Kathryn Carter on marketing to Gen Z at Snapchat

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Kathryn Carter, General Manager ANZ, South East Asia & Hong Kong at Snap Inc, chats with host Mark Jones about marketing to Gen Z.

According to a 2020 report commissioned by WP Engine, Gen Z accounts for 40% of global consumers. Like the generations of youths before them, Gen Z are influencers of culture and trends - but what makes them unique is they’re the first generation of true digital natives.

So how can marketers engage this discerning, dynamic and digitally-fluent audience, whose identity is inextricably tied to the online realm?

Kathryn Carter, General Manager ANZ, South East Asia and Hong Kong at Snap Inc - the company behind Snapchat, Spectacles and Bitmoji - highlights Gen Z’s expectations for the quality, efficiency and speed of the content they engage with, and believes that marketers should seek to connect with this audience in a “genuine and authentic” way.

“If they’re able to capture and experience everything they want in the one platform or the one destination, then that’s absolutely what they’ll do,” says Kathryn. 

“We’re seeing over 4 billion Snaps sent each day, and over 10 billion videos viewed. It has revolutionised the way that people are talking, as they are talking with pictures. This notion of keyboard or text-based communication has absolutely evolved to one which is far more immersive, far more engaging, and absolutely allows the community to express their true self.”

Kathryn underlines Gen Z’s unique propensity to embrace e-commerce and digitally led experiences, and her advice for fellow marketers is to take this audience seriously and understand how to build a connection with them.

“The 18 to 34-year old audience, if they aren't your consumer today, they certainly will be in the very near future and the need to establish brand favourability, preference and consideration with them now is absolutely critical,” says Kathryn.

“Not only are they able to become really heavy consumers of your product and have amazing lifetime value, but their ability to influence the older generations is pretty apparent as they’re leading digital transformation.”

Check out this episode of The CMO Show to find out how marketers can leverage Gen Z’s love of sharing and creating to amplify their brand message.

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Audio Engineers – Tom Henderson & Daniel Marr

Got an idea for an upcoming episode or want to be a guest on The CMO Show? We’d love to hear from you: cmoshow@filteredmedia.com.au.

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Transcript:

Host: Mark Jones

Guest: Kathryn Carter

Mark Jones:
Young people are - and have always been - influencers of culture and trends. These are the key decision makers behind what’s hot and what’s not. According to a recent report commissioned by WP Engine, Gen Z currently accounts for 40% of global consumers. As the first generation of true digital natives, their influence is growing more rapidly than other generations of youths before them. So the big question for marketers becomes, how do you engage this discerning, dynamic and digitally-fluent audience?

Mark Jones:
Hello friends! Mark Jones here. It’s great to have you with us again on The CMO Show podcast. My guest today is Kathryn Carter, General Manager for ANZ, South East Asia and Hong Kong at Snap Inc - this is of course the company behind Snapchat, Spectacles, and Bitmoji.

Kathryn is a digital storyteller and industry leader in what it takes to get youth marketing right. We had a great discussion about innovation, creativity and how marketers can use video storytelling and augmented reality - of all things - to communicate their message.  So let’s go to my conversation with Kathryn.

Mark Jones:
Kathryn, great to have you on the show.

Kathryn Carter:
Thanks, Mark. 

Mark Jones:
Now, being the vibey connected father that I am, I have a very important question for you to kick things off, what's your snap score?

Kathryn Carter:
Well, I'm impressed that you've already trumped me with asking whether you know what the platform is, and have you used Snapchat, but you've gone straight for what's your snap score. So you have been spending some time with a teenager in your house, I imagine.

Mark Jones:
Yes.

Kathryn Carter:
Now, I'm pretty confident that their score is going to be far higher than mine. Mine is I think it's sitting in around 14 and a half thousand, which is woeful in comparison to most of the Gen Z-ers out there. But despite whatever magic, a kind of editing that your team can put afterwards. It may surprise you to know that I'm not our core kind of audience from that perspective. So it's still a respectable number. What about you, Mark?

Mark Jones:
Yeah, thank you. Well, look, yours is respectable, mine is not. We're talking 174. Right? So I've barely cleared my throat on this thing.

Kathryn Carter:
If nothing else by the end of this conversation, then hopefully, we can kind of get that number up a little higher.

Mark Jones:
Look, these are those moments where those of us ... We're going to talk demographics a bit today because I'm a Gen X,  my kids are Gen Z, the digital generation. I think the interesting thing about this is it's an interesting window into the behaviours of the generation. Actually, the snap score is not really the main game, although we're having some fun with it. It's actually about the connections and the bonds that are formed through a digital platform like this. So just give us a perspective into what it's like to be looking after Snap in your part of the region.

Kathryn Carter:
Yeah, absolutely. I think your observations of your children are actually pretty spot on. I think to your point that it's not about the score, it is about the connections is absolutely appropriate. I think it's something which has been highlighted in these times more than ever. The notion of Snapchat and for your listeners who may not be as savvy or vibey as you and don't have the platform themselves is Snapchat is a camera platform.

Kathryn Carter:
So the whole premise behind the platform is that it opens up to the camera, which is a pretty significant USP and opportunity for our community to express themselves and to your point in terms of taking a picture or a Snap or video and sharing it with your close friends. This is inherently how the Snapchat generation or the Gen Z's and Millennials are communicating with their close friends for a number of different reasons. But to your point in terms of the scale and the volume, we're seeing each day over 4 billion Snaps are sent. Over 10 billion videos are viewed.

Kathryn Carter:
So it's absolutely something which has changed and you could say revolutionised the way that people are talking. They're absolutely talking with pictures. This notion of keyboard or text-based communication has absolutely evolved to one which is far more immersive, far more engaging, and absolutely allows the community to express their true self. I think in time like we're in now where you can't necessarily physically see someone, the opportunity to communicate virtually in a platform which is as close to in-person communication as possible is an incredibly engaging, exciting and really positive experience for our community which is why we've seen such fantastic growth across this period.

Mark Jones:
Yeah. Look, going back to the early days, there were some concerns about the disappearing act. You message someone, then it's gone. It doesn't seem to be such a deal these days, except that I have noticed from a behavioural perspective, is that sometimes you can take a snap, capture the photo or you can do a screenshot, and you can find out.

Mark Jones:
So it's transparent, you can see that someone's done that. It's interesting too just at a social level, they know that. Then they're like, "Why did you do that?" There's like a broken sense of trust. So what's your view on how this is shaping what we understand to be relational trust in a digital world?

Kathryn Carter:
Yeah, definitely. I think, again, the reference to that ephemerality of content or the fact that the content disappears is something which was critical to the platform since we launched nine years ago. That really helped empower people to be comfortable expressing their true selves and having authentic conversations with their friends. You're far more inclined to share a snap of you having come back from the gym all sweaty and red faced with your friend if you don't think that it's going to be around in perpetuity or that it's going to be commented on or people have the chance to like it and save it.

Kathryn Carter:
So that notion really encouraged self-expressionism from that perspective.  What has been so incredibly precious to us since inception has been our community's privacy. This notion that everything that we need to create and build and innovate needs to be around safety and privacy by design. That acknowledgement or that notification that someone has taken a screenshot is something which we feel that people are entitled to know. To your point, how they react and what they do afterwards is obviously up to them. But the transparency in terms of letting people know what's going on with their personal conversations from that perspective is really important to help continue to build that relationship.

Mark Jones:
Now, the other thing I wanted to talk about too from a behavioural perspective is the snap map. For those of you playing at home, you get this little icon or a caricature of yourself. You create everything, and then you can see where your friends are. You can zoom in and out. Why is everybody over there and I'm not or look, they're all at home. Kids are busy looking at where their other friends are.

Mark Jones:
There's a really interesting behavioural thing going on where it's like an awareness of physical location is important to their relationship as well. But I wonder what's the importance of that? How do you think about that from a trust and a transparency issue? What's going on from a platform perspective that sort of drives this, do you think?

Kathryn Carter:
Yeah, definitely, I think you'd have to put your listener's mind at ease when you think of mapping of teenagers and children and things like that. Snap Map was created and launched with privacy, again, very much at the forefront. The default was for location services to be turned off. So people had to go in and opt in that they wanted to share their location. Again, they're able to select with whom it is that they're sharing their particular location. So it's very much within the community's control as to who get access to that particular level of information.

Kathryn Carter:
But I think what's been fascinating is the volume of people that have opted into that. It is because of that value exchange. You are able to find out where your friends are. As we've continued to build and iterate on the map and realise just how important and I guess exciting the map is as kind of a platform, you're able to see not just where your friends are, but also what's happening in the world around you. So at any given moment, you can zoom into a protest, which may be happening in the streets of Brooklyn.

Kathryn Carter:
You can zoom into a surf competition, which is happening over in LA. You can have a look at what's happening over in London because it is also surfacing content, which is being created by the global community from that perspective. So it's giving people the opportunity to understand at any point in time what's happening in the world around them, as well as where is their friends at particular points in time.

Kathryn Carter:
Now we've also continued investment in encouraging small businesses as well, allow them to map and record their locations. You can find out information about them. You can read reviews, you can book restaurant reservations. So that's a kind of work in progress. But the map kind of environment is something which we feel is really exciting moving into the future and certainly something that we're continuing to surface and invest in.

Mark Jones:
Well, I think the point is, and I guess coming at this from the lens of marketing communications is really understanding the people who inhabit the platform again, which is primarily the younger crowd. It's interesting that it has become a bit of an ecosystem in and of itself. Its communications, it's formed social fabric. 

Mark Jones:
What's interesting to me is there's some research I came across talking about Gen Z. There's no distinction between online and offline world, the digital world and the real world, if you like. The Snap Map is an example of that, but also the way that they conceive of and picture their relationships. So with that in mind, what's the way that marketers should think about this environment when they're looking to engage with people here? 

Kathryn Carter:
I appreciate the challenge that marketers have in this moment because firstly, I think the ability to identify and understand that you need to have different messaging in place across the different generations, especially in between the Gen Z's and the Millennials, those two cohorts are so often lumped together.

Kathryn Carter:
But the kind of differences between them, it's pretty drastic and kind of pretty stark from that perspective, if you're truly wanting to build a connection with them, let alone kind of the generations which have come before. I think, again, to what you referenced in terms of the digital and physical, this generation have grown up with digital kind of as an expectation. That's an expectation both in the way that they develop their friendships and their relationships, but also in terms of what they expect from brands. I think that that needs to be really kind of top of mind when brands are looking to create a connection with this audience.

Kathryn Carter:
This notion of brands creating connections is something which is absolutely critical. It's not just about promoting a product or pushing a particular price point or wanting to drive a sale. Of course, ultimately, that will be the outcome. But the most important thing is how is it that you can have this understanding with this audience, how is it that you can drive engagement, how is it that you can genuinely communicate and convey what your brand stands for, in a way which they believe and in a way which is is kind of credible and compelling from that point of view.

Kathryn Carter:
I think a specific example as to how that digital and physical worlds are coming together is through augmented reality. I suspect that many of your listeners and certainly myself many years ago thought that augmented reality was just a cool thing to try or not necessarily a fad, but definitely not something which was kind of delivered at scale. 

Mark Jones:
But look, it’s been lumped with virtual reality. It was AR and VR synonymous. So goggles, Microsoft did a bunch of work in that space. Plenty of others have kind of looked at it, right? What happened you're actually breaking this out as a distinct thing, augmented reality. You're actually saying that there's some legs to this.

Kathryn Carter:
Yeah, absolutely. More than legs, there's scale behind it as well. Of our global audience, over three quarters of them are consuming, playing, engaging, creating augmented reality experiences every day. If you back that out, that's over 500 million minutes of AR each day. This isn't a novelty, this isn't a fad or gimmick or something that people want to try once and then move on. This is something which has significant scale volume and time spent behind it. For a marketeer who is wanting to connect with that audience, the ability to recognise that AR is inherent in the way that they are communicating is really important.

Mark Jones:
Can you give me another example so that I can better understand what that looks like on the platform then?

Kathryn Carter:
Absolutely. I think AR can span many kind of facets. It's everything from transposing yourself into on the set of an upcoming movie released to allowing you to test and try products. I think this has become especially relevant at the moment given the restrictions which many people are facing, we actually did a collaboration with Gucci. Our users were able to try on virtually a pair of their sneakers, they could test and see if they liked them. They could choose between different looks. Then ultimately, they could purchase. I think that that's a real-time application of how augmented reality has overcome a really obvious business challenge when people can't physically go into a retail experience from that perspective as well.

Mark Jones:
So it sounds to me like what happens when brands get their hands on filters, with the funny faces and things that those filters do to us, right? But you're saying that there's a commercial outcome here as well.

Kathryn Carter:
Definitely. I think that's a really good point. When it launched, it was definitely just about that brand moment, that awareness that, "Isn't this fun? We've turned someone into Mickey Mouse." But now, we've been able from a marketing perspective to really connect brand with direct response. So you can absolutely still achieve that brand moment,  but you can also then allow people to be purchasing the products or booking a ticket or downloading an app. That's made the whole AR experience very accountable so that marketers are able to understand, "I invested this. What did I see off the back of it," which I think it's incredibly important.

Mark Jones:
Well with the Gucci example, is the transaction made in platform or do you flick them off to a website?

Kathryn Carter:
We work with Gucci. The experience will just go straight to the Gucci side.

Kathryn Carter:
We're just kind of directing the audience through.

Mark Jones:
How do you think that might change over time? Will you look to get more on platform transactions happening as well?

Kathryn Carter:
Yeah, absolutely. I think the opportunities for AR have proven to be pretty endless. It absolutely is something that marketers are having a huge amount of fun in testing their creativity and really understanding how their brands can come to life in this way. It doesn't have to just be a fun, novel experience, you can still be communicating some really powerful, impactful and serious messages.

Kathryn Carter:
We worked with Westpac, one of Australia's largest retail banks, at the beginning of the year who were conveying their sustainability message. Using AR, they were able to explain to this audience the investment that they were making as a corporate into sustainability. So that's a pretty serious message that you're wanting to convey to, you know, an 18 to 24-year-old audience. But by recognising that the way that this audience like to engage and consume content included AR, they're able to create a really compelling campaign.

Mark Jones:
In the B2B context, it's interesting to think about how we can build engagement not just with young people perhaps in a consumer sense, but also at a business level. So what would your approach be or your recommendation be for brands looking at B2B marketing on Snapchat?

Kathryn Carter:
Yeah, definitely. I think that there's two things for this. Firstly, we've just done our first global B2B campaign which also is live in Australia at the moment. So I have a huge amount of respect for all of the B2B marketers out there who are looking to communicate in that space because I recognise that it is a very different world and one which entails its own challenges from that perspective.

Kathryn Carter:
In terms of B2B marketing specifically on Snapchat, it's important to understand the generation and what it is that they're doing. They are representative of a whole host of different organisations and verticals and management position from that point of view as well. So whilst primarily the platform use around B2C communications and driving those mass messaging, I think it's also important to understand that a 30-year-old who is on the platform, having conversations with their friends may also be someone who is influential in a B2B environment as well and to kind of take that seriously.

Mark Jones:
I was just thinking about how marketers, what other ways marketers can use the platform? So in my Facebook feed, I'm getting an ad every four or so posts, right, which I think is pretty standard these days. What does the paid environment look like for Snap?

Kathryn Carter:
Definitely. So the commercial opportunities within the Snapchat platform exists largely on the right hand side of the screen. So when you open the platform, you open to the camera. On the left hand side is your personal communication. So you're one to one messaging with your friends or with groups. Over on the right hand side is where our content experience lives. 

Kathryn Carter:
Now, from a content perspective, this is a variety of different content where we're working with some of the world's best brands who are absolute experts in creating both written and broadcast content. So anything from Snapchat Shows which are made for mobile TV style content through to either partnerships with brands like the Washington Post or The Wall Street Journal, who are sharing what's happening in the world around them.

Kathryn Carter:
Now, within that content runs video ads. So much to your example from a Facebook perspective, or from an Instagram or any of the other platforms where you'll have video ads inserted into the content that you're consuming, the same experience is kind of happening with Snapchat from that point of view. So the paid opportunities are within our videos ad environment and then also within our augmented reality environment. 

Mark Jones:
This is not a display environment in a traditional mobile sense, right?

Kathryn Carter:
Not in a traditional mobile sense. I think that the key reason is because we don't open to a feed. Snapchat doesn't open to a feed environment where users will scroll through to find content which is of interest to them, Snapchat opens to the camera to allow you to create and capture content. Then what we find is that people will then also stick around to consume content which is relevant, which is private, which is safe, which is credible, and which is absolutely premium in nature.

Mark Jones:
What are the trends in terms of paid sponsored posts? We're quite familiar with a sponsored post icon, you can sort of see very quickly that this is from a brand. What's the trends or what's unfolding on the Snapchat platform?

Kathryn Carter:
Yeah, it's a really interesting discussion. I think at the moment, we don't have sponsored posts per se on our platform. I guess the traditional notion of an influencer doesn't necessarily exist on Snapchat in the same way that it may on other media platforms. We very much feel that the influence of your close friends is what is absolutely crucial in terms of determining ultimately brand preference, consideration and purchase decision.

Kathryn Carter:
So we don't necessarily surface sponsored posts per se, brands can absolutely exist within the platform in a paid environment. We have also just introduced brand profiles which enabled a hand selection of brands to capture and I store all of their previous experience with Snapchat. That's something which we're building out. But it's always in a very transparent fashion with our community so that they're able to understand what to pay content and absolutely what's organic?

