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New Delhi [India], August 20: They don’t watch your ads; they skip them. They don’t follow your brand, they mute it. But when you’re part of their WhatsApp group or standing next to them at a college football match, they notice. That’s the reality of marketing to Gen Z, and it’s where new-age youth marketing agencies like Global Kartel have made their mark.
“We’re not here to make brands talk at Gen Z. We engineer moments where the brand is naturally part of their daily conversations,” says CEO & Co-Founder of Global Kartel, Rudra Ghodke. “Whether it’s over lunch in the canteen or while sharing memes at midnight. When you do that, you stop being an interruption and start being a reference point.”
When Olio Pizza wanted to introduce itself to college students across Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore, Global Kartel didn’t just hand out coupons; instead, they staged a series of campus activations that felt like student-led celebrations. The numbers were impressive – 50,000+ students reached, over 5,000 organic stories shared, but what mattered more was the vibe: pizza became shorthand for a shared moment, not a transaction.
With Wildbean Café, the approach was twofold: a campus ambassador program in ten top colleges, and hyperlocal street activations in Pune’s cultural pockets. From indie music collaborations to surprise pop-ups, the events blurred the lines between a hangout and a brand touchpoint.
One standout point was an all-night rave party inside the café — a first for many students. College groups from across the city came together to dance to a live DJ set, sip coffee between beats, and turn the café into an after-hours hotspot. The atmosphere wasn’t manufactured; it was student-led energy spilling into a brand space, creating an experience that trended on student WhatsApp groups and Instagram feeds. The result? A massive visibility boost for Wildbean Café, now seen not just as a pit stop, but as a place where campus culture happens.
“When students show up because they want to, not because they’re paid to — that’s when you know you’ve got it right,” says co-founder Adesh Kolhe.
Marketing to Gen Z isn’t a formulaic affair, and as the market evolves, a few principles seem to cut through the noise consistently. Rudra and Adesh have been among the early movers to put them into practice. Successful campaigns manage to be present without ever feeling intrusive, because once something comes across as a marketing stunt, credibility is lost. Who delivers the message matters just as much as the message itself; a friend’s Instagram story can resonate more deeply than a celebrity endorsement. And in today’s landscape, offline and online aren’t separate worlds but extensions of the same conversation. A well-placed WhatsApp ping can generate as much impact as a billboard, but only when it’s backed by trust, the kind that is built long before the hype begins.
In less than a year, Global Kartel’s activations have clocked millions of impressions, but the founders resist boiling their success down to numbers.
“Metrics show the impact,” says Ghodke. “Culture gives it meaning, and meaning outlives metrics.”
It’s that cultural instinct, the ability to read the mood of a campus or the energy of a street event, that has made them a quiet force in the youth marketing space. They’ve turned pizza launches into campus rituals, cafés into cultural hubs, and product trials into inside jokes.
As Kolhe puts it, “The brands that win with Gen Z are the ones that become social currency. If we can create something they want to talk about, remix, and share, then the marketing takes on a life of its own, and that’s far more powerful than any ad spend.”
It’s clear that Gen Z isn’t waiting to be marketed to; they’re busy creating the culture that brands need to catch up with.
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