The New Era of Marketing for Gen Z

The Play by Play 17 – The New Era of Marketing for Gen Z

Hosts: Jack McFarlane & Nick Schlemmer

This week on The Play by Play podcast, Jack McFarlane and Nick Schlemmer are back with a great episode all about marketing to Gen Z. They chat about:

– New job opportunities, income sources, and the influencer culture

– Marketing to Gen Z through TikTok

– The importance of attracting Gen Z workers by offering opportunities for growth and aligning with their values

– Workplace technology and mental health

– Quote of the show

Thank you for joining the show today!  Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!

Transcript follows:

Jack McFarlane 0:05
Hi, everyone, and welcome to the HR Happy Hour Network. This is The Play by Play podcast hosted by myself, Jack McFarlane, and Nick Schlemmer.

Jack McFarlane 0:12
Hey guys, how’s it going?

Jack McFarlane 0:14
Guys, we have a very exciting episode for you today. And kind of a unique one work straying away just for this episode only our unique segments. So you know how we do you know, two or three unique segments and episode we’re going to be doing one overarching theme today. And that theme is marketing for Gen Z, but not get into it. Yeah. Oh, it’s gonna be exciting. But perhaps the most exciting part of this episode will come at the very end, when I heard a little rumor Nick, Did Did you hear this rumor too?

Jack McFarlane 0:46
You know, I heard about this rumor. And hopefully, it doesn’t come true. But I think it’s going to.

Jack McFarlane 0:51
Yeah, I think there’s a high probability. We’ve both heard from multiple sources, that a certain little slim will be stopping by to drop a verse from his debut song near the end of the show.

Jack McFarlane 1:05
Oh, no. Well, we’ll see how this goes, guys. I’m looking forward to it.

Jack McFarlane 1:12
Oh yeah, this is gonna be great. Well, let’s jump right in.

Jack McFarlane 1:22
Alright, we’re gonna jump right in to marketing to Gen Z today. But first, we’re gonna go a little blast from the past. And so we’re going to take it back to what has marketing looked like, for the past couple of decades, really, really, since the millennials got into work, and then now have been running the workforce, as Gen X and baby boomers are starting to retire slash almost are our retire for baby boomers.

Jack McFarlane 1:52
Yeah, so so like you mentioned, we’re taking it back a little bit. And, and one thing to point out is that, in the past, companies tend to target whatever major generation is, quote, unquote, in control, right? Whoever is that top generation? And like you said, right now, it’s probably what Millennials?

Jack McFarlane 2:11
And yeah, millennials and Gen X, like I said, like baby boomers are, you know, in the, in their 60s 70s. Now, so they are pretty much out of the workforce, except for, you know, some outliers. And even Gen Z, the oldest members of Gen Z are eyeing retirement, you know, I mean, like, either retiring early, or they’re, you know, they’re getting close. So a lot of the focus since about, I’d say, the early 2000s, when millennials were about 2021, entering the workforce, most advertisements have been targeting towards them. But that’s just not the case anymore. I mean, in the past year, I’d say specifically, maybe even COVID kickstart this a bit. We’re seeing the switch from millennials to Gen Z advertisements.

Jack McFarlane 3:03
Oh, of course. I mean, like us, you call it the switch? I mean, that’s, that’s perfectly how I would describe it, as well, as we’ve seen this huge change in in the fact that Gen Z is more like, I don’t know how I want to say upbeat, kind of a different vibe in a way that yeah, they’re how they’re trying to our generation. Is that how you would describe?

Jack McFarlane 3:25
Yeah, I would describe it just like that. And based on the research, it says it in a little different way. But it drives the same point. Millennial advertisements, tend to be more saving money, investing money, finding the right deals, like when you watch advertisements from the past 20 years, everything’s like, Oh, look at this price. It’s such a great deal. Or look at this investment app, or this investment opportunity, oh, look at these rates, right. And that’s not necessarily because they’re older, and you know, Gen Z is younger. So we’re not really looking at investment so much yet, that does have a part to play in it. But the studies show that since baby boomers, the number of kids that out earn their parents has just plummeted. And that like the millennials are like the first real generation, that it’s rare to out earn your parents. I believe it was like baby boomers. It was like 90% of kids make more than their parents did. And millennials, it’s about 15% 15-20. Yeah. So they are very geared towards saving money.