Mark Jones:
Well I also know that you've got your Netflix on, there's the Snap Originals, right? So there's a whole nother stream off content there. What impact and take up you're seeing of that content?

Kathryn Carter:
From my personal perspective, one of the most exciting investments that the business has been making over the past few years. It absolutely recognised the success that our discover platform which was the platform where we were partnering with some of the world's best storytellers in a traditional publishing content way.

Kathryn Carter:
The success that we had from that and then the ability to build and pivot and work with some of the world's best content creators as well, who are producing made for mobile TV style content for Snapchatters. The content is created in a way, which is recognising the Snapchat environment and also the Snapchat generation, so it's all shot vertically. It's faster pace. It's heavy use of visuals and images and questions, the formatting is different. It's split screens, it's episodic content.

Kathryn Carter:
So it still will run over eight to 12 episodes. It's typically three to six minutes in length. You also have the opportunity to binge. The quality of the content is pretty astounding as well. Many of the shows have actually been nominated for Emmy's, which I think cast your mind back a couple of years ago, you would have thought was completely implausible to have Snapchat receiving Emmy nominations from that point of view.

Kathryn Carter:
It's absolutely tapped into the generation which is spending the majority of their time utilising their mobile phone and the ability to provide an experience which is entertaining, which is informative, which is fun. Also, which is safe is absolutely in recognition of the investment that we're making in that space. 

Mark Jones:
It'll be fascinating to see as time goes on I guess how some of those behavioural aspects play out as you suggested, the three to six-minute for example, attention spans, the way that we interact with the mobile content in particular, I find that fascinating. 

Mark Jones:
From a behavioural perspective, I think this is a fascinating thing to see how the kids are engaging. There's an idea that I wanted to ask you about in that context, which is it's the path of least resistance. This is the phrase that keeps coming to me in terms of how people engage with these platforms, it has to be easy. If there's any barriers to my engagement, to my attention span, to my ability to swipe and buy, anything at all that is perceptual, perceived to be a bit different or hard, just is a no, right? It's I'm out. How important is that thinking to the way the platform is developing?

Kathryn Carter:
Yeah, I think you're spot on in terms of especially this generation because they are so ofay with all things digital. Their expectations for quality, for standards, for efficiency, for speed are much higher, I'd suggest then then kind of generations gone before. To your point if they're able to capture and experience everything that they want in the one platform or the one destination, then I'd suggest and agree with you then that's absolutely what they'll do.

Kathryn Carter:
I think from a marketing perspective  brands that are wanting to interrupt or disrupt or intrude on this audience need to recognise that that may be quite a jarring experience for this audience who are so savvy and so switched on and are able to opt out or click out or tap out of the brand experience if it isn't one, which they feel is kind of genuinely speaking to them.

Mark Jones:
That actually feels pretty complicated to me, ironically, right, because when we talk about customer experience, we talk about creating a content environment or maybe if we're a sponsor or marketing into that environment, we really have to pay a lot of attention to not just the traditional stuff around tone and style and whatever, but a lot of nuance in terms of what quality means or what experience really means. How do you really nail that?

Kathryn Carter:
Yeah, definitely. I think not to add even more to your anxiety, but it's not just about quality. It's also and especially for the younger generation, they expect so much more of brands, the research supports the fact that Gen Z's expect brands to have social purpose, they expect them to be true to that purpose. They're not just going to shop or engage with a brand just because they like a product. That's almost kind an afterthought.

Kathryn Carter:
I guess the task and challenge for brands in today's environment speaking to the future consumers and also the consumers which are influencing both directly and indirectly an enormous amount of disposable income is that they not only need to create a quality experience, but it also needs to be one which is kind of genuine and authentic from that perspective as well.

Kathryn Carter:
I think to your question in terms of how do brands do it, I'm not going to suggest that I have all of the answers. But certainly my experience and observation so far has been is to truly understand and decouple the audiences that they're looking to speak to and recognise that a one size fits all approach just won't resonate for neither the older nor the younger audiences.

Mark Jones:
So how much time, effort, money are you putting into research on the platform? So looking at behaviour trends and surfacing that for marketers, I presume  from a social research point of view, you're the closest people to it.

Kathryn Carter:
Absolutely. We're fortunate to have a really active community who are very vocal around what they like, don't like, respect, don't respect, etc. So the opportunity that we have to engage with them, to listen, to understand is, is crucial, not just for us to be able to have more informed conversations with marketers, but also for us to be able to continue to innovate and iterate our platform itself and to deliver a platform experience which uses engaging, safe, fun and powerful as it possibly can be. 

