Duke recently took his daughter to a K-pop concert and because he is in learning mode he went into the concert looking for the silver lining.
Duke found out that you can not put a label on Gen-Z. They simply do not work like that, and avoid labels as they see themsleves as pieces of everything they enjoy and love.
Because of this, if you are a brand or marketer, you have to start looking at new ways to communicate with them to get their attention.
We need to change to meet their needs, not the other way around.
Be sure to Follow the Tomorrow Today Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss a new episode.
Follow us on Social Media
Duke McKenzie
Kyle Kaplanis
Duke McKenzie
LinkedIn - Duke McKenzie
Kyle Kaplanis
LinkedIn - Kyle Kaplanis
TikTok - @theweb3guy
IG - @kyle_kaplanis
YT - The Web3 Guy
Duke recently took his daughter to a K-pop concert and because he is in learning mode he went into the concert looking for the silver lining.
Duke found out that you can not put a label on Gen-Z. They simply do not work like that, and avoid labels as they see themsleves as pieces of everything they enjoy and love.
Because of this, if you are a brand or marketer, you have to start looking at new ways to communicate with them to get their attention.
We need to change to meet their needs, not the other way around.
Be sure to Follow the Tomorrow Today Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss a new episode.
Follow us on Social Media
Duke McKenzie
Kyle Kaplanis
Duke McKenzie
LinkedIn - Duke McKenzie
Kyle Kaplanis
LinkedIn - Kyle Kaplanis
TikTok - @theweb3guy
IG - @kyle_kaplanis
YT - The Web3 Guy
Welcome to Tomorrow Today podcast. I am your host Duke McKenzie. Now my co-host Kyle Kaplanis, who is here with me every single week is not here with me today. And it's not because he left me it's because I think Kyle is speaking somewhere, probably in Nashville because Kyle is a Gen Z expert and Web3 expert. So guess what? You just have me today. What sparked this episode is I wanna talk about how Gen Z is different from all other cohorts. So extremely different from Gen X, completely different from Millennials. They're the largest cohort and they're taking over. Let me just put a little context. Now I am not an expert in Generation Z. I am not an expert. I happen to be around a lot of members of Generation Z, cuz of the nature of my job. I work with a lot of born on TikTok creators, all of them I believe are Generation Z that I get the pleasure of working with. I have two children. My daughter's 15 and my son is 14 years old. So they're members of Generation Z. So I'm surrounded, surrounded, surrounded by Gen Z. Generation Z does not ascribe to labels. They are a hodgepodge and a mix of many, many things, and that is very different from all different cohorts. And that is very different when you're trying to reach them or understand them because in our current society and the way that we do business and everything like that, we try and put labels on everyone and define them. And that doesn't work for Generation Z, who is the largest cohort in the world right now, the largest cohort in North America. So typically when we get an RFP or something, you'll say, oh, We wanna reach gamers. Oh, we wanna reach people who are interested in dance. Oh, we wanna reach, 16 to 24 year olds who are athletes. And the thing is with Generation Z, they don't view themselves as in, I am a gamer per se. Yes, they may game or I'm a, this, or I'm a, that they view themselves as a combination of many different things and the best, best way, an example to see that is K-Pop. I took my daughter to K-pop LA and we went and she normally doesn't want to hang out with me. Even though I'm a fan of old school hip hop. Grew up on the Wu-Tang Clan and all that type of stuff. But anytime my daughter has to be anywhere or any of my kids, actually, I, I jump at the chance because I am not their first hangout partner and I am not very cool. So I jumped at the chance to hang out with Liliana and went to the K-Pop concert. I know that she is a big fan of K-pop. I'm aware of K-pop. I'm aware of BTS, like everybody else. But I've never actually been to an event, and I found the event fascinating when I went in there. Here's what it was like. It was down at the Crypto arena in downtown Los Angeles. Basically what K Con is, if you're not familiar, it's a festival during the daytime where K-pop fans can go and meet all their favorite artists. And in the evening, it's topped off by a concert with this case 10 different K-pop bands perform. Now the interesting thing about K-pop bands, if you're not familiar and what I find fascinating about it, because I actually had a pretty good time, and I was surprised. Two things is number one, the background music of the bands that they were performing. So this is not all K-pop or whatever the bands