As the Gen Z audience grows more powerful, how can brands successfully optimise their connection with them… whilst remaining loyal to Millennials?

Had Avocado on toast over the weekend? Describe your friend as a “girl boss”? Sporting a side parting?

Well, unfortunately your Gen Z friends, family or customers could well be sniggering behind your back and calling you ‘Peak Cheugy.’

When Collins Dictionary announced ‘cheugy’ as one of its 2021 ‘Words of the Year’, we knew that this once-niche descriptor needed investigating. Used to describe something no longer cool or fashionable, often in reference to someone or something from the 2000s, ‘cheugy’ joins the ranks of ‘OK Boomer’ and ‘Millennial snowflake’ as inter-generational insults, capturing the growing divide between Gen Z and their older counterparts.

But how do you, as a brand, protect yourself from becoming cheugy without forgetting your current, loyal customer based on Millennials and beyond? The answer comes from better understanding the contrasting visual worlds of ‘authenticity’.