Gen Z is not a monolith: Understanding the importance of audience segmentation in youth marketing

Be honest - how well do you know Gen Z? Because the consensus shows that this generation, as diverse as it is contradictory, leaves traditional institutions… confused. 

We get it - Gen Z can be hard to nail down. But the best marketing strategy embraces that. 

Introducing Gen Z

Here’s the thing about defining our generation - we don’t identify as one monolithic group. We definitely aren’t into labels. Just know this: we’re diverse, we’re expressive, and we’re quickly taking over the world. 

Gen Z, born between 1997 - 2015, make up over a quarter of the global population. Even if you were to take this massive demographic and localize it to just the US market, that hardly cracks that segmentation issue. We are the most diverse generation on earth - homogenous marketing tactics just don’t work with us. 

Where It Goes Wrong

We already know that you want to market to Gen Z (it’s 2024 - who doesn’t?). But if that’s as specific as your demo goes, then it’s already a losing strategy. 

The problem often starts with that terrifyingly vague term - ‘youth marketing’. Are we talking ages 13 - 18? 18 - 25? Accounting for variations in attention span, spending power, and cognitive load? Noting the way those subgroups spend time online, and where? 

Even with all of those differentiators taken into account, “youth” is not a one-size-fits-all label - and if you choose to treat it as such, know that Gen Z is not fitting into that idea without a fight. 

So What Now?

Audience segmentation is not a new idea - but like all things tried and true, Gen Z is challenging its traditional conventions. Whereas age, gender, and geography could give a broad-strokes approximation of culture, now everything is secondary to what’s happening on our feeds. 

Basic demos are very much over and done - hypersegmentation is the key to cracking Gen Z. We may be all about individuality, but we are also deeply invested in self-expression, the primary vehicle for which is the social platforms we scroll through daily; everything from the products we buy to the influencers we follow are curated and highly personalized. 

In fact, Gen Z’s love of the hyper-niche is one of the most defining developments in youth marketing. From eco-conscious activists to VTubers to meme pages impersonating government institutions, the micro-tribes of Gen Z fandom and followers are highly engaged. These are the new pillars of segmentation - finding where your brand fits wins you relevance within them.