In the age of buzzword bingo, every CMO is bombarded with news of groundbreaking technologies and new trends. While I haven’t achieved CMO status just yet, I’m still targeted with a barrage of ads and messaging on LinkedIn about the “Top Five Things Every CMO Needs to Know About…. (fill in the blank) SEO, AI, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Chatbots, VR/AR” or whatever other hot online topic happens to be circulating that moment.

It’s January 2016. I’m sitting in the basement of my then boyfriend’s apartment. He and his friends are picking out tracks to play for their house party happening in a couple hours.

Ahhh... October on your typical North American college campus. A time for watching autumnal foliage; a time for tailgating, keg-standing and the settling of old football rivalries; a time for planning the ultimate Halloween bash; a time for... Wait a second...

To be successful in marketing these days, brands need to do a better job of understanding Gen Z.  But how do Gen Zers act? Rather than provide examples from other marketers or the numbers behind different studies, we decided to sit down with a member of Gen Z and have her tell you for herself.  This is your opportunity to hear from a Gen Zer on how she thinks, how she chooses to spend her time and dollars, and what makes her tick.

If you ask most people in the US what the biggest shopping day of the year is, they'll likely tell you Cyber Monday.

Campus dining halls ain’t what they used to be. Long gone are the days of standing in line for trays of beige, oily, unappetizing food. Colleges have really upped their food game, offering metric-tons of high-quality options.

Want to know something that’s even harder than marketing to Gen Z? Becoming an entrepreneur. Yet that’s precisely what 64 percent of Gen Z college students want to do with their lives, according to a joint study by Internships.com and Millennial Branding. And that’s not the half of it. According to another Gallup survey, 42 percent of them want to “invent something that changes the world.”

As a Gen Zer, I’ve seen my fair share of the good, the bad and the cringeworthy marketing tactics. Understanding us is by no means a simple feat, but here’s three examples from brands that have passed marketing to this Gen Zer with flying colors.

Marketers Beware: Gen Z and Millennials aren’t so similar after all. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but for all the brands out there who have been told that Gen Z are millennials on steroids, you’ve been fed #FakeNews. It’s time for the marketers who have simply been lumping the two “digital” generations together to learn the difference between them, which in turn will ultimately lead to a major difference in your marketing returns. 

Dear Retailers, When I was in middle school, the only way I realized that something was trendy was if Teen Vogue was writing about it or if Kim Kardashian (pre-72 day marriage) was wearing it. When it came time to go shopping I had to find something that resembled what I’d seen a year ago on TV.  It was a pyrrhic victory. Not all size fours are created equal and even if I did find something that fit, it was definitely out of my price range. That outfit, or a great knock-off, was finally acquired and shortly went out of fashion after. In-store retail was a boring maze of racks, and online shopping was a confusing mess. Store layouts weren’t fun enough to engage me, and the lack of online reviews made me want to give up all together.  Shopping was time consuming, disconnected and an expensive hobby. Ten years later – the game has only *kind of* changed. Here’s why: