June 2017

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June 2017

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

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Cover Story

Why should I go here?

10 Around Feature

the room

relevate E L E VAT I N G R E L AT I O NS H I P S IN HIGHER E D U C AT I O N

Roundtable

14 Joshua Pop quiz

Dodson

8 The Quad 15 Infographic

All eyes on the social natives

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relevate • june 2017

Orientation

A letter from the editors

Coming of age Coming of age has always been a difficult—yet necessary—part of life.

Graduating from one stage of your life to the next is by no means a simple transition; the path to a new life chapter is littered with complexity, responsibility, and emotion. Thus, guidance is required from those closest to us so that we may navigate new worlds, assimilate to the unfamiliar, and, ultimately, make a positive impact on our new surroundings.

Attending an institution of higher learning may be the most explicit metaphor for coming of age. Roles and responsibilities dramatically change, and the need for self-reliance is never greater than it is at that pivotal point in a person’s life. Most of our kids are not ready for the world they are soon going to inherit. And, to be honest, we don’t even know where to start when introducing the daunting reality of a world with much shorter job durations.

The future tells us that the mentoring of the next generation has never been more critical.

Institutions of higher learning have an amazing responsibility to shape and guide the next wave of the workforce, and the challenge lies in connecting with these young adults on a different level.

The deeper the connection that they have with you, the institution, the more trust compounds, and the more likely they are to turn to you to empower their lives for the next stage and beyond.

In a similar fashion, relevate, a new magazine for the higher education enrollment specialist, aims to build a level of trust with you by igniting creative ideas, inspiring new campaigns, and

enabling higher levels of conversion.

We want to share the stories that are most familiar to you so that you may find commonality in your quest for higher levels of performance as you learn.

In our cover feature, “Why Should I Go Here,” we delve into not just how your story must resonate with prospective students but also how you should tell it.

In our second feature, we are so proud to share the insights from a roundtable discussion involving some of your peers.

The beauty of such a piece is that it reminds us that we are not alone and that our challenges are shared by others.

The bottom line is that the higher education enrollment and fundraising community is filled with ambitious and intelligent people. And yet, much like the student you aim to recruit, you yearn to be grittier, more successful, more self-sufficient, and readier than ever to serve. Our hope is that our stories stoke that fire within you and allow you to share yourselves and your school with others. And maybe, on some level, we might just help you guide the next generation’s coming of age.

Welcome to relevate. We hope you enjoy this special flagship issue and the future issues to come.

Warmest regards,

RELEVATE Relevate is published quarterly

by Kelmscott EDU, copyright 2017 All rights reserved.

For more information contact relevate@kelmscott.com www.kelmscottedu.com

MANAGING EDITORS Kathleen Cross Dean Petrulakis

CONTRIBUTORS

Kathleen Cross

Alyssa Ruane Kristen Wile

Dean Petrulakis

EDITORIAL & CREATIVE

Executive Vice President of Strategy and Marketing, KelmscottEDU Senior Vice President, Business Development, KelmscottEDU

Conduit, Inc. www.conduit-inc.com relevate • june 2017

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cover FEATURE

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relevate • june 2017

College viewbooks have a whole new role.

Reaching prospective students has become more competitive than ever for higher education institutions, which means marketers are re-imagining and re-working the ways they present their schools to the newest crop of incoming freshmen-to-be.

As they seek innovative methods to differentiate themselves from one another, colleges and universities have moved towards storytelling to communicate their cultures, student bodies, and academic environments to students. Why? An honest, human narrative has become one of the only methods students will respond to in today’s culture of endless information.

BRAND MATTERS

High schoolers are part of the generation spearheading the social media phenomenon. If they can’t share it, like it, or experience some kind of emotion from it, they’re not interested. It’s not a snooty, holier-than-thou perspective, it’s just how they grew up.

Generation Z doesn’t like to be sold to, and they’re generally bored by traditional media.

We asked ourselves, ‘How do we align what we’re telling students with who we truly believe we are as an institution? Where our strengths?’”

That’s why it’s more important than ever to position your institution according to the way high school seniors—teenagers who became burdened with college decisions as soon as they entered the school system—will benefit from it. Kids likely don’t care about that smiling student in the photo. They want to see who their friends will be and how their young adult lives will begin.

And that’s where storytelling comes in.

