Leveraging Omnichannel Strategies for Back‑to‑School Planning

Long gone are the days of parents solely making the back-to-school purchasing decisions. Today, the younger generation plays a major role in back-to-school shopping. The decision maker dynamic is changing as the younger generation is noticeably more comfortable than older generations with utilizing their digital resources and making decisions for themselves.

“Until not too long ago, parents were the ones who had control. They had the say since they were the ones digesting all of the information on what was needed for back to school. But today, the younger generations very much have a big part of this particular season of shopping. That’s what we call out as their big differentiator. The ‘decision-maker’ dynamic is changing right in front of us. Back-to-school shopping is no longer just the parents deciding—the kids have a strong say into what makes it into the basket.”
—Anne Hill, VP of the Food Vertical at Quotient

Understanding how this group engages with brands, what they are looking for and what does or doesn’t speak to them can lay the groundwork for a winning back-to-school strategy for both Gen Z and their parents. Check out our latest webinar, “Back-to-School Planning for Gen Z and Beyond,” for data-led insights and campaign strategies for the upcoming school year.

The Digital Natives

Members of the Gen Z age bracket are born between 1997 and 2010—making its oldest members recent college graduates and the youngest hitting “tweenhood.”

This age group is the first to have never experienced the world before the internet or mobile technology, making Gen Z more comfortable in digital environments than previous cohorts. They navigate easily from the digital to the physical and back, and they don’t make a distinction between online or offline channels. To them, it’s one continuous journey.

Since Gen Z sees every touchpoint in the consumer journey as part of a whole, so should brands when trying to connect with them.

Hybrid Learning and Shopping

Much like how Gen Z effortlessly adapts to both online and offline channels, they’ve also seamlessly adapted to a hybrid learning style that includes both at-home virtual education and traditional in-person classroom training.

Advertisers should take this as a cue to leverage omnichannel strategies when trying to engage with this generation and beyond by connecting consumers across digital channels and into the physical world.

Brands can leverage short-form media like TikTok, Instagram Reels, SnapChat Stories and more to appeal to this age group, who prefers high-volume content in easy, bite-size forms.


For more information on how you can engage shoppers across channels, check out our Omnichannel Advantage page or contact us at communications@quotient.com.