Does Your Business Have 'Rizz'? What This Uniquely Gen-Z Word Reveals

BY ROBIN LANDA, PROFESSOR, KEAN UNIVERSITY@RLANDA

Unlocking the power of Gen-Z as a target audience requires a keen understanding of their motivations and behaviors. If you delve into the critical link between insight and action in marketing, you can discover how uncovering the unspoken needs, beliefs, and behaviors of Gen-Z -- those hidden human truths -- can fuel impactful marketing strategies.

Moreover, if you unravel the language of Gen-Z, a key to deciphering their desires and aspirations, you'll gain invaluable insights into how understanding and leveraging Gen-Z's language and psyche can unlock a powerful connection with this demographic. 

Cracking the code

Oxford Languages crowned rizz as its word of the year, defining it as a term signifying "style, charm, or attractiveness" and the "ability to attract a romantic or sexual partner." While rizz may trace its origins to charisma, its prominence surged within online gaming communities and skyrocketed when actor Tom Holland humorously confessed to lacking it. Yes, the same Tom Holland of Hollywood heartthrob fame, dating Zendaya, and delivering a memorable lip sync battle performance of Rihanna's "Umbrella."

Why rizz?

Many in Gen-Z graduated from college during the 2020 lockdown, stifling their aspirations for progress. Now emerging from the pandemic, Gen-Z displays optimism through terms such as rizz, embodying a newfound confidence in their stride.

So, perhaps your marketing should rizz it up a bit, too.

Elevate your marketing with insights

In marketing, an insight into your audience is pure gold. It's a profound understanding of their needs, beliefs, and behavior, often revolving around human truths unnoticed by others. While insights usually focus on the audience rather than the brand, aligning both can create a revelation, a sweet spot that resonates. Gen-Z's slang offers some clues.

Navigating the terrain

As a parent to a Gen-Z daughter and an educator to university students of the same generation, I've learned that using their slang, such as "mid" for middling or "mother" -- a term of endearment for well-known women with an avid fan base -- can sometimes result in silent disapproval. Understanding without mimicking is key. As Wes Phelan, a noted executive creative director, rightly notes, "Real human insight in a brand campaign facilitates relatability and action, be it sharing, liking, or buying."

The moral here is: Understand them, employ insights to connect to them, but don't speak like them -- unless you are one of them.

Dynamic insights from slang

You can think of insights in two main ways: A fixed insight dominates what people say and how they behave over an extended period. A dynamic insight bends with small- or large-scale changes in the audience's needs, behavior, or situation -- think of a black swan event of staggering proportions, such as a pandemic or a hurricane of enormous size and scope.

Gen-Z: your growing audience

With Gen-Z poised to outnumber Millennials globally and already constituting a significant portion of the U.S. population, understanding and connecting with them is crucial for your business.

So, if Gen-Z is your audience, listen up.

Photo Credit: Illustration: Inc.; Photo: Getty Images, Unicode via Apple.