In an era where Gen Z dominates the digital landscape and TikTok's meteoric rise reshapes content consumption, brands face a pivotal challenge in how to create authentic, engaging, and relevant campaigns that resonate with this dynamic audience.
TSL Media Group is a media tech collective based in Singapore made up of 7 creative media brands. They specialize in multi-platform, multi-brand advertising to help brands engage with audiences through hyperlocal content creation.
Leveraging the power of data-driven insights from Brandwatch’s consumer intelligence solution, the team at TSL have tackled the challenge of engaging younger audiences head-on. By harnessing social data, TSL has fine-tuned its content creation strategy to cut through the noise and captivate the ever-elusive Gen Z demographic.
The evolving marketing landscape
Gen Z's media consumption habits have shifted dramatically, with platforms like TikTok experiencing a staggering 100% user growth rate between 2020 and 2022. Video content has taken center stage, transforming how brands convey information. Realizing that cookie-cutter approaches would no longer suffice, TSL adopted an innovative data-driven strategy based on crafting hyperlocal content that resonates with Gen Z's unique preferences and values.
How TSL uses data to drive their strategy
TSL's approach to content creation rests on a foundation of robust research and data analysis. Brandwatch's social listening capabilities are pivotal in this process, providing invaluable insights into online conversations, sentiments, and emerging trends. TSL combines social listening with other methods like focus groups, polls, surveys, and proprietary data tools to form a comprehensive understanding of Gen Z's preferences. Armed with these insights, TSL generates content that aligns seamlessly with what their audience desires.
“We combine the power of Brandwatch’s social data with our own proprietary first party data to elevate brands through insight-driven campaigns that engage the right audiences” explains Nicolle Jayne Sing, Group Director at TSL Media Group.
The fusion of historical insights and real-time trends allows TSL to create accurate, relevant campaigns that strike a chord with Gen Z. With a repository of thousands of content pieces, TSL augments first-party data to determine the performance of different content formats. For instance, they've observed that infographics drive higher engagement compared to other formats, while distinct video styles attract specific demographic segments.
“We combine the power of Brandwatch’s social data with our own proprietary first party data to elevate brands through insight-driven campaigns that engage the right audiences”
Crafting compelling Gen Z content
TSL's success in captivating Gen Z is attributed to three essential principles:
- Entertainment value
- Authenticity
- Utility
Gen Z's appetite for entertainment is considerable, with 79.3% of Singaporeans using social media for this purpose. TSL taps into this by delivering content in interactive formats like reality TV, music videos, live streams, and original segments.
However, Gen Z can discern inauthenticity from a mile away. In fact, according to Hubspot, 84% of Gen Zs will skip video ads as quickly as possible, preferring to learn about products from influencers and social media videos. These videos help brands meet Gen Z where they already are, on social platforms. As such, TSL employs real reactions, emotions, and relatable individuals to weave authenticity into their campaigns, steering clear of traditional advertising tropes.
The approach to utility is equally strategic. Different social platforms serve as sources of brand research or news for Gen Z, making it crucial to distribute content where they're most receptive. TSL's data-driven approach allows them to discern the right platforms, with TikTok and YouTube emerging as prime contenders. Gen Z's widespread use of multiple platforms underscores the necessity of a holistic distribution strategy that transcends a single medium.
Turning data-driven insights into action
Brandwatch emerges as an indispensable ally in TSL's pursuit of crafting relevant, authentic brand interactions. By tapping into authentic online conversations, Brandwatch offers insights that allow TSL to better serve their clients.
The journey starts by understanding the latest trends and social platforms while paying keen attention to audience interests. The authenticity of data sources, particularly zero-party data, bolsters accuracy. Additionally, understanding diverse content formats and measuring the right metrics are crucial for success.
Building campaigns with data
Huawei
Brandwatch's role doesn't stop at data acquisition; it extends to enabling TSL to create content that resonates deeply with Gen Z. TSL's collaboration with Huawei is a case in point. Huawei, a multinational technology corporation known for their smartphones, came to TSL looking to find a novel way to demonstrate the features of Huawei P40 Pro.
With the help of consumer research via Brandwatch, TSL determined two things:
- With Gen Z and millenials (zillenials) spending the most time on their phones, they are the typical target audience for smartphones.
- As they grow older, zillenials spend less time with their grandparents who aren’t native users of smartphones.
Based on these insights, TSL worked with Huawei to create a campaign featuring a real-life millennial and her non-tech savvy grandmother showcasing the new Huawei P40 Pro. Through their authentic reactions and interactions, they were able to show how easy it is to use, even for an older demographic.
By recognizing the significance of intergenerational relationships and authentic interactions, TSL created a campaign for Huawei that would not only resonate with Gen Z but also bridge generational gaps, attracting an older audience to their smartphones by showcasing how easy it is to use these devices.
Pocari Sweat
In another instance with Pocari Sweat, a Japanese sports drink company, TSL leveraged educational content to offer utility and relevance, positioning the brand as an essential part of an active lifestyle. The goal was to position Pocari Sweat as the go-to isotonic drink to pair with an active lifestyle. With that in mind, TSL turned to Brandwatch data to determine what topics active audiences were engaging with. Based on that research, the teams at TSL and Pocari Sweat created educational content around active lifestyles as a brand play, educating the audience in order to provide them with utility and tying the brand into that narrative.
In both instances, Brandwatch data helped the TSL team understand what different audiences genuinely cared about which helped them craft content and campaigns that were centered around the right topics.
A blueprint for Gen Z engagement
In a world dominated by Gen Z's evolving preferences, TSL Media Group stands out as a beacon of success by harnessing the power of data-driven insights from Brandwatch. By embracing entertainment, authenticity, and utility, TSL crafts campaigns that resonate with Gen Z's sensibilities.
The partnership between TSL and Brandwatch exemplifies how brands can thrive by embracing a holistic data-driven approach that not only captures audience attention but also forges meaningful connections in an ever-changing digital landscape.