What story are you telling? Or, more importantly, what is the story of your institution? Uncovering that story often leads to solidifying your institution’s brand.

Westminster College in Utah has a small student body—about 3,000 students total, and for Chief Marketing Officer Sheila Yorkin and her team, finding the specific story of their school took a little soul-searching. A couple of years ago, they realized they had to realign some things to hone in on a sole brand identity.

— Sheila Yorkin, Chief Marketing Officer at Westminster College Yorkin says when she came into the higher ed space, she saw the silos around what admissions and all the different components of communication were doing. As separate entities, they weren’t accurately communicating the same core values.

“We asked ourselves, ‘How do we align what we’re telling students with who we truly believe we are as an institution? Where our strengths?’” Yorkin explains.

How do they align that same message to resonate with both traditional and nontraditional students? relevate • june 2017

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Yorkin calls it “an in-depth reassessment” of the brand, and makes sure to stay away from the term “rebrand.” They wanted a shift of focus, not an identity overhaul.

Sometimes, your story might be multi-faceted, like DePaul University’s.

“It was more of a discovery process,” she says. “We knew we wanted to get expertise outside of the college, so we solicited proposals from ad agencies.”

“We have a lot of fodder around what makes us unique,” Verna Donovan, DePaul’s Associate Vice President of Marketing Strategy and Branding, says. “The best way of showcasing that is through storytelling. I wouldn’t say we’re a university that has always gone towards the smiling-student approach; we try to go towards the authenticity. Especially since our story is very complex.”

The agency they decided to hire was one that had “great success of telling the story of Utah as a destination,” Yorkin explains, which was ideal for Westminster since the college’s culture is closely tied to the Utah experience.

So Westminster embarked on a two-year introspective journey that centered on the ideas of what they do well and what they believe resonates with the students when they turn into alumni. The marketing team began developing the core of the brand and telling the story in a meaningful way without inundating prospective students with facts and figures.

There are a lot of tools out there, but you have to figure out what works with your key population and how you manage content creation.”

— Verna Donovan, Associate Vice President of Marketing Strategy and Branding at DePaul Universit “They want to know the story behind what’s going to impact their lives, so that’s what we’ve focused on recreating in our materials and talking to our faculty,” Yorkin says. It was important that the school faculty was onboard with the same messaging so that it could reverberate throughout the classrooms organically and authentically.

The key to finding this special identity is to realize that you might not appeal to everyone. After all, do you really want to appeal to students outside of your target audience? Find the story that your target audience wants to hear, and tell it well.

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relevate • june 2017

Being that DePaul is faith-based and nestled within Chicago’s sprawling metropolis, there are a lot of supporting details that go into the school’s story. And when a story is complex, that’s when branding comes back around to lead the way.

Donovan says, “We’ve really taken a serious look at our brand and what it means. We get a lot of customer input: the voice of consumers, students, parents, alums, and media. We’ve been doing that on-and-off for 15 years. We’ve honed our strategy based on our external perceptions of us and marrying that with our own internal goals.”

And it seems that storytelling via content marketing is the best way to communicate these important intricacies.

and produce curated, on-brand content that matches their web design as well as their print and email messaging.

COMMUNICATING THROUGH CONTENT

David Reimherr has been working in content marketing for more than 10 years, and he’s the founder of Austin-based Magnificent Marketing, LLC. Reimherr says that content marketing doesn’t make sense for certain industries, but the higher ed sector is not one of those industries.

In fact, colleges and universities rely on content to effectively tell their stories in ways that will matter to prospective students and their parents.

“There are a lot of opportunities for higher ed marketers to use content because there’s a lot to explain. Let students know their options; answer their questions on financing; tell them the different paths they can take,” Reimherr explains. “A lot of potential students might be wondering, ‘What is best for me?’”

Content is how you answer those questions and become a friend of the student instead of an unwanted seller.

Turning into a friend means being in the places where friends communicate, and for Gen Z, social media is more or less the town hall. Social media is yet another place colleges and universities need to turn their ears

About readjusting strategies, Yorkin says, “There used to be a thing of every 5 years, but with social media, every 5 years, the landscape totally changes. Audiences get bored. Every year, we need to be more nimble and adjust our strategy.”

Donovan, who’s been in the industry for more than 25 years, says its changing nature has proven to be a challenge for all higher ed marketers.

