TL;DR: What Gen Z Wants from Your Brand
- Content that feels real, not produced
- Creator voices over scripted brand voiceovers
- Short, relatable stories over product-heavy demos
- Fresh content weekly, not quarterly campaigns
With Gen Z’s spending power projected to reach $12 trillion by 2030, and over half finding new products primarily on Instagram (30.4%) and TikTok (23.2%), this generation represents a massive opportunity for brands. But capturing their attention isn’t easy. Having grown up surrounded by digital advertising, Gen Z has developed an instinct for spotting and ignoring anything that feels overly promotional or inauthentic. For brands, this means if your content doesn’t resonate authentically within their digital world, it essentially doesn’t exist to them.
Make Content, Not Ads
A common misconception about Gen Z is that they hate advertising. The truth is, they hate being sold to in ways that feel inauthentic. They’ve grown up in a digital world where ads are constant and easy to ignore. The moment something feels overly polished, scripted, or corporate, they scroll right past it.
Instead, Gen Z is drawn to content that reflects how they already engage online. They want to see real people using products in everyday situations — not staged testimonials or hard sells. They respond to content that feels unscripted and personal, where humor, vulnerability, and personality come through naturally.
Consider the types of content Gen Z already engages with: day-in-the-life vlogs, product try-ons, tutorials, or storytimes. When a product is integrated casually into those moments, it doesn’t feel like an ad — it feels like a recommendation from a friend.
What this means for your brand’s content strategy: Shift the question from “How do we promote this product?” to “How would someone genuinely talk about this product?” Partner with UGC creators to capture real moments where your product naturally fits into their lives — and let those moments drive your content strategy.
Prioritize Authenticity Over Aesthetics
Many brands still prioritize looking polished over driving actual performance. But Gen Z doesn’t scroll past content because it looks bad, they scroll past because it looks produced. To them, polish often signals that something is an ad and that’s the fastest way to lose their attention.
What captures their attention is content that feels familiar. It should look like something they’d see from a friend or a creator they trust: filmed on a phone, in everyday settings — getting ready in the morning, cooking dinner, or unboxing a new purchase. It’s not about production value; it’s about credibility.
What this means for your brand’s content strategy: You don’t need to lower your content standards, you need to rethink what quality means. For Gen Z, quality is measured by how real something feels. UGC creators are uniquely equipped to deliver content that mirrors how they and their audiences already show up online: unfiltered, unscripted, and real.
Format for the Platform — Or Be Skipped
This generation can tell when a TikTok is posted on YouTube Shorts, or when a Reel is posted on TikTok — and that’s because each platform has its own culture, formats, and expectations. TikTok favors fast, humorous, authentic videos that jump right in. Instagram Reels leans more aesthetic, while YouTube Shorts is focused more on storytelling and mini-tutorials.
Repurposing a single asset across all platforms might save time, but it costs attention. Content needs to be built for the platform it will live on — from the structure of the hook to the pacing, captions, and even aspect ratio. If it looks out of place, Gen Z will skip it.
What this means for your brand’s content strategy: When creating content, lean into the native behaviors of each platform. This means using platform-specific transitions, speaking in the tone and rhythm of the space, utilizing trends, and designing for how that specific platform’s content is consumed.
Act Before the Trend Peaks
Gen Z is fluent in trend cycles. They know what’s new, what’s tired, and when a brand is trying too hard to participate. Using outdated audio or formats doesn’t just make your content less effective, it signals that your brand isn’t keeping up.
To stay relevant, your creative needs to move at the pace of their feed. Traditional production timelines are often too slow. By the time a campaign is concepted, approved, and produced, the moment has likely passed. If a trend aligns with your product or message, your brand needs to act while it’s still gaining traction — not after it’s peaked.
What this means for your content strategy: Use creators as your rapid response team. While internal production can take weeks, creators can jump on trends in real time. Give them clear direction, but also the freedom to adapt. At brkfst.io, we follow an 80/20 briefing model — providing 80% structure and leaving 20% open for creator-led interpretation. This balance ensures content stays on-brand and on-trend.
What Brands Are Getting Right
The best-performing brands aren’t reinventing the wheel — they’re shifting how they think about content creation.
- They track what actually works. These brands have systems to measure performance at the asset level, identifying not just successful campaigns, but which specific hooks, creators, edit styles, and formats drive results.
- They refresh constantly. Creative gets updated every 2–3 weeks through a diverse content pipeline that includes internal teams, agencies, influencers, customers, and dedicated UGC creators.
- They prioritize volume and variety over single “hero” assets. Instead of launching one flagship ad, they create 15–30 variations using different creators, hooks, and visual approaches — each optimized specifically for TikTok, Reels, or Shorts from day one.
- They move at platform speed. While competitors are still in approval cycles, these brands are already testing, iterating, and scaling what works.
Creative Audit Checklist: Is Your Brand Gen Z-Ready?
Use this checklist to evaluate your current content strategy:
Content Creation
- Are we producing native-first content specifically for TikTok, IG Reels, and YouTube Shorts?
- Are we launching fresh creative weekly or bi-weekly?
- Are we incorporating content sourced from a mix of internal teams, agencies, influencers, customers, and dedicated creators?
Performance & Strategy
- Are we tracking creative performance down to the individual asset level?
- Are we using real-time trend data to inform our content creation decisions?
- Do we have systems in place to capitalize on trends while they’re still gaining momentum?
Scoring: If you’re checking fewer than 4 of these boxes, your strategy likely isn’t built to win with Gen Z.
Bridging the Gen Z Content Gap
Gen Z isn’t ignoring your brand because they don’t care — it’s because your content doesn’t meet them where they are. At brkfst.io, we help brands close that gap with high-performing UGC, delivered at scale. We combine AI-assisted briefs, a network of 5,000+ vetted creators, and a performance-first approach to deliver content that actually works on TikTok, Reels, Shorts — where Gen Z is already paying attention.