Jack McFarlane 4:39
And in on the flip side of that, I feel like Gen Z is going to end up being that generation to where we’re going to try and out outperform our parents in that.

Jack McFarlane 4:49
Yeah. And I think a big part of that is having to deal with, like technology. I’d say there’s such a huge change in technology just all of a sudden, that there’s All these brand new never heard of jobs before that had money,

Jack McFarlane 5:05
The different avenues that you could go to make money nowadays, like, almost anything is on the table, like, different route that you could come up with, you can probably make some kind of money off, it might not be like a living, but you can make.

Jack McFarlane 5:23
But if you do something enough, you know, if you work hard enough at it, you never know. I mean, I always think of like a YouTuber, like how YouTube wasn’t even really a thing 15 years ago, and now, it’s like, I don’t have the exact number. But if you ask like, kids that are like, five to 10 is the range. I think the number one most common job they want to do is a YouTuber, or an influencer? Which is, which just was unheard of a decade ago. Yeah, like, no one’s ever thought you could ever make a living off that. So like, who knows, in 10 years? What new jobs will be that you can just make tons of money from?

Jack McFarlane 6:00
No, yeah, exactly. I mean, like you said, YouTube 15 years ago, it was there. Yeah, it was there. Nobody weren’t. Nobody used it as a revenue or income source.

Jack McFarlane 6:13
It was just like posting a funny, funny video of your cat or something like that, like just something random.

Jack McFarlane 6:20
To now people are making six figures off of posting more videos like more than that for some, but it seems like as soon as you gain those six figure followings on these social media platforms, your the amount of money that you’re able to bring in with Yeah, brand deals in just appearances and all kinds of stuff. It’s just crazy.

Jack McFarlane 6:44
Yeah, like, if you take Mr. Beast, for example, I’m sure everyone our age knows exactly what I’m talking about. If you don’t, he’s a huge YouTuber who does these crazy videos, and he gets what his average goes up all the time. I don’t even know what hundreds of millions of views every video, he gets more than the Super Bowl on almost all his videos. And I saw a thing where an economist tried to estimate the value of his channel and he also has companies now to like festivals, chocolate is huge. Now. He said that it’d be worth about $10 billion for the amount it based on price for a commercial and the Super Bowl, you know, which is millions and millions. And then if you take that number and account it for his views and all these companies, yeah, he’s worth just an unfathomable amount of money.

Jack McFarlane 7:36
He’s like another Elon, Elon Musk, like exactly in the billions range.

Jack McFarlane 7:42
It’s It is crazy. And like part of what they do so successfully, is gearing towards Gen Z like a Mr. B’s video does not gear towards a millennial. I’m sorry. He does not have that in mind when he’s making a video.

Jack McFarlane 8:00
Probably a millennial and then any other generation if me and you showed of his one of his videos to our dads, they would sit there and question what what they’re watching?

Jack McFarlane 8:09
Yeah, like what is it? It’s a lot of, especially his newer videos are a lot of quick. It’s a lot of quickness, you know, like snap decision type things where something will happen for two minutes. And he’s on to the next thing or the next thing on the next thing. Yeah. And I think that has to do with marketing to Gen Z, because that’s exactly how the world is turning to, especially with Tik Tok.

Jack McFarlane 8:36
I couldn’t have said it any better. Tik Tok has quick flips, quick transitions. And if you haven’t been on Tik Tok, it’s short, sporadic videos pretty much get your attention. Hold it for like 20-30 seconds. And then it’s a different video.

Jack McFarlane 8:52
Yeah, and I’m sorry. You’ve been on Tik Tok. Everyone listening, at least knows of Tik Tok. It’s so big at this point. That I don’t know if you could walk into a room of 1000 people and find five that have never heard of tick tock.

Jack McFarlane 9:08
Yeah, like, Yeah, I mean, that’s so true. They may not have used it before. But yeah, they’ve seen it. They’ve heard it. It. Yeah, it’s everywhere.

