Heartstring Holiday Marketing: The Right Way to Reach Gen Z Gifters

Q4 is looming ever nearer, which means it’s time for marketers to turn their attention to the most pivotal campaigns of the year: the holidays. And with Gen Z 42% more likely than the average to take their commerce directly to social media this gifting season, we know what you’re thinking: how do I make my holiday campaign speak the language of the socially native generation? Our advice — don’t.

With articles and campaigns around this time saying the same thing year after year, it’s a challenge for retailers to not only cut through the noise but break through the yearly campaign calendar. For this article, we sought out social-first strategy experts on the Viral Nation creative content and community management teams to understand the right way to reach Gen Z, so you can go beyond co-opting trends to build a values-based holiday strategy that resonates into the new year.

Resonate, Don’t Imitate

The continuing myth around marketing to Gen Z is that to appeal to and resonate with this demographic, brands must become them: adopting the language and trends of the moment. It’s a “one of us” approach that leads to oversaturation and rapid fatigue around trends, causing them to lose their impact quickly as more brands jump on the bandwagon. Recall how many times you read “very demure” in an email subject line this summer, or how many branded posts from business accounts had “cutesy”, and “very mindful” tagged in the caption.

To be clear — there is nothing inherently wrong with jumping on trends. But, there are a few considerations our award-winning social content team always takes into account:

• Does this trending moment align with your brand identity? Consider whether your brand can add value in a way that connects not only to how you show up across platforms but off-platform as well. All efforts should align and be anchored in your brand identity.
• Are you catching the trend as it’s building up, at its peak, or during its decline? When it comes to the speed of social trends, agility is everything.

When brands adopt trends in an attempt to speak the current language of social, too often it comes at the expense of brand identity and the social persona that makes up the core of how audiences interact with brands online. A one-off post using language that’s on-trend but not on-brand does little to foster trust and demonstrate relatability between your audience and your brand identity. And at the end of the day, building relatability and trust are the two driving reasons to engage your social media community in the first place.

The Right Way to Reach Gen Z

Rather than trying to mimic Gen Z, brands must seek to understand the psychology that guides this generation’s purchase behavior. For holiday campaigns, this means seasonal marketing strategies must scale to a holistic, 360° approach that goes deeper than co-opting trends. Let’s unpack that.

Generational Shopping

We know that shopping trends and buying behavior shift from generation to generation. The era of baby boomers and Gen X commerce is most commonly associated with value and practicality. Traditional media has a heavier pull on consumers of these generations than on digitally native millennials and Gen Z.

By comparison, social listening insights gathered by Viral Nation’s Community Engagement team point to more emotional buying behavior in Millennials and Gen Z. Millennials began the minimalism aesthetic as a response to economic challenges, and are more likely to buy based on how a product or service increases quality of life. They’re also more likely to buy impulsively based on what they see on social media.

The Gen Z pattern? Values-driven and community-oriented, Gen Z shops with their heart. Gen Z resonates with the stories behind brands, seeking opportunities to align their purchase behavior — and by extension their holiday gifting behavior — with their own identity, the way they feel about a brand or product, and what that brand stands for.

73% of Gen Zers say they make online purchases from creators. For Gen Z, social issues and relationships drive purchase behavior — for the holidays and beyond. They seek out humanized shopping experiences, prefer ethical and sustainable goods, and are rigorous when vetting a brand’s values, as they connect these to their personal lives with every purchase.

Values-Driven Holiday Campaigns

At the end of the day, the aim of any social media campaign targeting Gen Z buyers must cut through the clutter and get to the heart of the matter. To connect this with values-driven purchase behavior we see from Gen Z throughout the year, our social-first experts suggest several key ways brands can resonate with Gen Z’s humanized and relationship-centric buying behavior:

1. Spotlight a story

Our creative & content team emphasizes that brands that can link back to social issues like environmentalism and inclusivity — look at the affirming core message of Selena Gomez’s makeup line Rare Beauty for example — will unlock authentic connections with Gen Z consumers by putting these shared values front and center.

But it goes beyond taking a stance. The key to tugging heartstrings is to tell a genuine story. Take luxury fashion label Jacquemus for example. Designer Simon Porte Jacquemus transparently shares the story of his life across social media, bolstering his open account with lo-fi social content posted to his brand account. This cultivates the feeling of a friend talking to you about their life, allowing consumers to bond with him on a human level over his relationship with his mother, his coming-out story, and personal milestones like his wedding and becoming a father.

For seasonal inspiration, take a look at Pandora’s storytelling prowess around their Christmas campaigns. Emotional, inspirational, and rooted in the relationships behind gift-giving, the jewelry brand resonates with their target audience through humanized holiday stories that connect seamlessly to their identity year-round.

2. Center community initiatives

A heartstring-tugging approach to holiday marketing fosters devotion through positive brand sentiment. We’ve seen social-first community management achieve this by connecting a brand with their audience in memorable ways that create shared experiences and relationships based on trust.