Mark Jones:
It's a really interesting intersection of the next generation coming through and how digital technologies are informing that. Then from a brand perspective, how we reimagine what that looks like from an engagement perspective, from the customer experience perspective. I want to talk about Screen Australia. You did a partnership with them. I think that's an interesting example of a pretty dynamic partnership. Do you want to tell us about that?

Kathryn Carter:
Yeah, definitely. We've been in Australia for four years now, from a Snapchat commercial perspective. Along that time, we've been wanting to ensure that we're able to work locally with partners to create a really locally nuanced and relevant experience for Australian Snapchatters. Screen Australia obviously have access to some extraordinary talented people who are creating, producing and commissioning some great work.

Kathryn Carter:
So we entered into a partnership with them for potential people to be able to create their own Snap Original show, which would then be shown on Snapchat either locally or globally. The process is going through the works at the moment, but we're extremely excited to see the work that these very talented individuals will show. Personally, I'm pretty motivated to ensure that Australia is able to shine on a global stage as well.

Mark Jones:
Well, yeah. I think this is a really, really key thing because obviously, we've seen what's happened with Coronavirus, and also from a political perspective, defunding of the arts. So I think for artists, creatives, and performers, to be able to really think about how can I take these skills that I've got, but start to re-platform them, if I can use a bit of jargon, take them out of the ... You haven't got the theatre anymore. Maybe the digital environment, got to be really thinking about it in different ways. I think there's a bigger societal community perspective at play here.

Kathryn Carter:
Yeah, definitely. I mean, this is our first foray into it, and by no means to suggest our last. But I think to your point, the way that the community from an arts and entertainment perspective have re-imagined their businesses over the last few months is an absolute testament to their inherent creativity, as you've seen some really incredible offerings which have gone online or which have completely re-imagined their business models, and I hope them nothing but success.

Mark Jones:
Fantastic. Well, if you're thinking about engaging in a platform, can you give us some tips on the best ways to move forward? Do you start small, scale up? What's the best way into this?

Kathryn Carter:
Yeah, I think never ask a salesperson if she should start small. But I think the key ask that I have with marketers who may be considering investing in this space is to really understand the influence and the power that these generations have. The 18 to 34-year-old audience, if they aren't your consumer today, they certainly will be in the very near future and the need to establish brand favourability, preference and consideration with them now is absolutely critical. Not only are they able to become really heavy consumers of your product and have amazing lifetime value, but their ability to influence the older generations is pretty apparent I think over the last few months.

Kathryn Carter:
They're absolutely leading digital transformation, they're the first that will be comfortable to go back on holidays, to embrace e-commerce and everything that that entails, to have fully digitally led experiences with banks, with shops, with kind of entertainment organisations. So I'd encourage and urge the marketers out there to really take this audience seriously and obviously understand how it is that you can build a connection with them. 

Mark Jones:
Are you researching, looking into the lifetime value of these people? Clearly you want to keep them on your own platform too.

Kathryn Carter:
Certainly. I think what we've seen across our nine years is our attention has been pretty extraordinary from that perspective, and that speaks to our earlier point of if that's where your close friends are and that's where you're communicating with them on a daily basis, then that's where you will remain. But again, to what we've been discussing, the need to understand their motivations, what it is that they're after and what it is that's important to them is critical for the marketing community and us as well.

Mark Jones:
Thank you so much for joining us. It's been a fantastic, very thought provoking conversation,. I wish you all the best as you grow the platform.

Kathryn Carter:
Pleasure. Thanks so much, Mark. I appreciate the support.

Mark Jones:
So that was Kathryn Carter, and I love this concept of ‘connection.’ It’s more important now than ever, and it is interesting to hear how channels like Snap, are providing Gen Z with an opportunity to share content they discover within their digital community, as well as, of course, content they create themselves. Engaging Gen Z with entertaining content, and video in particular, across different channels, is of course, one of the most effective ways to get and keep their attention. I predict that moving forward, when we think about where this is all headed, we will see more brands leveraging Gen Z’s love of sharing to amplify their brand message. Now, before I go, if you haven’t already, please do subscribe to us on your favourite podcast app. If you search for “The CMO Show,” you’ll find us. Just hit subscribe. And of course, if you’re feeling generous, maybe give us a rating and review!

Mark Jones:
We love to get your feedback too. Email us at cmoshow@filteredmedia.com.au - just tell us what you think and who we should have on the show! Thanks for joining us for this episode of The CMO Show. Until next time.

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