GEO, Gen Z, and the Power of Unserious Marketing

Speakers: Katie Flynn, Heather Riexinger

silly to introduce you these days, Heather, Rexinger, VP of– but is it client services now, or is it strategy and planning? Client services and strategy.

I’m going to say. Because we changed the department name. So I didn’t know if we followed suit. I probably should know that. But anyways, welcome back. Thank you. Thank you.

So we’re going to do some kind of current events. We’ve been gathering for these last few weeks to talk about a few things that tie to the things we do every day. But first, I feel it’s important that we close the loop on the Will Taylor Swift be playing the Super Bowl speculation. I was pretty sure. I felt pretty sure. But did you see that she was on Jimmy Fallon on Monday?

I read a bunch of reports that she was going to do it, but then that came down to ownership of the rights to the footage of it, which NFL Films needs to own. But then she just kind of pretended like no one ever really

told her. I think she also said–

which I actually think is valid.

Travis’s last year playing, let’s focus on that. I don’t need to be worried about my choreography while I’m trying to go watch my fiance’s game, which I actually think is sweet. She would take all the attention.

Yeah, except for– Jeeps aren’t going to the Super Bowl. There’s my next prediction.

OK. Well, my husband is now convinced that the Patriots are going to win our division because they won one game. He’s like, oh, we might have a chance. I was looking at the schedule, and we’re up against some not great teams. All right. We’ll see. I don’t feel as confident. All right, well, actually, speaking of sports, we are going to talk really briefly– I’m just going to read two summaries of campaigns that have come up in September and October that had sort of a key theme associated with them, which was catering to the Gen Z audience. So first up, Nike introduces its new tagline, “Why Do It?” following 40 years of “Just Do It.” The new tagline shifts the focus from action alone to purpose and intention, specifically aimed at the younger generation. It challenges young athletes to reflect on why they start. It frames greatness not as something given, but something chosen with every step forward.

And it’s a star-studded campaign. I think you had sent it my way a few weeks ago.

There’s LeBron, Kaitlyn Clark.

Is it Scottie Shuffler? Who’s the golfer in it?

Might be Scottie. I haven’t seen it in a few weeks. I forgot who’s in it.

But it’s a big campaign. They did a really nice job with it. Lots of different variations. It was all over social.

And then the second one we were going to note as well is MarketWatch, so totally different area in the financial services space, debuts first brand campaign called “Don’t Short Yourself.”

The financial news publisher is rolling out neon green ads to target Gen Z with tongue-in-cheek taglines, such as “Make sure your kids are nepo babies,” or “AI can’t take your job if you’re already retired.” The creative was developed by agency Mother, and it leans into an irreverent tone and a bold aesthetic evocative of the brat aesthetic the dominated 2024 with that lime green and black. So two brands doing it very differently, but leaning into Gen Z. So what are your thoughts?

Yeah, I think it’s really interesting how they’re catering so far into Gen Z, which I love, because they’re not trying– especially MarketWatch– they’re not trying to tow the line of multiple generations. They’re going all in on Gen Z with that campaign. They’re targeting other generations in other areas. But I think what is really interesting there is they’re leaning into the same insight across the campaigns that there’s a lot of cringe culture going on in Gen Z and perfectionism, where other generations, there’s always been anxiety, and people want to succeed. But Gen Z is almost more afraid to fail than they want to succeed. So they don’t want people to see them in a certain light. So even something like this podcast where I cringe when I post on LinkedIn, I’m like, ugh. But why do it? Because who knows? A new client might come our way, or someone might say, wow, that’s really interesting, and we can start a conversation. So the Nike positioning is really interesting, because Just Do It has been around for so long that to shift could cause issues in their perception. But I think their brand is so strong. And it’s such a slight shift that it’s not going to take away from their current audience.

And Nike has a lot of competition coming in right now. So they need to lean hard into Gen Z and take away from a lot of the new entrants, like the Lululemons of the world, that they weren’t competing against with some of the older generations.

Yeah, and they obviously– this is another thing we talked about yesterday, but they just launched that collab with Skims. It’s called Nike Skims.

So I personally think that’s aimed a little bit more at millennials. But as you’re saying, they’ve got different collaborations, different campaigns out there going after different groups, which I think is really smart. For years and years, it’s been you need to have a more personalized approach. I think what is wonderful about Nike ads is you can recognize them in no time at all. They’ve done a lot of brand awareness over the years. It’s not as much focused on product.

And so it became extremely recognizable. But I also think it’s nice to be like, let’s highlight this specific group, or let’s make sure that this is resonating with this other group in a way that’s different than before.