Jack McFarlane 9:18
Yeah. And it’s like YouTube as well, like, you know, five years ago, tick tock wasn’t even called tick tock. And then during COVID It’s so it was like funny and like, you know, comedy, and now, you can, what tic tock shop is the brand new thing.

Jack McFarlane 9:34
And now there’s a whole Amazon shop kind of.

Jack McFarlane 9:38
It’s like a team who shop embedded into Tik Tok. Yeah. And then like, if you’re if you’re a major company or even a small company, you have a tick tock. You have to advertise on tick tock. If you’re going to be successful in any form of business or marketing. You have to have a tick tock. Yes, it’s almost like having a LinkedIn if you want to network you have to have LinkedIn. If you seriously want to network, if you want to advertise a market to Gen Z, you go on Tik Tok.

Jack McFarlane 10:09
Exactly. It’s the probably the fastest and free is another thing. And free on how to reach Gen Z the quickest.

Jack McFarlane 10:21
Yeah, that is such a good point you bring up, like to guarantee

Jack McFarlane 10:25
that you’re going to reach a lot of people for free.

Jack McFarlane 10:29
Yeah, I mean, think about if you were a company and you wanted to make a commercial. Why would you even do that anymore? You know, like, when was the last time like, seriously, when was the last time you sat down and watched TV? For real? For real would be the last football game last night? I was just about to say if you don’t include football, if I don’t if you don’t include like college football, watching the away game or the home game went late. It’s rare.

Jack McFarlane 10:59
Yeah, I mean, it’s probably it was something with golf in the Ryder Cup. That was Yeah,

Jack McFarlane 11:03
exactly. I have not watched TV. That was not a sports related. Oh, and so long.

Jack McFarlane 11:11
If it’s not sports related, it’s probably been a couple of months since I don’t watch TV.

Jack McFarlane 11:17
Now. Like I would say like, if I’m on vacation and in the hotel room, and there’s a TV like, I’ll turn it on. But I don’t like sit in my room and think oh, what would I do? I want to you know, play video games or go outside or watch TV. I just don’t do that and lot of Gen Z doesn’t do that anymore. Yeah, exactly. And for most of them like today alone, I’m walking around campus. Countless people on Tik Tok just walking, scrolling, scrolling through all you see ever I’m in the library doing homework, I look over someone’s on tick tock like, yeah, this new way to go.

Jack McFarlane 11:51
People just talk about what what do you do in your pastime? Scroll on tick tock. Yeah, I ticked I hate to say it, but scrolling on tick tock is probably most people’s response now.

Jack McFarlane 12:01
100%. And that’s why it’s such a big thing for companies trying to reach Gen Z. I mean, I one huge example right now is the NFL. Right? They have been blowing up their social media because of Taylor Swift. You know, they changed their bio, they changed their profile pictures. They constantly, constantly, constantly, constantly tweet about it. I go on, I have the ESPN app. For people that don’t know me, I really don’t have that many apps on my phone. But I have the ESPN app. And I like to go on there and read sports articles. Right? Well, now I go on there. And every single article is about Taylor Swift at the NFL game, or Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. And I’m like, What is going on? But that directly ties in to marketing to Gen Z with celebrities. Like I know, that’s always been a thing you know, use Excellent. Oh, look. Look at Dwayne The Rock Johnson. He uses this shampoo. You should buy it too. I feel like now it’s evolving to craziness. Honestly. Did you make Did you hear the thing? It was just this last week? At the Chiefs Jets game? They show Taylor Swift on TV. Yeah. And she was wearing some shirt and some jeans. And eating like chicken tenders or something as normal normal every day. Like football game ballpark outfit. Food, right? Yeah, nothing only ordinary. Well, the that specific shirt, or shirts like it slash jeans and jeans that look like it sold out in 10 minutes, and are still sold out to this day. It’s almost been a week, the food ordered everywhere. Everyone ordered that same meal that she had that night just because she had it. Yeah. Which I think is like, and that’s all Gen Z doing that. No Millennials out there looking at Taylor Swift. I need that shirt right now. No, yeah, it just shows you the impact that a celebrity like Taylor Swift has on culture. Yeah. It’s crazy.

