You can't campaign your way into belonging.

“Gen Z wants authenticity” is probably the most recycled take in marketing right now. Every agency deck, conference keynote, and LinkedIn thought leader has touched on the concept in one way or another. This is a thoroughly saturated take to be making, but I guess it needs all the airtime it can get because still, brands are recognizing that they have a problem, often even identifying what that problem is, and still trying to solve for the wrong thing entirely.

The idea that Gen Z wants belonging is being treated in marketing like a content problem and I’m over hearing about it. It’s an infrastructure problem and until brands understand that distinction, they will continue burning budget on campaigns while actively ignoring feedback from the target demographic and the people who understand how to reach them.

Belonging is identity infrastructure.

Gen Z wants to belong to brands and their communities, which demands a much deeper relationship than the traditional business/customer relationship that business models and marketing strategies tend to assume. It’s a fundamental difference that leaders continue to treat as a subtle one, assuming that their marketing team just needs to figure out how to finally go viral, how to just simply make more compelling designs in Canva, or like, just ask ChatGPT what to do. I hope my tone conveyed how far back in my head my eyes are rolling.

82% of Gen Z want to be part of a community (Impero). And 92% say the community surrounding a brand directly impacts how they feel about that company, with 83% saying membership in a brand community makes them more likely to trust it, 19 percentage points higher than other generations (Sprout Social Index, 2025)

Right, I know, you’re thinking I’m overthinking the issue and really, your marketing coordinator just hasn’t made a funny enough video in CapCut. But hear me out - 46% of Gen Z judge other people based on what brands they buy (Edelman Trust Barometer, 2024). Brand affiliation has become a symbol of status and affiliation. It’s no longer “just” a purchase decision. Brand affiliation tells the world who you are, what you care about, and in some cases, it tells the world who you’re not. No amount of better creative, call-to-actions, aesthetic posts or a higher media spend can manufacture the feeling of belonging that comes with wearing the “in” clothes, or the isolation that comes from wearing off-brand clothes or items from a canceled company.

Knowing someone’s demographics doesn’t mean you know them.

Brand research on Gen Z tells you they’re 18-26, digitally native, and care about authenticity. Groundbreaking. Florals for spring. What you’ll never learn from demographic data is how to earn their trust or how to create the appropriate symbolism for your brand. Buying from your brand signals to the world what they believe in and what communities they already belong to. Nearly 6 in 10 Gen Z feel a connection with people who use the same brands they do, and 46% actively judge others based on what brands they buy (Edelman). This means that brand choice has been turned into a social signal and can no longer be reduced down to a shopping decision that can be influenced with urgency, scarcity, or small-scale discounting. It also means that you need to be actively working to curate your brand’s symbol and meaning in society, and that if you’re not doing that, the community surrounding you is building it for you.

For example, think about every bar in your hometown. You already know the swinger bar. The biker bar. The “underage bar” - and you know exactly which one I mean, and so does every person who grew up in your town, and so, critically, does every parent.

The bar did not put that out there. They didn’t run a campaign. They didn’t target teens. Something in their environment - the prices, the staff, the lack of a line drawn anywhere sent a signal. The community formed around that signal without anyone's permission… and that’s now what they are. And that is being continuously decided for them every single weekend by the people walking through that door and the continued availability of the environment that created the signal in the first place.

Your brand is no different. If you’re not actively building the narrative, your staff, your customers, and your environment are building it for you without your input or consent.

Actionable recommendations.

First, know that this isn’t something you can cure overnight or without time and money. And I don’t mean logically understand that as a concept, I mean truly accept that if you want to fix your “Gen Z marketing problem” then you need to invest a significant amount of time and money into this.

Start with the uncomfortable truths about your brand. Read all of your one star reviews, Reddit threads, Facebook comments, even the ones that stung so bad you couldn’t even finish reading it. Take them all with a grain of salt, obviously not every complaint is an accurate reflection of what took place, but recognize the patterns and understand that those are the things that are on you to resolve.

And then actually resolve them. Retrain your staff, even the ones who think this is a dumb initiative and don’t need your advice. Have conversations about what the brand is supposed to feel like and why anyone should care. Your staff is the brand in every single interaction that happens offline. They ARE the environment. If they’re checked out, that’s what people feel when they walk in the door. No Instagram strategy fixes that.

Then get honest about who’s actually showing up. Is that happening because you built something for them, or because you just happened to be available? Those are different things and they lead to very different futures.

From there, reflect what you actually are in policies and on socials. Not what your brand deck says or the aspirational version of what you think you could be, not the safest, tastiest, best place on earth. Reflect who you are, act like it, and enforce it. If you claim to be a safe bar, cut people off and kick people who act in unsafe manners out. Don’t run specials that promote getting belligerent for cheap. Reflect the positivity in your current community on your social media. Let that community feel well-respected and grow organically. E-commerce isn’t immune to this. Repost UGC from customers who represent your brand in a positive light. Post content that has more meaning than closing the customer. Educate them on topics relevant to your brand. A ski equipment company could highlight different ski resorts around the world, information about ski competitions, tips and tricks for skiers of all levels, UGC of people skiing in their clothing, and informational pieces about their equipment in addition to promotions flooded with calls-to-action. Through this effort, the right kind of community begins to form, not because the algorithm did something for you, but because your messaging is resonating with a community of people who want to be affiliated with your brand.

And look - messaging matters. So does pricing. Creative matters. Those things are all real and worth optimizing. But those levers get pulled so fast and reflexively that by the time most brands are asking why their marketing isn’t working, those genuinely weren’t the problem.

You can’t out-creative a culture problem.

Impero, via Popular Pays. “Gen Z Marketing: Why Community-Driven Engagement is the Key to Success.” popularpays.com, 2025.

Sprout Social. “How Gen Z Uses Social Media and What That Means for Brands.” sproutsocial.com, 2025.

Edelman. “Winning with Gen Z: Embracing Intention and Values for Brand Success.” 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report. edelman.com, 2024.