or taking stances on issues that impact queer people.

Celebrating Pride is vital for LGBTQ+ acceptance. Despite the many strides in LGBTQ+ rights and equality, there continue to be many threats, such as Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, Texas’ litany of anti-trans legislation, and many more across the country. While queer acceptance is at an all-time high, it’s essential to still take a stance on these issues and realize that the fight for equality and protection is far from over. Gen-Z is entering adulthood amidst many changes, challenges, wins, and losses. 

How You Can Support Queer Communities

Pot. Weed. Bud. All those bogus slang terms that the D.A.R.E program taught. Marijuana. 

With the rise of the legal cannabis industry, companies are dipping their toes in bringing the plant to the general public. Despite the growing acceptance of cannabis and the increasing number of states where the plant is legal recreationally and medically, it remains illegal on a federal level. This means that advertising and marketing marijuana products is complicated and impossible in some cases. However, brands are finding creative and effective ways to get around these restrictions and get the word out about their products.

Letter of the Law

Cannabis remains illegal on the federal level. Even in states with legal medical or recreational marijuana, federal law supersedes state and local laws, meaning that the government has the final say. Even as the federal government has largely shifted its focus away from cannabis, the laws are still in place, and defying them can come with dire consequences—ranging from fines to criminal penalties.

Google and Facebook ban the advertisement of cannabis and related paraphernalia on the platform, which takes over half of the digital advertising market off the table for cannabis businesses.

Getting Creative

This doesn’t mean that cannabis can’t find a place on these platforms in the form of organic content. However, organic content can get flagged by the platform, resulting in removal or a ban altogether. Organic content cannot be geo-targeted to only legal states, meaning that marketers need to get creative with their language and shy away from direct promotion. Additionally, SEO has enabled cannabis brands to market themselves via search results without putting money behind promotion.

Programmatic advertising is an increasingly appealing option, with the ability to geofence advertising promotions to legal states and those over 21. These ads appear as banners on websites, on television services like Roku, and in mobile games. While it is platform-dependent on allowing these advertisements, many marijuana brands are finding success with this approach.

Guerilla advertising has been wildly successful in both legal and illegal states. Some well-placed stickers have led to brands achieving viral success. Recently, Bubby’s Baked made the world’s largest edible, an 850-pound brownie with over 20,000 milligrams of THC, leading to substantial earned media in major publications worldwide.

Foxy and Eaze broke into Tribeca X, the branded content showcase of the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, with The Pope of Dope. The Pope of Dope, a cannabis activist biopic, premiered at the Tribeca X Film Festival. Backed by Foxy and Eaze, this is the first marijuana brand-backed project ever to make it into the Tribeca Film Festival, leading to a big surge of popularity in the brand without explicit advertising.

Success from Brands

Houseplant, Seth Rogen’s cannabis brand, has had wild success, with product launches including cannabis, lighters, and ashtrays. Houseplant is one of the first cannabis brands to get national mainstream attention. Seth Rogen’s celebrity status and weed-loving persona do a lot of the heavy lifting of their promotions, but another part of the success around Houseplant is that the brand is divided into House (which sells home goods and cannabis paraphernalia) and Plant (which sells marijuana). Advertising lighters and vases are far from illegal, meaning that the brand benefits from paid advertising from the legal aspects of the business and can avoid ever mentioning the plant aspect, as it is implied.

Often, celebrity-backed cannabis brands succeed due to their existing audience and their association with marijuana in general. Some famous stoners, like Snoop Dogg and Tommy Chong, have created and promoted successful weed businesses through their existing network and innate associations with the plant. Even celebrities that have not typically been associated with marijuana have been able to launch successful weed brands, like Jaleel White (“Did I do that?”) and Melissa Etheridge.

In recent years, influencers have also significantly impacted cannabis brand popularity— from paraphernalia to the actual strains. Formal influencer programs tend to get shut down in these spaces. However, influencers who promote these products and brands based on their personal connections are legally clear, leading to some brands exploding and achieving cult status. Blazy Susan has become a status symbol for marijuana users, with their signature pink rolling papers and rolling trays. The brand’s popularity has been attributed to super fans with big audiences on social media, like comedian Ashley Ray and other verified Twitter and Instagram profiles.

What’s Next?

The changing legal landscape around marijuana will have massive impacts on the industry beyond advertising. As more states legalize recreational marijuana, it is expected that the advertising restrictions will be loosened, and it is likely that we will start seeing paid advertising for weed. However, the industry has had success in marketing without ad spends and will likely continue to expand on these tactics—utilizing celebrities, influencers, and guerilla promotion.

How Can YMC help?

If your brand is interested in engaging with some non-traditional marketing, we’re here to help.

At YMC, we specialize in connecting brands with Gen-Z and Millennial consumers, and we’d be happy to share our wealth of knowledge with you. Contact us today!