A group of experienced executives is discussing how the brand can “connect with Gen Z.” Everyone has a deck and an opinion. But nobody in the room is Gen Z. I’ve sat in this type of meeting more times than I’d like to admit.

We collect demographic reports, analyze trends, and increasingly ask AI to tell us who our audiences are and what they want. But this goes wrong when we allow it to replace conversations.

A generation is not a community. A community is not an individual. People born in the same years can have almost nothing in common beyond their age. Demographics describe groups, not the individuals within them.

I’m more interested in what they choose and why. What do they dedicate their time to? Where do they gather? Why do they feel like they belong there? You cannot design your way into cultural relevance without first understanding the culture.

Pep Salazar has spent more than two decades learning this lesson from another perspective. As cofounder and director of OFFF, the international creativity and design festival that began in Barcelona over 25 years ago, he has helped turn a gathering of digital creatives into an enduring international community.

When we spoke recently, Pep described the tension between knowing an audience through metrics and understanding it as people. Sponsors want attendance numbers, engagement reports, and evidence of reach. Those figures do offer important insights, but they don’t explain why someone travels to Barcelona to spend three days among fellow creatives.

Source link