Jack McFarlane 14:18
And in like, extending on that point, sometimes it’s not even now she’s really prominent, like you said, but another huge one that we all know I’m sure Deion Sanders. Oh, coach, press coach prime. Every single I’m seeing B Dubs commercial coach prime

Jack McFarlane 14:37
Allstate commercial. Right. It’s like

Jack McFarlane 14:42
every single commercial, especially if it’s a game day. He’s in it. And I just think they’re using that you said they’re using celebrities to reach Gen Z and to get their attention. Yeah, to get them to spend money. Exactly. Like it’s an it’s a celebrity effect that Gen Z just can’t not get enough of.

Jack McFarlane 15:01
Yeah, I mean, Coach prime is such a good example. Especially because like, you know, Taylor Swift is definitely targeted more towards the females, right? Yeah. But Coach prime is more of a male like, yeah, it’s like, I don’t It’s like someone planned for this to happen. Oh, we’re gonna have Taylor Swift gets super power for the girls coach prompts for the guys, and we’re going to sell them everything we can. I don’t know the exact number of how much money that coach prime has brought in to Colorado. Do you know the exact number? It’s an insane amount of money that a program that has very little history is getting like it’s getting the most coverage in the nation? Yes. When was the last time you saw a Georgia highlight tape? The number one team in the nation, a Michigan highlight tape? I haven’t even seen I haven’t seen one. We haven’t even seen that except OUT WATCH eight different stories about Coach prime getting blown out by Oregon, or keeping a close with USC. And it’s just crazy.

Jack McFarlane 16:07
The celebrity effect is it’s here to stay. Yeah, it will be a part of marketing going forward. Yeah, it’s only gonna grow. It’s it’s only going to grow and evolve. And I’m curious to see who’s the next Right, right. Who’s gonna be the next one. Taylor Swift, Dion. Who’s next?

Jack McFarlane 16:28
It’s so unpredictable. Who would have predicted that? See Taylor Swift you could predict right? She’s Yeah, was famous, has a big fairing following. And now she’s like Mega, super famous Beatles famous. Yeah, Coach prime, I would have never predicted ever that Deion Sanders would have been the most popular male celebrity right now. Yeah. So Yeah, who knows? You got any predictions and your predictions next, next next one up.

Jack McFarlane 16:57
I honestly, don’t you put me on the spot. I don’t. Yeah, no, I know that, but I don’t know.

Jack McFarlane 17:01
I don’t know. I really don’t know. Yeah, it’s so unpredictable. It’s so important.

Jack McFarlane 17:07
But like you said, everything is evolving. Tic tock the business world Gen Z, it’s all flowing together in this big circle is just rotating. And who knows where, where we’re gonna end up?

Jack McFarlane 17:22
Yeah, exactly. Who knows. I think that’s what you can take away. It’s who knows what’s gonna happen? Nice. Well, I say we take a quick break right there. And when we come back, we’re gonna hit you with the business side of marketing towards Gen Z.

Jack McFarlane 17:39
Welcome back, guys, we are moving on to the second half of our show. And me and Jack, we’re going to be turning into college professors, Jack and Nick, because we’re gonna be teaching all you guys about the business side of Gen Z and marketing and how to recruit Gen Z into working into your own company and our field.

Jack McFarlane 18:00
Yeah, exactly. So some background, when we’re doing the research for this, we found a lot about marketing. And the basic sense like, like a store marketing to you to come shop, you know, advertisements. We also wanted to find like, what are companies doing to recruit Gen Z workers? Because, you know, we’re starting to graduate. We’re starting to take over the workforce, what are companies doing to recruit? I see, would think there’d be a lot out there on it. But guess what, there’s nothing out there on it minimal? Yeah. So like Nick said, we are going to be telling you what companies should be doing, if they are wanting to recruit Gen Z workers.

Jack McFarlane 18:42
Yep. And I’d say some of the main things are is just attracting us with ability to grow. And what the culture offers is huge.