“We intuitively know we need to do these things, such as get onboard with social, to be savvy marketers,” she describes. “There are a lot of tools out there, but you have to figure out what works with your key population and how you manage content creation.”

Especially in the social media space, authenticity reigns supreme. Anything that screams advertisement is not going to resonate with your target students. Once you refine your brand story, you have to commit to it. You have to tell it in a natural way.

Donovan says, “It’s the storytelling component. You need to be spontaneous and not over-manufacturing the content, which is part of the authenticity.”

“Consumers want information, and they want it to be compelling,” Yorkin adds.

How will you tell your story?

relevate • june 2017

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the QUAD Book Rec

EDUCATING EDUCATORS THE CHANGING ECOLOGY OF HIGHER EDUCATION ED I T ED B Y

MICHAEL W. KIR ST & MITCHELL L. STEVENS

Exploring higher ed’s changes and figuring out the future

College completion has become difficult for many students entering the higher education system in America.

The system has evolved, and the prices have skyrocketed.

This book—edited by Stanford University’s Professor Emeritus of Education and Business Administration and the current President of the California State Board of Education (Kirst) and Stanford’s Associate Professor of Education (Stevens)— explores the changing context and argues that a growing accountability revolution, the push for greater efficiency and productivity, and the explosion of online learning have contributed to these changes.

With contributions from higher ed experts with a range of professional backgrounds, Remaking College: The Changing Ecology of Higher Education helps decide the fate and future of the industry, providing insight to marketers eager to stay at the forefront.

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relevate • june 2017

Social Skills Besides authenticity, having a strategy is key to successful social results

Let's face it: Your target audience is posting life updates on Facebook, watching TV on YouTube, and double-tapping beautiful images on Instagram.

Be in front of the right students when you have something to say, and be available when they have something to ask you.

The Pew Research Center reported in November 2016 that 86% of Americans between ages 18 and 29 use at least one social media site, with Facebook being the top choice and Instagram being number two.

HubSpot reports that the best time to post on Facebook is 3 p.m. on Wednesday.

Research conducted by Lithium Technologies says 78% of people who complain to a brand via Twitter expect a response within an hour.

TRANSFER TIME

1 in 9

About one in nine students who start college in any fall term transfer to a different institution by the following fall.

IT TAKES TWO

49 percent In the 2015-16 academic year, 49 percent of students who completed a four-year degree were enrolled at a two-year institution at some point in the previous 10 years.

GIRL POWER

11.7 million

Statistics projected that in fall 2016, about 11.7 million females would attend colleges and universities, compared with 8.8 million males.

Source: National Student Clearinghouse Research Center relevate • june 2017

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feature STORY

Around The Room

The role of the enrollment professional is more complex and challenging than ever.

After all, a school’s student body is what defines it. How do higher education institutions ensure they’re reaching the right potential students? Five veteran marketers and enrollment leaders discuss.

— Kristen Wile

Bob Bennett

Senior Associate Director of Admissions, Clemson University

Brad Poznanski

Vice President for Enrollment, New England College

What’s your biggest struggle that keeps you up at night?

Armbruster: Decentralization of efforts is not uncommon to large universities, and in our case, the sending of email marketing campaigns happens within every college and unit across campus.

There are emails going out to the same constituents from different groups at the same time, and often with duplicate information. One of my challenges is to find a way to coordinate so we don’t send on top of each other, and, ultimately, to target our marketing messages based on constituent behaviors and

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Corey M. Sjoquist Director of Admissions, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

James Capp

Assistant Provost for Academic Operations, Florida Atlantic University

needs rather than what we simply need to get out the door. How we get there is the big question and something that keeps me up at night.

Sjoquist: I find that concerns related to the various student populations we work so hard to recruit wakes me up at night. Did we miss an opportunity or forget to complete a step? Our recruitment strategies for freshmen, transfer, international, multicultural, and non-residents have many moving pieces. Worrying if all of the pieces are moving and working together can wake me from a deep sleep very quickly!

Elaine Armbruster Director of Email Marketing & Marketing Automation, University Marketing, The Ohio State University

Poznanski: Tossing and turning at night can happen for a variety of reasons, but mostly it’s when the numbers are not hitting benchmarks (it could be during the application season or deposit season), and I’m uncertain what to do about it. Luckily, I’ve slept well during most of my career because it’s not fun when the numbers are “down.”

