By Rutu Mody Kamdar
A few months ago, I was moderating a group discussion with young women in their early twenties in Mumbai. I showed them a campaign from a skincare brand, beautifully produced, earnest messaging about empowerment, all the right words. One of them looked at it for three seconds and said, “This could be any brand.” She didn’t say it was bad. She said something worse. She said it was vague.
That moment, I think, captures what the advertising industry’s Rs 2.01 lakh crore moment is actually up against. We keep describing Gen Z in terms of deficit. Fragmented attention. Shrinking spans. The implication is that something is broken in how this generation consumes media, and brands need more sophisticated tactics to address it.
I’d argue the opposite. This generation has developed an extraordinarily efficient filtering system. They aren’t distracted. They are ruthless about discarding what doesn’t earn their time. The fragmentation is a higher standard, and most brand communication simply doesn’t meet it.
The authenticity factor
The word the industry reaches for is authenticity. Every brand now claims it, which means it has come to mean nothing at all. What Gen Z actually responds to is specificity. They want brands to be precise about who they are and unembarrassed about it. A chai brand that knows exactly which corner of Indian tea culture it owns interests them. A soap brand mouthing broad sentiments about self-worth does not. The demand was never for truth in some abstract sense. It was always for texture. The particular, the detailed, the unmistakably yours.
Here are my concerns about how ad budgets are being spent. Digital accounts for 68% of ad expenses. The money has moved. The thinking, largely, has not. Most digital spending still chases reach and frequency. Old television logic applied to new screens. Gen Z does not experience media as a funnel. They experience it as a feed — where brand content competes with a friend’s wedding video, a political meme, and a cooking reel in the same three-second window.
Brands are competing with everything that is personally meaningful to a 22-year old at nine-thirty on a Tuesday night. Intelligent capital allocation, which is the industry’s stated ambition for this new era, requires an honest reckoning. The maps we are using to navigate digital spending were drawn for a different consumer.
One who sat through a thirty-second spot because there was no alternative. This consumer has alternatives every second. She will give you her attention, but you must deserve it with specificity, not earn it through repetition. Gen Zs are making visible what was always true. Attention was never owed. They are simply the first generation that refuses to pretend otherwise.
The author is founder, Jigsaw Brand Consultants
Disclaimer: The views expressed are the author’s own and do not reflect the official policy or position of Financial Express.