It’s finally starting to feel like summer – school is (nearly) out, the days are getting longer and Gen Z is spending more and more time getting to know the newest and hottest trends. As we get deeper into the summer months, let’s take a look back at some of June’s coolest moments… and one that missed the mark.
Apple Vision Pro
Yet another Black Mirror episode has come to life as Apple revealed their $3,499 augmented reality headset, The Vision Pro. When Apple’s advertisement was released at their event earlier this month, people took to social media and memes about the Vision Pro spread like wildfire.
Following the campaign came, of course, the memes, comparing the glasses to swimming goggles amongst other things. Coupled with the release of the new Black Mirror season, Gen Z is buzzing about what their future with technology will look like. And although the press is not all that positive, Apple rarely makes a thoughtless marketing choice, and this internet buzz could be just what this brand needs to launch this new wave of technology.
This has been tried before – in 2013, Google released its own version of this technology called ‘Google Glass’. Though it was met with a lot of praise, it didn’t resonate well with its consumers and Google shut down its production. But could the talk around the Vision Pro convince Gen Z to get behind the merging of VR and the real world?!
AI x Smoothie King
A book about smoothies – is that something we thought we needed? Well, Smoothie King’s newest campaign shows that it’s something we can’t live without!
To promote their returning X-Treme Watermelon flavour, the brand has written a 250-page book using ChatGPT about a budding romance between the characters Millie and Walter Melone (pun intended). Smoothie King recognised the increasing popularity of romance books (and ChatGPT) amongst Gen Zers, with many recommendations spreading through BookTok, a reading community on TikTok. As a result, A Summer Fling to the X-Treme got its own Good Reads page.
All of this attention led up to their National Smoothie Day on 21st June, where anybody using their app got a buy-one-get-one-free deal. Any customer who solved a puzzle at the end of the book got a free smoothie.
Smoothie King was able to hop on the ChatGPT wave and forge a new way for brands to market their products by creating engaging campaigns that catch the attention of a personalised Gen Z audience – we love it!
Pepsi Dig In x Keith Lee
Did you know that 44% of Gen Z consumers want to support more Black-owned businesses (Voxburner, the Student Beans insights agency)?
This month, Pepsi Dig In, an organisation that supports Black-owned restaurants, teamed up with famous TikToker and food reviewer Keith Lee to promote their campaign. Customers were asked to submit their favourite Black-owned restaurants for a chance to win a variety of prizes, with the winning restaurant entering Pepsi’s Restaurant Royalty program.
Keith is infamous for reviewing restaurants and helping them boom in popularity. Many restaurant owners say that Keith’s reviews have saved their businesses and his social media presence brings much-needed attention to their food.
This campaign hopes to boost Black-owned restaurants around the United States and was able to spread quickly due to Keith’s involvement. In other words, the perfect brand-influencer partnership.
McDonald’s x Grimace
Leave it to none other than Gen Z to make a meme out of a McDonald’s drink!
At the beginning of June, the restaurant chain announced that it was launching a meal to celebrate Grimace’s birthday (one of the food chain’s mascots). With this meal came an abnormally purple-coloured milkshake; TikToks of people drinking the shake, then cutting to them ‘dead’ with the drink all over them, are going viral. Comments include people saying they’re waking up in a ‘grime scene’(or crime scene), and that Grimace is a ‘griminal’ for his crimes.
The uniqueness of this campaign is exactly what caught the attention of Gen Z, with the hashtag #GrimaceShake racking over 145 million views on TikTok. The McDonald’s Twitter has also been ‘taken over’ by Grimace and is flooded with birthday wishes for this restaurant icon. It’s a full social takeover!
Baby Barker Announcement
Baby on board! This month, Kourtney Kardashian-Barker announced her pregnancy with a sign at a Blink-182 concert.
Previously, the couple have undergone intense IVF treatment in hopes of growing their blended family. After six months, Kourtney and Travis decided to call it quits with IVF due to the process being too stressful while planning their wedding.
Then, in the middle of June 2023, Kourtney announced to the public, during her husband’s concert (Travis is the drummer in the American rock band Blink-182) that she was pregnant. She took to Instagram that night to post a reel of her holding up a sign that says, “Travis I’m Pregnant”.
The reel of Kourtney holding up the sign, which has about 79.5 million plays, has been circulating the internet and brands are using it as an opportunity to market themselves.
It’s no secret that Kravis is famous for their very public displays of affection – their relationship has sparked some controversy over the last two years due to how they act on The Kardashians. In fact, it’s become so well-known that parody videos and memes about their unique relationship have appeared.
With their pregnancy announcement photo circulating the internet, it is no surprise that brands, like Dutch Bros, have photoshopped the photo to make funny, re-postable ads.
We can’t wait to see all of the upcoming baby content from Kravis. We feel like this is only the beginning…
Barbie and Ken’s DreamHouses
The highly anticipated Barbie movie, directed by Greta Gerwig, is taking the world by storm with all of the creative promotional activity.
Recently, Barbie and Architectural Digest released an in-depth article and video on Youtube, in which Margot Robbie (Barbie) takes viewers on a tour of the beloved Barbie DreamHouse.
Within the last two weeks, the video already has over 7 million views!
The video takes us behind the scenes with Gerwig, Robbie, and the rest of the cast and crew. In the interview, Gerwig goes into detail about her creative process while building this iconic set. The biggest goal for the film was to pull iconic Barbie moments from different eras to ensure that all ages would relate to the movie in some way. After seeing the handmade scenery and the perfect 10 custom shades of pink, it seems like Ms. Gerwig has this film in the bag.
Alexa, please play Barbie Girl by Aqua!
SHEIN Influencer Trip
Is it finally time to cancel Shein? Following their latest stunt, it seems like Gen Z are quickly falling out of love with the fast fashion brand…
Shein recently took a group of influencers, including Dani Carbonari, Marina Saavedra, Aujené, Fernanda Stephany Campuzano, Kenya Freeman, and Destene Sudduth, to visit one of their factories in China. Despite the undeniable proof of Shein’s mistreatment of their workers, the influencers took to their social media pages to say that the conditions were completely safe and that “there are always two sides to every story”. One of the influencers, Dani, was very adamant about how she believed that Shein had done nothing wrong.
Gen Z viewers were livid about her supporting the brand and speculated that Dani was only saying these things because she was getting paid. However, not even two days after posting that reel, the influencer took to Instagram again to apologise and state that she has terminated her contract with the fast fashion brand.
Now, other influencers are retracting their positive reviews about Shein as well. Although they are claiming that they don’t have a desire to work with the brand after seeing the “truth”, viewers are still skeptical about their intentions.
Things are not looking up for Shein and it makes us wonder what the brand’s future looks like. Is there any way to come back from this?
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