Some brands are rewriting their marketing strategy to reach Gen Z. But others had Gen Z in mind at launch.
Take direct-to-consumer (DTC) menstrual product brand August, which launched in 2021.
Period care is a crowded market, but co-founder Nadya Okamoto, who is Gen Z herself, saw an opportunity to stand out through marketing that resonates with her age group.
Messaging with references to social movements, such as transgender inclusivity and making period care more accessible, is appealing to Gen Z at large.
After building scale through Amazon and DTC sales, August inked its first major retailer partnership with Target in April. Its products are now available in roughly 400 Target stores nationwide.
Brick-and-mortar exposes the brand to net-new audiences and customers who aren’t buying its products online, Okamoto told AdExchanger. It’s still too early to say how in-store compares with ecommerce, but August says its in-store presence is already bringing in new customers.
Stocking up
August markets heavily on social media, including TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. Its TikTok strategy is almost entirely organic, with content that features employees promoting products and noting where they’re available to buy, including Target.
The brand has a large social following, including 343,000 followers on TikTok and 181,000 on Instagram, which helps raise awareness. So, instead of spending on branding, August is putting its media dollars into retargeting to drive conversions and sales both online and in stores.
For example, if someone engages with one of its social posts, August can retarget that person with search ads on Google or paid media on Instagram and Facebook to encourage in-store visits from new customers. August looks at customer acquisition cost and return on ad spend to measure how paid media performs.
Putting products on shelves is also a way to get in front of people who haven’t heard of the brand before.
In-store shopping is also preferable for customers that don’t want to buy through August’s online subscription model, Okamoto said, which allows people to sign up for delivery every month or every three months. Not everyone has a regular or predictable menstrual cycle.
Still, measurement and attribution are much trickier for in-store sales compared with DTC because August has to ingest and analyze new types of data, such as foot traffic, while also handling inventory management.
August is still working on a system for attributing its retail sales to marketing, Okamoto said, but the brand is closely tracking in-store sales through Target daily by state. Currently sales are highest in California, New York, Texas, Florida and Georgia.
Getting a foot in the door
Starting a challenger brand is no easy task, though, especially in the menstrual care vertical.
August spent thousands of dollars on a branding video to mark its launch that kept getting removed from most social media platforms because it featured fake period blood. (Most brands that sell products related to women’s health deal with similar censorship issues left and right.)
Plus, challenger brands in any vertical have an uphill battle dealing with the more established competition. For example, other tampon brands such as Cora are bidding on August’s company name on Google so that Cora appears first in search results.
But August is confident that its social media presence and positioning with Gen Z will be enough to help it stand out from the crowd.
To drive in-store sales, August recently ran a campaign that pitches the brand as a more affordable alternative. Nearly half of US states still charge an 8% luxury tax on tampons and products, which August covers through Venmo when customers buy its products at Target. (August already doesn’t tax the items that it sells on its website, nor does it charge for shipping. It also eats the sales tax on Amazon sales, but Amazon customers still have to pay for shipping.)
And, hey, who doesn’t like cheaper tampons?
Promoting its efforts to make menstrual health products more accessible resonates with a broad audience, Okamoto said, which is also good for business.