Jack McFarlane 18:56
I think that’s a great place to start. Yeah, culture. Gen Z is very focused around values. I’ve learned in my business class, we had this huge assignment that was just about finding what are your values? And how do those affect you in your everyday life and it really shows you that each person is very driven by their values, even if you don’t realize it, and and I was reading a study just based on Gen Z, not necessarily in business, just Gen Z alone, and they’re very value driven more so than millennials. And Gen X.

Jack McFarlane 19:28
Yeah. And in adding on to your point, you called it values. I actually had something in class too. And we called it finding your why your why why are you doing this? Why are you moving forward in this in that’s, that’s what Gen Z is looking for? If they can find a company to where, hey, this matches kind of what I’m thinking like how evaluating what’s my why perfect, it’s gonna be a great fit.

Jack McFarlane 19:52
Yeah, that yeah, it’s a huge driving factor, just like you said, I mean, I don’t know if it’s exactly number one because everyone It’s different, right? Everyone’s some people are solely money based. They don’t care what they’re doing. They’ll do it for the right price. But some people are definitely, and I’d say more so than others are value based and want to be doing something that they like and something that they think is very contributing to society can get in a positive way.

Jack McFarlane 20:22
Yeah, something that can help them grow into their career.

Jack McFarlane 20:27
Exactly. So yeah, like, if I was a company, like, if I were to give you guys advice, listening, if you were trying to recruit Gen Z, I would say, set up a way that you can have some sort of initiative, or some way of almost giving back to the community that you’re in. Right? So if you were like a store, and like a local store, you could say, Well, hey, if you come work for us, on the corporate side, you know, we donate a percentage of everything sold in the store to charity, we want to once a quarter we go out and do community work and stuff like that, that will really attract young workers to your business into your corporate or just like if it was a store working in the store, you know, that is a huge driving factor.

Jack McFarlane 21:14
No, I mean, I couldn’t agree with that more I was if you if you weren’t going to mention that I was gonna mention having some kind of a meaning. And then a community make it feel like it’s a community, not just a nine to five sit down. And I get it like those jobs, they’re always going to be there, right? Yes, they’re never gonna go away. But to attract more of our generation, we’re looking for something different. Exactly. Every day doesn’t have to be different, but make it sound more meaningful. and things of that nature.

Jack McFarlane 21:46
Yeah, and being different. That’s another huge thing. Kind of like what you set with nine to five, a lot of Gen Z workers, and a lot of young people are looking for more of them. I mean, you’re always gonna have a boss, right? There’s always gonna be someone in charge, but they’re looking more of like a team effort where the boss is also involved. Like, they don’t want to go into a job where to get to the head guy, you have to talk to your boss, and they have to talk to their boss, and then their boss, and then their boss. And we’re like, it almost feels like your voice just isn’t being heard.

Jack McFarlane 22:18
Yeah. And and what they call that, I believe, is the open door policy. Yes, yes. Each person on that ladder of hierarchy is it’s always open, always open to hear your voice. That’s like you said, that’s

Jack McFarlane 22:32
another huge thing. Having our voices be heard. Yeah. An input or a question. We’re not afraid to ask it. Exactly. Yeah, open door policy. Like if you were the I would advertise that like crazy. If you’re like, hey, come work for our company, we are very open to our policy forward. Like, if you had to go to the CEO to ask a question. Go for it. Now, it doesn’t have to be an extreme that is a lot, especially in a big company. But you get the idea. Like, definitely communication is key.

Jack McFarlane 23:03
Yeah, it’s more so that just the, the opportunity for that to happen, is still able to happen. It’s not like, like you said, you got to talk to this manager. Who’s got to talk to that. Who’s got this?

Jack McFarlane 23:16
Yeah, it’s like, you’re not necessarily gonna talk to your super high a boss every single day. But if you needed to, you could.

Jack McFarlane 23:25
Exactly. And another changing topics here, but another huge thing that I think Gen Z is looking for. And let me know what you think on this to Jack is work life balance?

