In this week’s Our Take: Gen Z keeps brands on their toes, Vagisil gets intimate, Instagram goes ghost, and AI rewrites history.
Why Gen Z are ‘Promiscuous’ Consumers
The latest Gen Z Loyalty Economy report from Radius × ONE Strategy Studio makes a compelling case that, for Gen Z, loyalty to brands doesn’t necessarily build and last over time as it may once have done. It argues that the ‘brand promiscuity’ we’re seeing in Gen Z consumers is a rational response to a market with far more options than the one the traditional brand loyalty model was built for. In a world where there is always infinite choice, constant comparison and increasing AI-led discovery, this report argues that loyalty is no longer something a brand wins once and owns from then on. It’s something it has to keep earning, and according to the report, the Gen Z consumer seems to be continuously renegotiating their decisions.
One of the key arguments is that brands need to ditch ‘exclusivity’ and instead show proof to justify why they deserve trust and the sustained Gen Z purchase, over their competitors. Whether through highlighting product performance, elevating creator advocacy, user-generated content, or radical transparency, the important job here is to help Gen Z see, experience and verify why the brand deserves their trust.
From this view, it seems the winning brands will be the ones that don’t try to own loyalty or create a feeling of exclusivity, but instead give people a solid reason to choose them, prove them right, and choose them again and again. In short, Gen Z is very aware that the ball is in their court from a consumer perspective, and it’s the brands’ job to make sure they continuously make an effort to keep them engaged, in whatever way is most suitable for the product or service being offered.
So…What’s In Your Vag?
Vagisil is hijacking one of social media’s most recognisable trends, giving the familiar “What’s In My Bag?” format a distinctly more intimate twist. Bags designed to evoke the shape of female genitalia sit alongside Vagisil products across social, digital and out-of-home.
And yeah, it’s rude. That’s why we like it.
But the cleverness goes beyond the joke. By borrowing a format people already know, Vagisil is making a traditionally awkward category feel familiar, accessible and, dare we say, a little bit trendy.
Intimate health isn’t usually something we’re shouting about. It’s often treated as clinical, private or something to quietly pick up in the pharmacy and pretend nobody saw.
Humour gives people permission to talk about something that can otherwise feel uncomfortable. Suddenly, a cream for your intimate bits and bobs sitting beside your lip balm, spare change and collection of useless receipts doesn’t feel quite so out of place. Vagisil isn’t just selling a product; it’s helping normalise the conversation around intimate health by putting it firmly into a space people already engage with every day.
The Unseen Feed
For years, the basic premise of social media has been simple: you post because you want to be seen. Gen Z, however, is starting to challenge that.
‘Ghost-posting’ sees users upload content on Instagram, immediately archive it, then quietly restore it later, allowing it to live on their profile without ever really being broadcast to their followers.
It sounds like a niche Instagram hack, but it reveals something much bigger about how young people feel online. While they still want to document their lives and curate a digital identity, they’re increasingly anxious about the moment of being perceived doing it. The profile still matters, but the performance around posting doesn’t.
It’s an important insight into how users are actively bypassing the mechanics Instagram was built around: visibility, immediacy and engagement. The platform hasn’t necessarily become less important to Gen Z, but they’re rewriting the rules to make it feel more comfortable.
For Instagram, it’s an important behavioural shift to recognise. For brands trying to understand this audience, it’s a reminder that declining public participation doesn’t necessarily signal declining interest. Young people may still be highly influenced by what they see online, while becoming far more selective about what they contribute themselves.
Perhaps the next evolution of social isn’t about encouraging people to share more – it’s about understanding why they increasingly want to be seen less.
Appropriism’s New Engine
Appropriation art has always enjoyed causing a bit of trouble. Take something everyone recognises, put it somewhere it absolutely shouldn’t be and wait for the arguments to start.
Marcel Duchamp understood the assignment in 1917. He signed a urinal “R. Mutt”, called it Fountain and left the art world debating what counts as art for the next hundred years.
AI has found its own urinal.
Accounts like @vtsek_studios are dropping famous figures into fictional histories: Nelson Mandela in streetwear, waving from an E30 convertible with Kanye nearby. @spikeandred pushes further into fantasy, generating Jim Carrey as a Scarface-esque kingpin, surrounded by cash in a film scene nobody actually filmed.
The strange part is how quickly your brain accepts it.
We’re entering an era of synthetic nostalgia, where history, celebrity and pop culture can be endlessly recast through the aesthetics of today. For younger audiences especially, an AI-generated Mandela might arrive in the same feed as an archival photograph. One documents history; the other borrows its emotional weight. A few scrolls later, the distinction can feel surprisingly slippery.
Permission, likeness and taste become much trickier when anyone from Marilyn Monroe to Muhammad Ali can be summoned into a campaign with a prompt.
Duchamp wanted us arguing about art. A century later, we’re arguing about memory itself: who gets to remix it, who owns the people inside it, and how fictional it can become before we stop remembering the difference.
Popcorn, please.