Capp: When admissions decisions start rolling in to students, they understandably can have a tough time deciding where to attend. It’s a big decision that will impact them for the rest of their lives, so we try to be

as supportive as possible while they choose. It is always important to us that we show our prospective students how excited we are for them to become part of the FAU family.

Bennett: We deny more students than we admit, so while I usually sleep fine, I do get troubled by the number of hearts that get broken and dreams that are put ‘on hold’ when we send out our decision letters.

What are some current trends you’re seeing in higher education?

Sjoquist: Coordinated support of the student throughout the student life cycle is gathering more attention.

It is encouraging to see campuses beginning to implement strategies for retention and graduation like those for student recruitment. While additional funding may not be available, identifying ways for faculty and staff to work together and being aware of retention efforts will benefit all students.

Poznanski: Financial pressures on institutions lead to initiatives to reduce expenses such as program cuts and/

or increase revenues such as enrolling international students, initiating online enrollment, or creating new programs.

Armbruster: The most exciting trend I see among higher education marketers is the effort to “catch up” to other industries that are more well-known for innovation. At Ohio State, we’re putting SMEs behind channels—email and social, for example—and not only applying basic industry best practices where we may have been lacking but also dipping our toes into new and emerging technologies and ideas that shift how we approach marketing.

Capp: Public universities are accountable to their governance systems for their performance and outcomes, so we spend an increasing amount of time producing and analyzing data.

This is great because we can share this information with our future students and their parents.

Bennett: There seems to be a universal interest in diversity that is deeper than simply talking about it. We’ve added counselors specifically geared toward inclusion, including a Spanish-speaking counselor.

“This is an exciting time for all levels of education in the U.S. Online education is still evolving and transforming all levels of education.

What that means for the learning/teaching/testing environment: the possibilities seem enormous and endless!”

— Bob Bennett, Senior Associate Director of Admissions at Clemson University

What are some trends you’re seeing in enrollment, specifically?

Capp: The economic recovery has given prospective graduate students more opportunities to pursue a career rather than further their education.

This is a national trend that primarily impacts research universities like ours.

Sjoquist: Our campus is seeing an increased number of high school students exploring options for college credit before high school graduation. The concept is not new, yet the interest is growing—especially as the cost for college and time to graduate appears more frequently in the media. relevate • june 2017

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Bennett: This is an exciting time for all levels of education in the U.S. Online education is still evolving and transforming all levels of education. What that means for the learning/teaching/ testing environment: the possibilities seem enormous and endless! Also, the students we call “international students” come from different countries, have different cultures, and speak different languages. We are trying to recruit them with more vigor, but they all present different needs and perceptions. How each college and university responds to them now, and will in the future is in most recruitment and enrollment discussions.

Poznanski: Changing communication preferences among prospective students – we have to use multiple channels to reach students. Figuring out what works seems to be hit or miss and something that varies from person to person; it could be one of a number of social media platforms, or texts, or calls to a landline, or email, or digital ads, or email. We have to try them all.

How have things changed in regards to recruiting kids over the past 5, 10, and 20 years?

Poznanski: Let me first say that the core need to build relationships with students has not changed over 20-plus years, but the ways in which we do this now is like night and day. The Internet was just emerging 20 years ago, and colleges relied primarily on print communication. Institutions have gradually become more aggressive offering up-front merit aid and have increased average tuition discounts from 20- to 50- percent at private institutions. The decline in high school graduates, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest, has led to more “out of region” recruitment.

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Bennett: The changes have been enormous for those of us who have done this for a while. Most of it has revolved around communication and technology, but affordability and the level of acceptable debt have also come to the forefront of the “critical factors” list for prospective students and their families.

Capp: Parents are more involved than ever before. As a result, we directly promote our offerings to parents.

Twenty years ago, a conversation with a parent might revolve around where a son or daughter is going to school.

Now, the conversation might focus on where “we” are going to school because parents are so involved in the decision-making process. Parents ultimately appreciate our selection of enriching educational experiences – such as our start-up business incubator for entrepreneurial students. They also appreciate our focus on undergraduate research experiences, regardless of the student’s chosen major.

Sjoquist: Parents have become more involved in the admission process each year. Although it is important to engage parents, we must also remember the student and make those connections.

As a parent of four, I want the best for my children; however, it is important for them to be able to advocate for themselves and find a university that fits them best—not one that will impress the friends of their parents.

What are the most significant barriers to successful recruiting?

Sjoquist: We likely overuse the phrase ‘we need more time.’ However, I wish everyone involved could spend more time with the college search. College is a significant investment of time

and money. Looking past the shiny objects to discover what that day-today experience is will help the student move toward success and graduating from college.

Capp: The most promising prospective students are able to shop around amongst institutions, so we have to ensure we are providing them with competitive financial aid packages.

We are working harder than ever to address the overwhelming financial need throughout our state and nation.

Poznanski: Many students simply don’t want to engage with college admission counselors who are trying to recruit them—they don’t want to talk on the phone and don’t pay attention to most of the outbound communications we send. So, the barrier is a lack of attentiveness on the part of students given all of the “noise” coming from colleges and other sources. The cost of college, both perceived and real, is a huge barrier. Far too many students limit their choices on the basis of cost.

Bennett: I don’t think we have any barriers to recruiting, as long as marketing and creative teams continue to imagine new methods and opportunities! Thomas Jefferson wrote:

“As that [speaking of the human mind] becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.” What could better describe what we see all around us? The challenges we face are related to keeping pace and doing so within an ethical framework. But that’s my opinion.

How do you get to “know” kids without actually knowing them?

Capp: When students visit our campuses, they generally love it. We try to ensure face-to-face visits where we can show off our facilities and our engaged faculty members and students. Meeting students in person is still the best way to get to know them.

Sjoquist: Each generation of student has a different level of comfort or expectation when connecting or getting to know a campus. Many of us would not have anticipated the impact of social media. It has introduced a new definition of “friend.” We must recognize that each of the students we are recruiting will have different expectations and how we recruit must be personalized.

Bennett: Students allow us to get to know them if that is what they want. It is well for us to remember that this is their decision, and admission counselors are here to assist them in getting to know us, our institutions. Perhaps there is danger in pretending that we actually know them when we don’t. Students are intelligent, and that’s why we want them to join us at our schools.

Poznanski: Use the information that we do have in communications such as the academic program of interest, the name of their school, their year in school, and so on. Also, we talk with students as much as possible—ask questions and listen.

How do you determine whether your messaging is successful?

Poznanski: Open rates, click-through rates, and the number and percentage of students taking the desired action (registering for an event; completing a form; submitting a deposit; et cetera).

A/B testing whenever practical.

“My personal favorite way to ensure success—within specific campaigns and for long-term learning—is to be methodical about our test and learn strategy. Our audience constantly provides feedback on what is a success… We just have to be set up to track and read the data!”

— Elaine Armbruster, Director of Email Marketing & Marketing Automation for University Marketing at The Ohio State University

Bennett: We used to depend on feedback through direct contact and surveys. And guess what? We still do.

It just so happens that we also have newer tools to digest data through analytics. We capture market-segmented data and a host of additional information that allows us to be more accurate in our assessments. Truly, I think we all need to look at our retention and graduation rates to see if our messaging was on target from the beginning.

Capp: We love to hear directly from our prospective students. We know our messaging is successful when they tell us that they are interested in our neuroscience degree program or honors education, for example, which are both priorities for our institution.

Armbruster: We have a Marketing Analytics team that is constantly getting smarter about tracking all of our efforts in order to set baselines and benchmarks, so we have insight into what campaigns are successful and where we have opportunity. My personal favorite way to ensure success— within specific campaigns and for long-term learning—is to be methodical about our test and learn strategy. Our audience constantly provides feedback on what is a success… We just have to be set up to track and read the data!

Sjoquist: The messaging we use with one student might fail miserably but be an instant success with another.

This keeps us on our toes in student recruitment and reinforces that we can’t use only one approach and expect it to result in the class we were hoping to enroll. Our team in admission has to include individuals with multiple experiences and perspectives so we can connect, be innovative, but most importantly, welcoming.

relevate • june 2017

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pop QUIZ

Q&A with

Joshua Dodson

Joshua Dodson is the Director of Digital Marketing for Bentley University and a teacher at Higheredexperts. com. Since 2011, Joshua has mentored and taught nearly 500 higher education marketing professionals around the world about the effective use of web analytics, predictive analytics, and SEO for Higher Ed Experts. Joshua has led workshops, given keynote presentations, and presented at industry conferences on the above topics and more.