Jack McFarlane 23:35
Yes, that’s huge. Yeah. Yeah, I know, Nebraska. We talked about it a lot last year. Here at Utah. We’ve talked about it a lot. So I know. It’s not just one school. Yeah, I’m gonna have a curve. It’s all Gen Z. Especially I think due to COVID. Because you know, you’d be working online, and you get everything done. And that was it. You got done in three hours you got done in three hours. And then you could go hang out with your family or go outside. You have a life balance. Exactly. And yeah, it’s self explanatory. You know, the work life balance, you want to be able to do other things not work 90 day, and

Jack McFarlane 24:15
now is for me, and Jack’s perspective is in Gen Z as well. We’re not asking for 10 hour work weeks, and for us not 30 vacation days like not to have our full time jobs, but having the ability to still have life outside of work. Especially if it’s just a start of your career kind of thing to where it doesn’t have to take over your full entire day. If you’re in a specific field, the doctor working towards that like, okay, it’s gonna take a lot of time, right? Yeah. But sometimes just having something there to kind of balance that out for Gen Z is going to be really a huge factor.

Jack McFarlane 24:54
Yeah, like if you were at a career fair, and you had two booths and they were the same industry, everything But once said, we give you a very good work life balance, we make sure that you’re not working nine to five every day, you get different hours, flexible hours, and then what companies like now your nine to five, five days a week? which one you’re gonna choose? Exactly. And every single Well, maybe not every single I’d say 99% of Gen Z would choose the flow hours.

Jack McFarlane 25:21
Yep, yep. And it’s even just companies like, even if companies think that they are her own word this, that they are marketing that we have great work life balance, without actually having that in your quote, unquote, like flyer or article or whatever it may be, like, that’s one of your key values. That’s going to either like take that will hinder. Yeah, it’s going to hinder it, even though you probably have great work life balance, work life balance. But if it’s not there to be seen, as far as like getting somebody into the door. Yes. It’s going to make a great point.

Jack McFarlane 26:00
Yeah, like if you were on Indeed, or another job website, and you were looking for a job. And it didn’t immediately say, in one of the first few items that there’s a good work life balance, and you wouldn’t even click on it. Even if it was lower down. Even if it was way at the bottom. No one will not know it. But a lot of people won’t even click on if they don’t see it as one of the first few things because it’s such a big deal nowadays. Yeah. And then this maybe isn’t as big of deal work, like work life balance. But I think it’s in the same category. Now the online work like that has really exploded with along with online school that we talked about the other week. Yeah. And it’s not necessarily as sought after. As work life balance will be like you want work life balance, even in your online job. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, online, if you have some sort of program that you can implement, especially if like you were wanting a corporate job, like someone to work at a computer all day, if you could make that job, an online job, you would get a lot more traction from Gen Z workers. Because they’d be like, well, you know, what, it is a corporate job. You know, I’d have to do my computer a lot that at least about my own house. Yes. Yeah. So that’s another huge shame. And you could advertise.

Jack McFarlane 27:16
And to that point to like, even if, if Gen Z is just starting in their careers, right. Even if a company is not able to make it fully online, just even fifth half of the time, you’re able to work from home, we have to come into the office, like if it’s just from home normal work, but if there’s second meeting or whatever, you got to come into the office that’s still like.

Jack McFarlane 27:42
Like that’s a huge draw for a lot of younger workers, is that online option? And it’s kind of like the open door, like, even if they don’t do it originally, they want that option to be there in case something happens. Yeah. Or they find out, you know, I hate going into the office every single day. I want to go in every other day, you know. So that’s another big thing. And then I’d say finally, the last major thing that I can really think of is marketing with technology and kind of towards technology. A lot of Gen Z, has grown up with some sort of technology for almost our whole life phones, computers, laptops, TVs.

Jack McFarlane 28:23
Yeah, we’ve kind of had the beginning of advanced technology. Yeah. For a whole life pretty much.

