Some manufacturers are rewriting their advertising and marketing technique to achieve Gen Z. However others had Gen Z in thoughts at launch.
Take direct-to-consumer (DTC) menstrual product model August, which launched in 2021.
Female care is a crowded market, however co-founder Nadya Okamoto, who’s Gen Z herself, noticed a chance to face out by means of advertising and marketing that resonates along with her age group.
Messaging with references to social actions, similar to transgender inclusivity and making ladies’s well being care extra accessible, is interesting to Gen Z at massive.
After constructing scale by means of Amazon and DTC gross sales, August inked its first main retailer partnership with Goal in April. Its merchandise at the moment are accessible in roughly 400 Goal shops nationwide.
Brick-and-mortar exposes the model to net-new audiences and clients who aren’t shopping for its merchandise on-line, Okamoto advised AdExchanger. It’s nonetheless too early to say how in-store compares with ecommerce, however August says its in-store presence is already bringing in new clients.
Stocking up
August markets closely on social media, together with TikTok, Instagram and Fb. Its TikTok technique is sort of fully natural, with content material that options staff selling merchandise and noting the place they’re that can be purchased, together with Goal.
The model has a big social following, together with 343,000 followers on TikTok and 181,000 on Instagram, which helps elevate consciousness. So, as a substitute of spending on branding, August is placing its media {dollars} into retargeting to drive conversions and gross sales each on-line and in shops.
For instance, if somebody engages with one in every of its social posts, August can retarget that particular person with search advertisements on Google or paid media on Instagram and Fb to encourage in-store visits from new clients. August seems to be at buyer acquisition value and return on advert spend to measure how paid media performs.
Placing merchandise on cabinets can also be a method to get in entrance of people that haven’t heard of the model earlier than.
In-store purchasing can also be preferable for patrons that don’t need to purchase by means of August’s on-line subscription mannequin, Okamoto mentioned, which permits individuals to enroll in supply each month or each three months. Not everybody has an everyday or predictable menstrual cycle.
Nonetheless, measurement and attribution are a lot trickier for in-store gross sales in contrast with DTC as a result of August has to ingest and analyze new varieties of knowledge, similar to foot site visitors, whereas additionally dealing with stock administration.
August continues to be engaged on a system for attributing its retail gross sales to advertising and marketing, Okamoto mentioned, however the model is carefully monitoring in-store gross sales by means of Goal every day by state. Presently gross sales are highest in California, New York, Texas, Florida and Georgia.
Getting a foot within the door
Beginning a challenger model isn’t any straightforward process, although, particularly within the ladies’s well being vertical.
August spent hundreds of {dollars} on a branding video to mark its launch that saved getting faraway from most social media platforms as a result of it featured faux interval blood. (Most girls’s well being manufacturers cope with related censorship points left and proper.)
Plus, challenger manufacturers in any vertical have an uphill battle coping with the extra established competitors. For instance, different tampon manufacturers similar to Cora are bidding on August’s firm identify on Google in order that Cora seems first in search outcomes.
However August is assured that its social media presence and positioning with Gen Z might be sufficient to assist it stand out from the gang.
To drive in-store gross sales, August just lately ran a marketing campaign that pitches the model as a extra reasonably priced different. Practically half of US states nonetheless cost an 8% luxurious tax on tampons and merchandise, which August covers by means of Venmo when clients purchase its merchandise at Goal. (August already doesn’t tax the objects that it sells on its web site, nor does it cost for transport. It additionally eats the gross sales tax on Amazon gross sales, however Amazon clients nonetheless should pay for transport.)
And, hey, who doesn’t like cheaper tampons?
Selling its efforts to make ladies’s well being merchandise extra accessible resonates with a broad viewers, Okamoto mentioned, which can also be good for enterprise.
