FEATURE

were highly influenced from their ‘ Gen Z ’ kids ,” continues Kendall .

Read agrees that jewellers will need to adapt their strategies to make sure they are effectively reaching Generation Z . “ Although there will be some overlap , for it truly to be effective jewellers will have to change their marketing . Although currently Millennials also aren ’ t as swayed as traditional marketing as older generations , ‘ Gen Z ’ will be even less so than Millennials . They simply aren ’ t going to be swayed by traditional advertising , they can smell it from a mile away .”

How to reach them Read explains that ‘ Gen Z ’ are mobile first and will do their research often on mobile phones before shopping in stores . “ You would think they are shopping online only but research shows that 98 % still want to shop in a physical store . They are looking for experiences , it is not just about the product , they want to go and have a shopping experience . They don ’ t have a clear line between offline and online so for jewellers their experience should blend together , the online presence should be as good as their offline .”

Millennials come in for some flack - being the ‘ social media generation ’, they are often derided in the media as lacking

Millennials come in for some flack

- being the ‘ social media generation ’, they are often derided in the media as lacking in concentration and focus ,

such is the expendability of online material

in concentration and focus , such is the expendability of online material . Read says the accepted wisdom in marketing circles is that Millennials have an attention span of 12 seconds - further estimates put ‘ Generation Z ’ at around eight seconds . This means that content will need t o be more captivating to keep their attention and immediately draw them to the product or brand .

This is something that Kendall says Forevermark has already taken into consideration . “ What we are doing is more and more fast , mobile communication , we have a far less expectation that TV will be that important ,” he says . “ Our media and marketing programmes are significantly changing , Millennials have taken us to this area but ‘ Gen Z ’ will enlarge it to a much stronger and much more dynamic approach .

“ We are beginning to work on programming that suits them . It is all about multiple social media networks interestingly their favourite sites are YouTube , Snapchat , Instagram , Periscope and Meerkat . We are doing more activity on those platforms building up our image . We are also finding that communication needs to be interesting and storytelling with major visual impact - short videos viewable on their smartphones rather than traditional ads .”

This is a view also shared by independent jewellery brand Franco Florenzi which has grown a successful jewellery business through advertising to younger consumers through Instagram . “ We started in 2014 based on the wrap bracelet concept with the bow and arrow as the signature of our jewellery we make ,” explains creative director Lucky Nwosu . “ We pushed that out through social media as our main strategy and in our first year we grew by 150,000 followers . That was the base of where the brand started from .”

Back in 2014 , says Nwosu , influencer marketing “ wasn ’ t really a thing ”, the kids were just getting used to Instagram so Franco Florenzi “ were taking our photos in-house ”. He elaborates : “ Another thing we did was paid promotion via some bigger pages on Instagram giving us shoutouts for the brand . This was back when Instagram did not have any analytics so you had to guess the kind of people who were following the specific pages . One thing we did notice was that a couple pages were being followed by 13-18 year olds , so those pages were good to advertise for ‘ Gen Z ’, and then if we wanted older audience of Millennials of 24-35 years old , we would advertise on luxury pages or car pages .