Exactly. I think you bring up a great point about both campaigns as well, is that they target an outcome, not a product. So MarketWatch is targeting your financial strength. It’s not talking about their publications, and the call to action is not subscribe today. It’s very much so brand awareness. It’s very brand awareness. Same thing, Nike has constantly been brand awareness. They have a lot of lower funnel campaigns running as well.

But Nike has always been more about that feeling of success and that Nike gives you rather than talking about the specifics of a product or the materials.

Yeah, and you know what I think is interesting? So they’re kind of playing on this idea of like, well, why do it? Because why not? What if something amazing happens? And I guess there was a part of me that was like, there are these perceptions out there, whether they be right or wrong, sometimes that Gen Z is a little less self-motivated is kind of what you hear. And they said the same thing about millennials. It’s not like this is anything new. But I was like, I wonder if I were a Gen Z, if that’s how I would hear that, or if I would find it to be kind of like a rally cry, like a call to action. I think it has a nice payoff in the

But it did get me thinking. I’m like, oh, are we leaning into this, like you’re being kind of lazy thing?

Yeah. Well, it’s interesting. I haven’t seen any sales results because it just came out a couple of weeks ago. But it will be interesting because it immediately hit me. And I went, wow, what a great spot. But I’m a millennial borderline Gen X. So it’s interesting

shift. And I think I immediately saw the insight behind it. And that’s why it resonated so well with me because I thought it was very well done from a marketing perspective. But it’d be interesting to see how it carries across.

Yeah. Well, and I think to that point, the imagery associated with the Market Watch campaign is funny. There is a basically like rhinestone pacifier on this really bright background that I’m sure if you were just like walking by without any context, you’d be like, what the heck is this? But I think to the point of Gen Z being so irreverent,

there’s always comments on TikTok and Instagram of them being like, oh my god, our generation is so unserious because of the stuff that goes out on social. And I think they did a nice job of playing into that, of like, no, we’re not trying to sound like some like super buttoned up, like historic financial brand, even though we’ve been around for 30 years. We’re really trying to just like have a little fun.

Exactly. And Nike even– the voiceover on the Nike spot is Tyler, the creator. And he giggles a little at the end of it. So it almost is that traditional very serious Nike tone. And then it ends with a little bit of unseriousness to tap into that as well. Both are very, very well done. And I wish I would have worked on it. Yeah.

I mean, it’s always helpful when you can tap into a real insight like that. And just working on campaign level work, it’s just so much fun.

We’re going to take a big turn. Because our second story, sort of topic, if you will, is really about generative engine optimization, which I will be referring to as GEO so that I don’t trip over my words 400 times. But we’ve been talking a lot about that. I think we’ve even talked about it here on this podcast.

And kind of like how to stay ahead of it. Because there are a lot of clients who are worried about it, especially clients who have big PPC and SEO programs already in place. And I think the good news is, GEO is sort of like this almost convergence of those two coming together. So if you have a solid foundation that’s going to bode really well for you, but there’s like little nuances that have been coming out that we’re learning as we go. So just going to read through a couple of things.

There was a Fast Company article that came out, I think two weeks ago on GEO. And they had some interesting stats. So Chat GPT use has doubled since 2023, which is quite a bit. I mean, even then we were all in total awe of it. But obviously, it’s not only for assistance with writing emails and those types of things, which I think a lot of us now are using often. But it’s a lot of searches. So people are typing in what’s the best laptop in 2025, or looking for restaurant recommendations because they’re taking a trip to Austin, Texas.

And they’re using things like that. So in addition, referrals from Chat Box are up 357% year over year, which is huge. That’s a lot.

And now, many people are using the AI summary at the top,

more so than even clicking into any of the links below, where it was always like you wanted those coveted top 10 spots, even really top three above the fold, if you will. And now, it’s like you don’t even get a chance. So you really want to be written up in the summary. And so there’s a couple of things that this particular author recommends doing that, in my opinion, are just very close to web SEO stuff. So first, technical quality of the company’s website. So that is your SEO principles, making sure that you’re keeping up with those.

The content that it publishes, so again, making sure that you’re putting new stuff out there, that it’s keyword dense, all of those things.

Also that it’s scannable from a chat bot perspective, like listicles and bullets and things like that seem to do very well. And then the last thing is the overall strength of the brand. So the stories that you are telling about yourself, as well as others are telling about you, so press coverage, social media success, online reviews, industry accolades, and awards. But what I thought was interesting about this is this article is kind of saying

you can trick the chat bots a little bit in the brands. But also that if a chat bot makes up their mind about you, it is very difficult for you to change. Yeah, basically, it’s like you are out of luck unless a new LLM comes out and informs a different opinion, which I think is so funny. It’s like we’re basically saying, yeah, Gemini is really opinionated, so you want to make sure you’re in there.

