One important aspect is how digital marketing techniques were utilised to engage this enigmatic - and previously politically disengaged - generation to assist in the highest youth turnout in voting in decades?
What has been interesting and different in this electoral period is that Labour had an independent support system in ‘Momentum’ - a 20,000-strong nationwide mass member organisation whose primary purpose is to educate and encourage people to vote for a Labour government - and a lot of what they have had to say seems to have worked. They mobilised ‘real’ people and created a hype of positivity to galvanise advocates to join their cause. So, what can we learn from what we’ve seen?
Utilise the ‘power of peers’
What’s more engaging for a young person than a political party urging you to vote? Your friends and peers - people you can relate to and interact with on a daily basis - encouraging you to vote. Gen Z can sniff out party propaganda far better than we might think, but authentic word-of-mouth endorsements carry a lot of clout in an era of social ad saturation.
Momentum provided content and encouraged the conversation, but it was the motivated converts who shared the content within their own circles, and catapulted post reach into the millions.
Bring the campaign to Gen Z
There’s no doubt that taking their canvassing activities to the Gen Z playground of social media platforms helped reach targeted prospective voters, but with Conservatives also using the same spaces, why did one see huge success with the likes of Snapchat filters and ad content whilst the other failed to get traction? Alongside the paid for content, Momentum baked in shareable curated video content - much loved by Gen Z - to accelerate and broaden reach. According to Momentum, a quarter of all UK Facebook users watched a campaign video on their newsfeed in the final week leading up to the campaign.
Speak their language
The content that really captures this generation's attention is playful, clever, funny or relatable. Creating this winning content can often involve a bit of a risk, but when developed with the right emotional triggers has the potential to spread like wildfire. A well-executed piece came from Joe.co.uk involved a blend of popular grime culture, a comedic editing approach, and the delivery of key labour messages - coyly promoting #VoteLabour and #ForTheMany hashtags. The video has had 8.6 million views over 108,000 shares through the Joe.co.uk Facebook page alone.
Be Positive
Momentum’s content strategy focused on a high-frequency delivery of new content every few hours clustered around election day - in the run up, during, and afterwards. Video montages of Labour candidates, primarily the Labour leader, overlain with motivating quotes generated a high engagement in comments and thousands of video shares. Active encouragement to share and speech directed at the viewer induce a feeling of motivation and excitement. Momentum heavily focus on accentuating that it is YOU that made the difference, and that this is just the beginning of what they believe to be a positive change in British politics.
Money isn’t everything
Gen Z are social and digital natives who can spot a paid-media advert from miles away. Not only that, but they’re ad-resistant - and so are less likely than other generations to react to your ads in the way that you want or expect. However, there is hope! Good content, regardless of budget or commercial agenda, that adds value to the consumer will always perform well. Combine the right message with the right publishing strategy and your content will deliver strong returns - pushing your budget further via higher engagement and longer view-through rates.