Jack McFarlane 28:30
Yeah, so Gen Z is very good. It’s better than any other generation with technology, just with everyone being able to use it. So not even necessarily like the advanced stuff, you know, you’d still have to teach and train but just basic understanding of technology, if you have some sort of way that you can show, hey, look, our company, you know, we don’t we don’t even use notebooks here. You know, you work for us, you get a Surface Book. And that’s how you take notes in a meeting and stuff or anything like that. I always think of Have you ever seen the Google like office campus, I think they have a whole campus for their offices I’ve seen, they’ve got like, cool standing desks, they have giant touchscreen was like they have you can like be on the treadmill while working like they have all these cool technology options that you can do during your everyday life. And that is a huge draw. I mean, Google hires a lot of young writers. Yeah. Yeah.

Jack McFarlane 29:32
I mean, just just hearing about that from you makes me think that sounds awesome. Right? Yeah. Technology makes the the workplace environment.

Jack McFarlane 29:46
I don’t know what to say it makes it so much more. I don’t even know if the moderns the word. Yeah. That’s a good word for it. Like it’s so much more modern or different and it brings a vibrant, yeah, it brings a whole new aspect to work. Exactly. It’s not your Like, stereotypical, you’re gonna know sit in a cubicle with no natural sunlight and just stare at a computer screen all day. Yeah, you know, it gives a lot of life to work. That is like probably how I describe work. Yeah, it gives you an Yeah, life to work at. So if you have your own company, or you know, you’re really looking to market towards Gen Z, you could just, and it’s the simple things, you don’t have to go out and get a huge wall that is touchscreen circuit, everyone’s surface books, if you can just come up with a few ways to kind of switch it up a little bit. And just implement some little technologies. Like a lot of people like standing desk, or I like the treadmill idea. I think that’s awesome. Like you could be, it’s got like a screen built into it and bring like a workout clothes. And you know, you can be on your meeting while on a treadmill or something like I think that’s awesome.

Jack McFarlane 30:49
Yeah. And I mean, even into, like the bring it back to like early technology, becoming involved with work, right? No more checks or pay stubs, it’s online, right. So having that having like clocking in and out of work, just through your phone technology, just sampling, which is so minimal, most people would probably just look right by it. But in Gen Z, it’s like, okay,

Jack McFarlane 31:17
that’s a huge draw,

Jack McFarlane 31:18
like, oh, I can use my phone, I can see my paycheck, I can see my hours, I can see everything, I don’t have to like, look at the charts and look at a pay stub and all that.

Jack McFarlane 31:27
Yeah, I know for just for me, like at my current job right now we like the way that we clock in is very, our, let me put it this way, our system of you know, checking out is from 2007. Okay, there’s a lot of things that just are slow and are not needed. And clocking is one of them. We have to you know, write down in a really weird, it’s like military time mixed with decimals is the best way I describe it, it’s very inefficient. The one nice thing though, is we can you know, we use paychecks. So we can get our information on the phone, which is incredible, because I do not want to sit there and look through all the papers, you write in my our standard calculator like that, it’s, it’s crazy. So if, if I had the option to stay here, or go to a similar job that had a much newer system, then I would lean towards that other one, just based on the technology alone.

Jack McFarlane 32:27
And, and this kind of brought me up to it made me think of something else to that kind of the work life balance slash having some sort of a mental health and good resources available for for incoming employees in like current staff. Having good, like health resources is going to is very important.

Jack McFarlane 32:50
I’m sure everyone knows, like you hear about mental health all the time. Now how, and it’s not just a Gen Z thing, everyone though, that’s mental health becoming a trend in generations. I just think Gen Z is pushing a lot. And so if you could offer up some sort of support system where, hey, if you’re really having a bad day, you know, you can stop in to the company therapist’s office and just vent for five minutes, even. You know, that would be huge draw. All right. Well, I think our lectures just about over. So if anyone has any questions, please feel free to reach out to us. Like we would love to talk more, more about this. But sadly, we don’t get paid enough to lecture for eight hours by the school district of H3 HR.

Jack McFarlane 33:33
This is not quite the full time job. Yeah. But like Jack said, We love we would love to hear from you guys. Any questions?

Jack McFarlane 33:40
We would anything? Let us know. Yeah, that’d be great. And we’re just gonna take one more quick break. And I gotta say, I think little slim might have just pulled up to the studio here. We might be hearing from him here when we come back to it.

