What can universities learn from brands designed to appeal to young people?

Before we dig into the lessons universities can draw from brands that connect with young people, it’s crucial to establish that ‘appealing to Gen Z’ does not mean appealing to a single, monolithic group.

Like any other age cohort, there are huge differences between people in that age range, so you should not rely exclusively on these demographic characteristics.

To take an extreme example to illustrate the hazards of entirely demographic targeting: Ozzy Osbourne and King Charles the III are both white males born in 1948. Yet, no one thinks they should be targeted with the same messages.

It’s important to intimately understand your audience and target segments, tailor messaging to appeal to them, and not rely exclusively on what applies to Gen Z as a whole.

A detailed survey of 3,200 American college students and prospective students identified six distinct segments based on their motivations and mindsets. They found 24% of prospective students were academically driven, drawn to a specific field and interested in the research faculty. This segment, which the study called ‘Aspiring academics’, fits the picture of the ‘classic’ student universities have traditionally sought to attract, and yet they made up only a quarter of potential applicants. Other segments identified included ‘Coming of age’, which valued active social culture, ‘Career starters’, who were highly career-oriented or ‘Industry switchers’, who were changing careers and valued the institution’s links with labour markets and employers.

That’s just one study, but you can instantly see that you’d address these groups very differently. Therefore, deeply understanding your audience and tailoring your messaging to them are essential to delivering an effective university website.

The brands that effectively connect with Gen Z don’t seek to appeal just to ‘Gen Z’ as a block; they target the young consumers who will resonate with their brand and research what they care about.

A great example of brands using segmentation to target younger audiences rather than taking a monolithic approach is how L’Oréal approached its campaign designed to appeal to younger demographics. The brand was struggling to connect with Gen Z and Millennials, but rather than focus on age as the defining feature for reaching these people, they moved from age-based to behaviour-focused segments. Utilising these segments, they crafted twelve tailored video ad variations, each designed specifically for the interests of that group. One of these targeted millennials with the tagline ’99 problems, and your skin is one?’ That kind of line wouldn’t work with some audiences, but the use of behavioural targeting meant it really resonated with the group it was served to, and it helped L’Oréal restore relevance among younger age groups.

Gen Z are more ‘liberal’ in the broad sense of the term than previous generations, more likely than previous age cohorts to back progressive causes like gay marriage and same-sex adoption, and less likely to subscribe to ‘traditional’ gender roles. They are also highly environmentally conscious, being more likely to list climate change as their top personal concern than any other cohort.

This means Gen Z tends to like brands that have a purpose and embrace causes that resonate with them. 71% of Gen Z report that they are more likely to buy from a company that contributes to social causes - but that this has to be done authentically. They are highly sceptical and attuned to ‘greenwashing’ or ‘ethics-washing’, meaning that jumping on causes inauthentically can backfire.

Patagonia’s ‘Don’t Buy This Jacket’ campaign ran an ad in the New York Times explaining the environmental costs of manufacturing one of their jackets and asking people to think twice before buying one. This counterintuitive approach won the brand acclaim and, perhaps ironically, was highly effective as an ad, causing jacket sales to rise 30%.

It was effective because it was authentic – by asking people not to buy their jacket for environmental reasons, consumers could see this wasn’t your typical greenwashing, but instead was a move by a brand that really does care about the planet.

It’s interesting to consider how a university could apply a similar approach to its branding. What’s the HE equivalent of ‘Don’t buy this jacket’? Perhaps rather than shying away from discussing tuition fees by pretending they don’t exist, a university could embrace them? – ‘The best £9,000 you never wanted to spend’. Or what about drawing focus on what some might see as a downside, and turn it into a selling point? Imagine the University of the Highlands and Islands using a tagline like ‘We’re in the middle of f**king nowhere’. Okay, so you’ll probably never get that signed off by the VC, but you can see how universities could be far bolder and more creative by taking lessons from purpose-driven brands like Patagonia.

When students are deciding on an institution, they’re also choosing the city they’ll live in, and who their peers will be for the next three or more years. University is a place where you can make friends and connections for life, so who’s in your cohort of fellow students is hugely important to prospective students.

Research shows that Gen Z is the loneliest generation, and that 82% of them want to join a community. Community is obviously hugely valued by Gen Z, and brands like Discord understand this. Its architecture allows for the creation of small, intimate communities that mimic the way Gen Z wants to connect. Universities can learn from this approach and should consider how they can draw upon existing communities to showcase university life at their institution and let students get involved digitally before they arrive.

Gen Z consumers value authenticity, and surveys show that Gen Z prefers seeing real customers in promotional materials. 82% said they’d trust a company more if the images they use are of actual customers, more than any other age cohort.

Dyson has built its social media strategy around user-generated content, with TikTok accounts dedicated to sharing users’ product tutorials and reviews. The main brand account is also dominated by this user-generated content. Rather than ensuring every post looks perfect, this more relaxed approach makes the brand feel approachable and authentic.

This focus on user-generated content has allowed the brand to connect with Gen Z consumers, and the results have been spectacular. Over half a million posts have used the hashtag ‘#Dyson’ or ‘#DysonAirWrap’ on Tiktok in just the last three years, and 79% of them were by users aged 18-24.

Universities are accustomed to using their students for ‘marketing’ purposes in the form of student ambassador programmes, who typically help out on open days. Many are now applying this model to recruit digital ambassadors on platforms like TikTok, which can be an effective way to authentically engage prospective students.

For example, the University of Lincoln has had great success with its student-run TikTok account. They paid students to make content for Instagram, TikTok and a new ‘Student Life’ website. They kept this deliberately separate from the institution itself so it could have free rein to go ‘off-script’.

The Uni of Lincoln Student Life TikTok has successfully grown to over 6,600 followers, generated 336,000 likes, all using a community marketing approach where students share the topics that matter to them.

For more information on making student-generated content work for your university, see our student-to-student marketing guide.

A typical university website looks drastically different to the websites of brands designed to appeal to Gen Z. There are good reasons for this – university websites must also appeal to researchers and display their research impact – but we think in many cases, they’d benefit from a shift towards serving the needs of their single most important target audience: young people.

Every piece of content across key user journeys should be assessed through the lens of: ‘How does this appeal to an 18-year-old considering this institution?’ Don’t assume you know the answer. You must conduct user research to uncover what does and doesn’t appeal, but the benefit of being at a university is you’ve got an institution full of young people right there to ask. Engage current students. Ask them why they chose your university, and start to tease out themes you can draw upon to authentically convey what makes your institution stand out.

None of this is easy or straightforward, especially because universities are such complex institutions, and you’ll inevitably run into the need to convince stakeholders that you’re taking the right approach. But that is where we can help. Our team has many years of experience in creating highly effective university websites, from user research to design and delivery. Get in touch to chat about how we can help with your project.