Okay, so I stumbled upon this article titled “Gen Z Broke the Marketing Funnel” on Vogue Business, and it totally blew my mind. I mean, I’ve been doing this marketing thing for a while now, and I thought I had a pretty good grasp on things. But this article? It made me rethink everything.
So, I decided to dig in. First, I printed out the article. Yeah, I’m old school like that. I like to highlight and scribble notes all over the place. I grabbed a highlighter and a pen and started reading.
The main point, as far as I could tell, was that Gen Z doesn’t follow the traditional “awareness, interest, desire, action” funnel. They’re all over the place! They might see something on TikTok, then go straight to buying it, then share it with their friends after they’ve already bought it. It’s like the funnel is flipped, twisted, and maybe even thrown out the window.
My Experiment
I wanted to see this in action. So, I picked a product – a quirky little desk organizer I found online. I normally would have created a whole campaign around it, with carefully crafted ads targeting different stages of the funnel. But this time? I decided to go rogue.
Instead of the usual, I focused on creating some short, fun videos for TikTok. I didn’t even try to sell the product directly. I just showed it off, used it in some silly scenarios, and basically just tried to make it look interesting and fun. I posted a couple of these videos, with a simple link to the product page in my bio. Just in case.
- Video 1: Me dramatically “organizing” my messy desk with the organizer.
- Video 2: A stop-motion animation of the organizer coming to life and tidying up.
- Video 3 A short, humorous skit of two people fighting the product.
Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much. But then… things started happening. I started getting comments and messages from people asking where they could buy the organizer. Some people even shared my videos! And the craziest part? Sales started trickling in. Not a flood, but definitely more than I expected from such a low-effort approach.
It was eye-opening. It proved to me that, at least for this audience, the traditional funnel wasn’t the only way to go. It was all about being authentic, entertaining, and letting Gen Z discover things on their own terms.
I’m still learning, of course. This is just one small experiment. But it’s definitely made me rethink my approach to marketing, and I’m excited to see where this new understanding takes me. Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to keep playing with TikTok.