But it was also talking about how– and we’ve heard about this for years. You do have to be careful with verifying and fact checking the content that comes out, because that’s not what these crawlers are doing. They’re kind of taking it at face value. So to some extent, that’s great as a brand, because if you put enough rich content out there, you can really kind of convince the chat bot that you are what you say you are. But also, it’s more challenging because everybody has that opportunity to do it.

Yeah, and I think what’s really interesting to that point is if it’s formed an opinion about you,

it’s pulling heavily from Wikipedia, YouTube, Reddit, which you need to be paying attention to your perception. So you can write and say you are whoever you want to be, but your audience really needs to feel the same way, because if everyone’s saying something different,

AI is going to figure out whatever it feels,

the audience perception is.

So a couple bad seeds can really ruin it for a brand.

Yeah, which is very scary. I mean, obviously, that happens anyways. And with the speed of the internet and all of the things and the news cycle, things go away quickly. But I guess not Gemini or one of the others is making up their mind. And the other thing, this seems like a very small thing

in practice, but just got to make sure that your site isn’t blocking crawlers, because many years ago, we all did that. Yeah, and I think– No, we need to reverse it.

I know. And consistent messaging, too, because that’ll– if you don’t have consistent messaging in places, it’ll get confused.

Yeah, but it’s interesting. I feel like Google put out an article about GEO and SEO earlier this year, which was basically like let’s– the same principles apply. Just keep doing it. But I do think people are going to figure out more and more as they play with it, like individual practitioners who really dedicate some time into doing research.

And yeah, I’m interested to see how you’re able to then adjust SEO and PPC, because the other thing is are paid– and I don’t know if we know this yet, but I wonder if paid search programs are going to become a little less effective if people aren’t making it past that initial summary, or if they are no longer using traditional search vehicles like Google or Bing, and they are going straight into Chat GPT or another LLM.

So yeah, it’s one to watch. And I think the big takeaway that I keep getting from a lot of these articles is it’s a piece of the pie. We say with everything else, we don’t just run one tactic in a campaign. Now it’s SEO, PPC, and GEO. So you’ve really got to be paying attention across all of these and having them work together and making sure that the messaging across everything is consistent.

But I do find the zero click really interesting.

I’ve always– you’ve got to Google your own name once in a while to see what shows up for you, right? And I’ve now started Googling Flynn just to see how they feel about us. And it’s really interesting because we obviously have a positive– Obviously. Obviously. We’re seeing as very positive in there. But I think that’ll be interesting to watch as brands go further to see for unknown entities. So a company like us who we fly under the radar for agencies, it’ll be interesting to see if that adds validity as people are doing searches for brands if GEO is in that zero click space. AI is saying, yeah, this is a really reputable brand and people love it and have seen a lot of success using this product or working with this company if that helps to persuade people more so even than what they’re paying to push out there or put on their website.

I certainly think it’s possible. And I do believe I shared this anecdote the last time we were talking about GEO. But we actually got a prospect who reached out to us on our website because they said they were looking for a family-owned agency that works in health care, specifically in a diagnostic space. And we showed up because of the content of our website, which was great to hear. We must be in favor of whatever LLM that is.

But yeah, I mean,

would hope that it’s going to become a larger piece of the strategy, to your point. I’m kind of waiting for whatever the new word– remember when like Omnichannel became a thing and everyone was like, OK, that just means like, integrated? There’s so going to be a word for SEO, GEO, and PPC together.

I know. And I stumble on all of them. We should probably invent that. I know. We should just come up with whatever we call it. It’ll be proprietary to Flynn.

I love a proprietary solution. No, we don’t have any of those.

But yes, I am really interested to see where it goes. And another thing that I found interesting in an article I was reading about GEO is AI likes Bing more than the average human does. So I don’t know that I’ve gone to Bing other than to test campaigns and things like that for ourselves here.

I don’t use it as a consumer. So it’s really interesting and just a piece to keep on top of is not only how is Google ranking you, but where do you stand in Bing?

I think that’s very audience specific though too, because we work with a lot of older audiences and we have a decent split between Bing and Google because they are there.

So yeah, that’ll be interesting to see how that evolves too. And I actually couldn’t even speak to like,

does Bing have summaries at the top of theirs as well, AI summaries? I should know, but I don’t. My computer died, so it like restarted in the midst of this. So I can’t tell you either, but we’ll do some research and

we’ll come back.

Yeah, no, I think it’s just interesting and evolving.

Yeah, we’ll stay on top of it. All right, Heather, well, I think that’s everything that we had today. Any other last parting wisdom?

No,