Let’s look at how the iconic Christmas brand, Coca-Cola, uses their Holiday Truck as a powerful way to connect to their community and create memorable branded moments, from in-person to across social media:

• Community Engagement: The Holiday Truck tours often support local communities by partnering with charities. For example, in the UK, Coca-Cola collaborates with FareShare, a charity fighting hunger and food waste. For every person who visits the truck, Coca-Cola donates the equivalent of a meal to those in need.
• Interactive Experiences: Coca-Cola has created a “winter market” atmosphere around the truck’s stops. Visitors can immerse themselves in a variety of branded seasonal activities, such as taking “elfie selfies” with the truck, participating in interactive games via QR codes, and enjoying seasonal food from nearby huts.
• Personalized Gifts: At select stops, visitors can purchase custom Coca-Cola products personalized with their names or a short phrase, making for a unique holiday keepsake that creates a lasting impression.
• Emotional Connection: The truck tours create a festive atmosphere with music, lights, and decorations. The experience is designed to be family-friendly and fun, immersing visitors in the spirit of the holiday season — leading them to associate their idea of Coca-Cola with positive memories and festive traditions. By sharing these moments online, customers create a collective experience that resonates with others, fostering a deeper emotional connection with the brand while maximizing shareability, for increased reach.
• Social Experiential Halo: Our Social Experiential team’s favorite part of the Holiday Truck activation is how it creates engaging opportunities for social communities before, during, and after each event. Promotional posts create anticipation for its next stop, while the experience itself connects back to social media across several touchpoints, allowing an organic opportunity for UGC. The gifts and interactive experiences create opportunities for relationship-forward content long after the truck has moved on.

The lasting power of Coca-Cola’s holiday marketing is twofold. First of all, every year the brand brings the campaign to social media with an of-the-moment message that responds to the current times and reflects their audience’s most salient values.

In 2020 — in the middle of lockdowns — the hashtag #togethertastesbetter led the Coca-Cola campaign across platforms. In 2023, Coca-Cola’s “The world needs more Santas” message seamlessly connected Gen Z’s values-forward behavior to the holiday season.

Second, Coca-Cola pairs responsive and audience-driven messaging with a fresh value-add each year. The Holiday truck is just one piece of a powerful community-centric activation that brings new ways for consumers to engage, participate, and share customized content — think personalized Cameo video from Santa and AI-generated holiday postcards — on social. By cohesively integrating multiple strategies across experiential, community, and social content, Coca-Cola has ensured their holiday campaigns are proof of community engagement’s power to drive resonance.

3. Connect a creator

To connect more effectively with trust and relationship-oriented Gen Z shoppers, brands can humanize a message with creator partnerships. Connecting with creators gives a brand’s service or product a platform of authentic endorsement and social proof. The targeted reach of an influencer’s following results in higher engagement as the brand message is received by an audience most likely to resonate with it.

With effective partnerships, the relatability and trust of a creator are carried over to the brand, forging emotional bonds and authentic human connections. And as we’ve seen, that emotional bond is never as important as it is for holiday campaigns targeting Gen Z gift-givers.

The holidays offer boundless potential for creator partnerships. From Thanksgiving dinner to Christmas gifting — and more creative ideas like managing holiday travel plans and family traditions — Viral Nation has been pairing brands with the perfect creator fit for their holiday campaigns for 10 years.

Practice Precision

With the uncertainty caused by the upcoming US election and increasingly price-conscious demographics, brands must execute 2024 holiday campaigns with care. Add into the mix that there are just 27 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas — the shortest holiday shopping season since 2019 — and it’s clear that this year, more than ever, brands must prepare their holiday campaigns early. But being prepared doesn’t mean getting ahead of every event.

Brands that jump on holidays simply because it’s in their content calendar, focusing on selling rather than connecting, are likely to yield fewer results compared to campaigns that intentionally align their core values and social persona with selective, targeted holiday campaigns.

Rather than spreading resources thin in an attempt to hit every tentpole in an uncertain market, our experts in creative strategy have found more success with campaigns that invest with precision. Consider:

• Where does your audience currently engage, and what opportunities exist for your brand to activate endemically in that space? Meeting your target audience where they’re at will yield more targeted and measurable results.
• Based on historical data, what holiday shopping event is most relevant to your demographic? Social listening will inform you of your audience’s desires, gaps, and needs, allowing your brand to respond effectively while anticipating and planning for buying behavior.
• What message or value does your brand contribute to the holiday event? For example, Coca-Cola focuses heavily on the intersection of their core stated values (optimism, happiness, and making a difference) with the spirit of Christmas. Their messaging is specific and consistent across the holiday season, to the point that the brand is generally lauded as helping to create the modern image of Santa that we have today. By embedding itself in the cultural fabric of Christmas, Coca-Cola created a lasting and powerful brand association that continues to resonate with consumers around the world. The takeaway? Whatever the creative direction, your brand’s message must be clear, consistent, and delivered with focus to be remembered.

Most important is the resonance that comes from proactive engagement across social media. When the foundation of a creative holiday campaign is community-centric and audience-driven, it creates opportunities for positive brand sentiment and the emotional connection that Gen Z consumers crave in their commerce.

Ultimately, a targeted and intentional campaign that elevates your brand’s impact while remaining rooted in authentic identity will result in higher engagement and trust, leading to greater conversions and loyalty all year long.

Winning Gen Z’s Heart with Holiday Marketing

When it comes to holiday campaigns, marketing that tugs heartstrings and elicits an emotional response reigns supreme. To reach Gen Z shoppers, brands must look beyond the trends and language that define fleeting cultural moments, letting go of the desire to be relatable via imitation. Instead, consider the broader buying behavior that translates to Gen Z gifting behavior.

A generation that shops with their hearts, brands can successfully resonate with Gen Z this holiday season by building relationship-forward campaigns that tug heartstrings with authentic storytelling, community values, and humanizing creator partnerships. When brands pair audience-centric tactics with a precise strategy rooted in their core identity and informed by social listening, the impact of holiday campaigns scales organically to their social marketing efforts year-round. By forging authentic emotional bonds with Gen Z, results beyond the holidays will translate higher levels of trust into a higher number of devoted brand loyalists.