Jack McFarlane 34:00
Well, guys, it is now that time. If you remember last episode, we had a game time. And if Nick lost the game time, he had to do a punishment. And Well, lo and behold, he came close. It was very close for game. And he did end up losing and that punishment was I’m going to give him a topic and he’s going to have to write a little verse rap rhyme poem and sing it on this episode today. So guys, I gave him this topic, and it was random. His topic was cowboy hats. So we’re gonna welcome for his debut song, a verse from his debut song, little swim. Take it away.

Jack McFarlane 34:42
All right. Thank you for having me on the show. We, as Jack said, I lost the last game time so I’m here with the punishment. Now I am not I just wanna put this out there. I am not really written that guy. I’m Putting a song together was it was a struggle. And for whenever I got the text that it was about cowboy hats, I said oh boy, this is this is gonna be fun.

Jack McFarlane 35:10
Yeah so just remember this for when it wins a Grammy though. Okay, that’s all I got

Jack McFarlane 35:20
so, here we go, Jack, how about this? Give me a countdown and I will start singing this verse.

Jack McFarlane 35:29
Let’s let’s do it. Are you ready?

Jack McFarlane 35:33
I am ready. Yeah. And just to remind we’re talking about I had to include something cowboy hat

Jack McFarlane 35:39
so yes. All right, here we go. In 321 go.

Jack McFarlane 35:47
Way out west where the corn don’t grow and then tumbleweeds flow and the red dirt roads. Cowboys be doing their thing you already know tip in their caps. What do you call that? A cowboy hat? Oh my gosh.

Jack McFarlane 36:06
Little Schlem in the house.

Jack McFarlane 36:08
Oh, man. I felt like a rapper there for a second. That was incredible.

Jack McFarlane 36:13
That blew my expectations out of the water. That’s a Grammy song. That is a Grammy song right there.

Jack McFarlane 36:22
That’s the main chorus. We have more.

Jack McFarlane 36:24
There we go more content soon. That was impressive. That was so good.

Jack McFarlane 36:33
For everybody listening. I was absolutely terrified too, just saying that.

Jack McFarlane 36:40
I’m sure everyone agree with me. That was very good. This is not something that I gave Nick. Five days to come up with. I told him this an hour ago. I wanted it to be a challenge. I mean, it’s a punishment. And you knocked it out of the park. That was incredible.

Jack McFarlane 36:57
I’d say it was fun. I’d say cowboy hats!

Jack McFarlane 37:00
It’s a little Schlem!

Nick Schlemmer 37:01
That’s right.

Jack McFarlane 37:05
Oh that was great. Jam.

Jack McFarlane 37:08
Now for the final way we always end the show the quote of the show,

Jack McFarlane 37:12
got to love it.

Nick Schlemmer 37:14
Got to and recapping today, we talked about everything Gen Z in the marketing aspect and also corporate aspect with hiring and recruiting. And we just talked a little bit about football and Taylor Swift Sorry, sorry to mention that. Yeah, and she is today’s quote of the show. This is directly from Taylor Swift.

Jack McFarlane 37:38
Little Schlem is a Swifty?

Nick Schlemmer 37:40
I am Swifty but Taylor said if you’re lucky enough to be different if you’re lucky enough to be different don’t ever change and I just think that goes great with Gen Z is this change from what we’ve seen? Everybody’s different right? Yep if you’re lucky that’s perfect different don’t ever change.

Jack McFarlane 38:05
Yeah, I think that is a great way to go right there that’s a great quote always delivering you delivered with the music you delivered with a quote it was like good episode today with you Nick.

Nick Schlemmer 38:17
I had a blast guys thank you for tuning in. I mean Jack, I enjoy doing this I know we say that every week but we truly mean it.

Jack McFarlane 38:24
It is really yeah, if you guys want to reach out to us feel free especially about you know, marketing towards Gen Z, we will help you in any way even if it’s just a simple message we can get back to you. So thank you once again for listening guys.

Jack McFarlane 38:44
Thanks for tuning in. Bye for now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai