Recent industry research shows a change in how Generation Z discovers and purchases technology products. Many Gen Z buyers depend on creators, seen as ‘real’ people producing honest reviews and real-world demos. So how should brand owners adapt marketing, operations, and measurement methods when trust has moved from institutional branding to individual creators and community?
Why it matters for enterprise brand strategy
Gen Z makes up a big portion of world consumers with their spending influencing what becomes mainstream. If a brand leans heavily on traditional promoting, they risk losing relevance with younger consumers. Creator-led content can deliver high engagement and conversion at lower cost compared with broadcast-style campaigns. For marketing teams, that might be an efficiency and value win.
Creators as gatekeepers
Discovery through social platforms, not search or media
A 2025 report found that over 50% of Gen Z consumers say they find products primarily via social media, not serps or traditional media. For instance, over half cited TikTok or Instagram as where they found products, while only 18.8% used a search engine.
This suggests that product discovery is passive: people browse and devour, and are exposed to products without energetic search. Consumer tech corporations might due to this fact move their focus from web optimization to establishing presence in feeds and creator content, playing the social media (not search engine) algorithms.
Trust, not polish
Multiple sources indicate that Gen Z and younger millennials consider creators (or what were called ‘micro-influencers’) as more trustworthy than traditional ads or brand campaigns.
Analysis of creator-led brands show the worth of transparent reviews and private storytelling. Gen Z values peer credibility, honest takes, lived experience, and human voices.
Social commerce moves interest into purchase
The merging of social media and e-commerce is the trend that’s shaping the brand new picture. A 2025 global consumer report highlights that Gen Z and millennials are key drivers of the expansion of this amalgamation of media channels.
Platforms with native shopping features let users move straight from media consumption to purchase, thus compressing what was a multi-step process into one click.
For corporations selling consumer tech like phones and wearables, the shorter sales cycles can mean higher conversion rates, and far less friction between discovery and a purchase order.
Practical challenges and risks
Attribution, measurement, and complicated ROI
Some purchases follow so-called ‘dark social’ routes, corresponding to private group chats or DMs, so it’s hard to track which campaign or creator drove a selected sale. Many creators have small or area of interest audiences, so discerning metrics may have more advanced analytics or different third-party tools than might already be in a brand’s martech stack. Should enterprises put money into recent tracking software or accept a level of uncertainty?
Brand safety harder to manage
Brands working with decentralised networks of creators will effectively be embracing a level of unpredictability, if not to say chaos! Tone, messaging, and content may differ from creator to creator, so compliance and brand-safety could develop into a nightmare to oversee.
Research shows substantial variation from country to country in how creators disclose sponsored content to their audiences, for instance.
Enterprises with international customers need clear but personalised contracts with content creators, and have to get their disclosure policies nailed down on a case by case basis. Of course, being too rigid can undermine that useful authentic ‘feel’, but conversely, an excessive amount of freedom given to the creator or influencer can risk inconsistency and even harmful messaging.
Operational changes and the talents gap
Most large enterprises are built to run and monitor ROI on traditional campaigns. Adopting a creator-centric approach requires recent skills in community constructing, creator relations, and the means of manufacturing or suggesting content nearly consistently, day-in day-out.
That may mean retraining, recent workflows, recent staff, or a redesign of the marketing function that brings marketing, legal, procurement, and digital teams closer together.
Recommended steps
- Evaluate whether creator-led content and social-commerce deserve greater priority.
- Consider investment in several measurement and analytics tools.
- Establish Creator-governance frameworks. These may look like an anathema to ‘organic’ creator-led media, however the brand still needs to protect itself.
- Long-term creator relationships. Ongoing collaborations construct more trust than one-off campaigns that use creators as throw-away freelancers.
- Blend heritage with authenticity. Legacy brands might pair their institutional strengths (or recent takes on that history) with creator-style storytelling, thus staying relevant.
(Image source: “Texting within the Rain” by garryknight is licensed under CC BY 2.0.)
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