Over the last decade, young consumers have grown savvy to many common marketing tactics; the curtain has been pulled back on traditional advertising, and consumers don’t believe everything they see anymore. If you create an ad – whether it’s a TV ad, a radio spot, or a simple online listing – you had better believe that your customers will mull it over before they choose to get in touch.
But promotional advertising doesn’t work on the same level as traditional marketing tactics like this. When your customers – or their friends, colleagues, and neighbors – use items with promotional branding, they don’t think about the fact that your company is marketing anything to them; they’re just enjoying using a product with your brand on it, and subconsciously growing a positive association with your brand.
Marketing to Gen Z: it’s tricky
Gen Z is an infamously difficult audience to capture, perhaps in part because they’re the first generation that has grown up in an entirely digital world. Marketing tactics aimed at Gen X and Millennials don’t always work so well with Gen Z, which can leave marketing departments feeling a little lost when trying to capture a group that will soon be as important to them as Millennials are today.
Research by Kantar Millward Brown into Gen Z’s marketing preferences demonstrates that one of the driving forces behind Gen Z’s ad preferences is a desire not to be interrupted. Gen Z is the group most likely to skip online ads, and they install ad blockers on smartphones and computers because ads interrupt or annoy them. Gen Z, most of all, wants their personal space to be respected.
Where do promotional items come in?
Promotional items, like promotional drinkware, are a form of passive advertising that works by building a positive impression of a brand without interrupting anyone’s day. Promotional branding is seen by more than just the owner of the item, too; when people see your drinkware at the office, in the cinema, or while out on a run, it helps those people to form positive opinions of your brand and increases brand familiarity.
Research from the Advertising Speciality Institute (ASI) demonstrates that 88% of Americans have promotional drinkware items in their homes, which means that your promotional drinkware isn’t going straight to the trash can.
As Millennials and Gen Z become some of the biggest spenders in the US economy, it’s important to focus on marketing tactics that not only work but don’t push your intended audience even further from your brand.
Get in touch
If you’d like to know more about how promotional products like custom water bottles can help you to boost your brand in every demographic, get in touch with us today.