In your Higher Ed Experts classes, do you find that your students (higher ed marketing professionals) are intimidated by web strategy?

Yes, a lot of them start thinking it is very intimidating. When you log into Google Analytics, you see a ton of reports and metrics. It can all be very intimidating at first. So we start by using a shared vocabulary so they can start understanding the nuances of the program and what the reports tell us. Once we are on the same page and have that same vocabulary, we start setting up goals.

And what are the most effective goals for colleges and universities to set when implementing web strategy into their marketing?

You can’t say there’s a one-size-fits-all for every institution, but I can say, broadly, they are focusing on leads such as students signing up to visit campus and sending in applications. Sometimes, if the CRM is set up that you can track further down the funnel, those goals tend to be the key building blocks.

Are some institutions missing the mark when it comes to digital marketing?

I think historically, from what I’ve heard from a lot of folks, is that marketing in higher ed has been very siloed. It’s been very brand specific to a point where it seems as the various departments— marketing, admissions, advancement, and so on—they get separated and aren’t communicating with one another.

But there’s a lot more value in these teams working together.

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Who should institutions be marketing to—the parents or the students?

Most of my focus has been on targeting students, but I definitely think there’s a strong reason to incorporate information for the parent. Even if we are targeting a prospective student, if there is a parent there with them, the call-to-action should be clear and appealing to both the student as well as the parent. It is important to provide a strong experience for the parents.

What are colleges or universities doing wrong in the social space?

The biggest mistake a lot of people make is around the targeting and not setting the appropriate targeting. In my experience, the most effective type of targeting is lookalike audiences. Since it’s a newer type of targeting, a lot of people have not explored it. They’re using demographic targeting, which is fine to start. But with lookalike, if you take your CRM list with good, strong students, and you want similar students, use the list to create targeting.

Is one social channel better than the others?

In my experience, Facebook. It’s the most effective method on the most effective channel.

And how does content marketing fit into all of this?

I know that over the past couple of years content marketing has been a really big buzzword and people are

talking a lot about it.

A real limitation about content marketing is that it hasn’t been very measurable. However, while I was working at Southern New Hampshire University, I implemented SEO-focused tracking.

We factored both short-form content as well long-form into our strategy, and it showed a 67% lift in performance on search engines. My main point is that content marketing is really important, but I’m not sure that everyone who’s doing it is doing it strategically. With SEO, keywords, links, and also the right type of story, they can see an impressive effect.

Lastly, if you had just one piece of advice to give to higher education marketers, what would it be?

O.K., I have two parts to this. Part 1 is that one of the most important things they can do is to establish a consistent strategy for how they’re going to track and measure the performance of their advertising. Part 2 would be to make sure they have end-to-end tracking in place for their CRM. So, essentially, it’s very common for people to set it up to track how many people are creating an inquiry form, but then the data falls off and they don’t see what that person is going to do next. The key is to set up tracking in a way to see how many people are also going on to submit an application, deposit and enroll. Then, looking at which marketing channels contributed in enrolling. I think that’s the biggest missing piece in higher ed institutions.

Joshua will be speaking at eduWeb in August.

INFOGRAPHIC

All Eyes On The Social Natives

Who is Generation Z, and what can we expect from them?

Unlike their predecessors, the millennials, Gen Z is even further down the social media rabbit hole. Enrollment marketers need to find a way to exist in Gen Z’s world— a place where Snapchat is becoming a viable news source.

The U.S. alone has about

65 million

Gen Z is About ofcomprised of half ethnic minorities.

Gen Zers —about 1 in 5 Americans.

About half of Gen Z is

96%

connected online for more than 10 hours per day.

of Generation Z owns a smartphone.

Go online

8

92% 56% daily

several times a day

24%

“almost constantly” prefer to 63% would see social media

influencers aka “real people” in advertisements.

They value authenticity.

seconds Gen Z’s attention span.

5

simultaneous screens: smartphones, TVs, laptops, desktops, and tablets

Sources: VisionCritical, Fung Global Retail & Technology, Ziba Design

69%

of Gen Z thinks ads are disruptive; 83% of those in Gen Z will trust product information shared by other shoppers on social media more than advertising.

88%

of GenerationZ are optimistic about their personal futures

relevate • june 2017

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