were performing the music and everything had sort of a hiphop Americana type of vibe to it. One song that I was listening to was listened to by beatbox and whatever. Remind me of an artist that I used to like called Heavy D and New Jacks Swing and Teddy Riley and it had that type of vibe to it. Like a nineties hip hop, New Jacks Swing vibe. And then you mix the hiphop in with the pop and then you mix in some Americana and you mix in all the Korean influence because most of the language was in Korean and that's what you got was K-pop and what was fascinating about the whole thing, and this goes back to my thing about how Gen Z is many different things. Is, if you take a look at, and you watch the crowd, the crowd was mostly Gen Z and parents like me taking their kids and everything there. And it was everybody, all different races, all different cultures, all different types. And they were watching this hiphop Americana inspired music on stage. A lot of the K-pop groups that I watched looked like I was watching Wu-Tang Clan, they had like 10 different members on stage each representing something else, each having a different type of style. Switching music genres going into more hip- hop inspired and pop inspired. When I left there and one of the things I told my daughter is that K-pop seems to really exemplify a good example of what Gen Z is because all of those people there that say, oh, I'm a K-pop fan. K-pop seems to capture the hearts of Gen Z is it's all of these things mixed together. It's a bit of dance. It's a bit of hip hop. It's a bit of pop. It's a bit of different styles. It's a bit of all these different cultures all merged together. When you go into me and look, I enjoyed it, but it looked a little bit odd because I'm like, what is this? Is this a hiphop concert? Or is this, or this, or is this or that? Trying to put a label on it? Where if you look at the fans and you look at Gen Z and you look at my daughter there was no label, oh, this is K-pop. This is what I like. I love K-pop. And I'm also a volleyball player. And I'm also a artist. That's how my daughter perceives herself. And it's not weird. It was the first concert that I've been to that actually started on time. All the bands came in, did three or four songs. It was actually quite entertaining. The dancing was excellent. Everything was excellent. But the key takeaway from that for myself is that, I need to keep on reminding myself and I get reminded every day when I work with some of the talent that we work with and when we talk to members of Gen Z and when we talk to brands, is that the biggest takeaway is when you are trying to reach the largest cohort, which is the future, cuz the oldest members of Gen Z now I think are turning 22- 23, they're starting to get their first apartments. They're starting to make adult decisions, and all of those things. With traditional labels and traditional cohorts, that's a big, big, big mistake because they don't view themselves that way. They view themselves as a fusion of things. They don't view themselves as one thing. And their perception of themselves is very fluid. Just like at K Con, I'm watching it, I'm like, wow, this is all one thing under K-pop, but it's a bunch of many things put together, taken from many different parts of the world and different cultures with a Korean flare, cuz it was invented in Korea. And all put together and that makes a product that translates across the entire world and translated so far with this audience of a full Crypto arena in downtown Los Angeles. I found that fascinating and I've told everybody on this podcast and everything, is that the reason why Kyle and I started this and why we're doing it is I'm in a major, major, major season of learning right now. A season of learning. I feel like I'm back in school, I'm 46 and fresh, but every day I'm learning new things from the creators that I work with and from being exposed to Generation Z, from my kids and everything. If you are trying to reach consumers and gen Z it's going to continue, right? Right now, they're young. The oldest is 24, but they're gonna be in their mid thirties and forties, they're gonna be buying houses. They're gonna be doing all of these things, right? This cohort will follow all the trails and the life cycles that have kids and all of that type of stuff. And the biggest takeaway when reaching them that I was reminded this weekend at a K-pop concert with my daughter was that they do not identify as one thing. Their identity is a mish mass and a merge of many things, and that will change the way that marketers have to reach them and rethink of how we do things for them. I'm gonna leave it right there. Thanks everybody for listening to Tomorrow Today Podcast. Please subscribe. Please leave rating. Love that you're listening. I'm Duke McKenzie, and we will see you next time.