Marketers are wooing Gen Z as assiduously as they did millennials, Gen X and baby boomers before them. But not all the methods of courting previous generations of consumers work with Gen Z.

This was the topic of “Gen Z Broke the Marketing Funnel,” a panel discussion at the April 2025 POSSIBLE conference in Miami. Though as moderator Krystal Hauserman, NOYZ consulting CMO and UrbanStems strategic advisor, put it, “The marketing funnel wasn’t just broken. Gen Z ran it over, reversed and posted it on TikTok. This generation doesn’t move neatly from awareness in a nice little funnel down to purchase. They skipped that and remixed it.”

Which is not to say awareness, consideration, purchase and retention are no longer critical elements of the customer cycle. It’s just that rather than being stops on an orderly linear path, they are principles to be considered when personalizing the consumer journey.

Delta Air Lines, for instance, doesn’t have to spend resources increasing awareness, said panelist Nathan Smith, the airline’s GM, Brand Marketing. And because the brand is already widely known, it takes a different approach to the consideration stage. “It’s less about ‘Consider a purchase’ and more about ‘Consider why we fit in your life.’ It’s ‘Consider why you want to have a relationship with us.’ It’s ‘Consider why you would recommend us to a friend,’” he explained. “And so in that aspect, it’s not really a funnel; it’s more of a diamond. And then when we get to that point of purchase, it’s really as simple as RTBs: reasons to believe. In our case it’s ‘What’s new, innovative and maybe worth paying a premium for? What feels special or personalized to me?’”

Authenticity Is Cool

This sort of “personalization at scale,” Smith said, is particularly important in attracting younger consumers. One way Delta achieves it is by collaborating and partnering with brands outside of the travel sector. Smith described this as an effective method of enabling people to interact with Delta “from a whole lifestyle and experience standpoint.”

Authenticity, of course, is critical to the effectiveness of collaborations and all other efforts to win over Gen Z. More digital- and media-savvy than previous generations, these consumers have a low tolerance for brands that hop on irrelevant, not to mention outdated, trends.

“The thing I see a lot that I don’t love is when brands are getting on these trends on TikTok, doing the audio that’s viral, doing the most recent thing—and they’re late,” said Davis Burleson, a content creator and host of “What’s Poppin with Davis!” He added that often the fault is in the approval process. A social media team might need to get approval from their manager and the legal department before they can post anything, and by then “it’s two weeks later and the trend is done, but it’s approved so you go live with it. And at this point it’s just old and it gives cringe.”

“Don’t try to chase cool,” agreed Sydney Stanback, Senior Manager of Brand Research at Pinterest. “It’s just a waste of time and energy and money, and you’re never going to catch it. Really just try to inspire and deliver value instead. I think that’s what everyone wants, but especially Gen Z. I think it’s more about feeling in community with a brand, feeling inspired by it, and also just knowing that they’re going to really deliver real value to your lives.”

This circles back to the importance of personalizing Smith’s “reasons to believe” for younger consumers. To ensure a brand delivers what’s valuable to them, Gen Z needs to be included in the discussion. “When we have more voices at the table, it allows us to be able to innovate and offer products and partnerships that matter, not just to our customers of today but our customers of tomorrow,” Smith said.

For marketers, that might mean accepting that while they understand their brand, content creators and other partners understand the audience. In such cases, pushing a highly defined brand narrative can be counterproductive, Burleson said. Creators “want the video to perform for themselves just as much as the brand does. So that collaboration and that working together, it’s going to do wonders.”

Feature photo credit: Michele Eve Sandberg/Shutterstock for POSSIBLE