Outdoor media owner JCDecaux UK has launched a programme to help brands reach and engage with Gen Z audiences through digital out-of-home.
GENgage is the latest programme from JCDecaux UK’s Business Growth Division. Last year, it launched Reach to support Black, Asian and Multi-ethnic brands, and Nurture for start-up businesses.
JCDecaux UK will offer brands insights to refine their Gen Z targeting, creative and media collaborations and location targeting. It intends to focus on “Gen Z brands” needing new channels to further growth, and “Evolving brands” and “Reset brands” wanting to increase their proportion of Gen Z customers.
Analysis: Gen Z can’t ‘skip’ outdoor ads
In a joint interview with The Media Leader a few weeks ago, JCDecaux UK co-CEOs called for more “brave marketers” and a positive mindset for growth in order for out-of-home to reach a milestone 10% share of UK advertisers’ spend.
That’s an ambitious target for a sector that normally attracts half that proportion of an ad budget and suffered a collapse in demand for large periods during the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, moves like the launch of this GENgage programme for advertisers to engage show that the outdoor companies are engaging with what brand marketers are asking for, namely to reach hard-to-reach audiences in a brand safe environment, particularly during a year when their budgets are under more scrutiny than ever.
But is a traditional medium like outdoor the best way to reach Gen Z, a cohort known for being digitally native and, frankly, anti-advertising?
Perhaps more than the average media buyer would expect. A study by JCDecaux’s Global Insight team into the Gen Z audience (defined as being born between 1997 and the early 2010s) in 10 main markets found that while Gen Z is digitally adept, that includes being skilled at avoiding ads, too. The research found 99% of Gen Z consumers will hit “skip” on an online ad and 63% use online ad blockers.
Meanwhile, the study says, the most-preferred platforms for ads for this generation were found to be out-of-home (55% agreed) and cinema (53% agreed).
Yes, these findings are favourable to the report’s author. But clearly the world’s largest outdoor company identifies an opportunity to reach young people while they’re out and about with outdoor ads that can’t be skipped or blocked.
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