Episode 68: Guest Ziad Ahmed
The Jewelry District
JCK
4.9 • 50 Ratings
🗓️ 26 April 2022
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In This Episode
You’ll hear JCK editor-in-chief Victoria Gomelsky and news director Rob Bates talk with Ziad Ahmed, CEO of JUV Consulting, a New York City–based firm that advises companies on how to market to Gen Z.
Show Notes
00:30 Victoria and Rob introduce their guest Ziad Ahmed, CEO of JUV Consulting
06:02 Rob asks what characteristics define Gen Z
14:30 Victoria asks about non-digital experiences and purpose-led brands, while Rob asks about how Gen Zers feel about marketing
18:45 Rob asks how Gen Z views the luxury category
21:27 Victoria asks how Gen Zers are now buying jewelry
Episode Credits
Hosts: Rob Bates and Victoria Gomelsky
Producer and engineer: Natalie Chomet
Plugs: jckonline.com, @jckmagazine, JUV Consulting
Show Recap
Introducing Ziad Ahmed
Victoria and Rob introduce their guest Ziad Ahmed, CEO of JUV Consulting, a New York City–based firm that advises companies on how to market to Gen Z. Gen Z is defined as people who were born between 1997 and 2012. Ziad was born and raised in Princeton, N.J., in an American-Muslim household. In eighth grade, he started a nonprofit, a by-teens, for-teens organization that make community and schools more operative and inclusive. In high school, he started JUV Consulting, as he believed diverse young people should have a seat at the table.
What Makes Gen-Z
Rob asks what Ziad relies on for the information he’s tapped into on Gen Z, and Ziad reports that it’s a mix of survey data, in-depth research, and more. Victoria asks what kind of clients JUV works with, and Ziad says it ranges from Fortune 500s to startups to local campaigns to nonprofits. Ziad shares some of the clients that he’s been proud to work with. Rob asks the key characteristics that define Gen Z, and Ziad says Gen Z has grown up in the digital age, with social media as a language that they’re fluent in that allows them to find community. Victoria asks which platforms are essential, and Ziad thinks TikTok is the platform of the moment where celebrities are made overnight.
Gen Z and Digital Experiences, Sustainability, and Marketing
Victoria is interested in Ziad’s non-digital experiences, and Ziad explains how non-digital and digital experiences are blended. She then asks how Gen Z views the marketplace and how they want to shop, and if purpose-led brands are important to Gen Zers. Ziad says the American market has the capital to spend a little extra on purpose-led brands. Ziad believes we will continue to raise the bar on what sustainability looks like. Rob asks what turns Gen Zers off or what comes across as tone-deaf, and Ziad says that most marketing is cringe-inducing, and that’s why JUV consulting exists.
How Gen Z Views Luxury
Rob asks about luxury and how Ziad’s generation tends to look at luxury, and Ziad says luxury is in for a rude awakening as a lot of it is antithetical to Gen Z’s values. There are issues around inclusivity, income inequality, and gluttony and excess that are being scrutinized by this generation. Gen Z is concerned with what companies are paying their employees, how stable the supply chain is, and what kind of craftsmanship went into the making of the piece. Gen Z, Ziad says, is concerned with its image, and, like a brand, is trying to create who they are and show what they represent through their purchasing habits.
How Gen Z Buys Jewelry
Victoria asks where Gen Z’s very deliberate purchasing habits leave them in terms of buying jewelry, and Ziad says Gen Z is very much interested in jewelry as a means of gender expression, but many are buying their jewelry secondhand from thrift stores. However, Ziad says there is still interest in new jewelry. Rob asks about traditional ceremonies that call for jewelry, such as weddings, and if Gen Z will still be buying jewelry for that purpose. Ziad says yes, but he explains how it might look different from generations past.
(Photo courtesy of Ziad Ahmed)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Jewelry District, a podcast by J.C.K. |
| 0:14.2 | Today, Rob Bates and Victoria Gamalski talk with Ziyadh Ahmed, CEO of Jouve Consulting. |
| 0:29.7 | Thank you. talk with Ziyadh, CEO of Juv Consulting. Hey everyone, welcome to the jewelry district. |
| 0:32.6 | This is Victoria Gimelski, editor-in-chief of J-CK and J-K Online.com, calling in from Los Angeles, and I'm with Rob Bates, news director of J-C-K and J-CKOnline.com, calling in from Sunny, New Jersey. I'm on vacation, but this is a little break from my vacation. We'll put it in a little bit more than a little break from your vacation. Well, it's nice that you broke out of the city. |
| 0:55.0 | Feels like every time spoken over the last two years, you've been, well, actually, I take that back. |
| 1:00.5 | You did spend a good portion of the early pandemic in New Jersey, correct? |
| 1:04.7 | Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't know if it's the ideal place for a vacation, but. |
| 1:10.1 | No, it is. New Jersey is the best place on Earth. All right. There you go. Jersey Pride. Well, where do you spend a few years away from it? Maybe you'll change your mind. I did. I went to college. Yeah. All right, well, there you go. I went to college out of state. At a state, not too far. another Ivy League. We're going to get to that. I used to say that Albert Einstein lived in Princeton. He did. Wouldn't you want to live where the smartest man in the world lives? And there are many, many really wonderfully smart people in Princeton that I was very lucky to grow up around. Yeah. And it's a beautiful part of the world. I spent a tiny bit of time in Princeton. Princeton is nice. |
| 2:00.6 | The rest of New Jersey. No, there are many nice parts of New Jersey. There are many nice parts of New Jersey. We have the beach. We close to Philly. We're close to New York. We have waterfalls, nature. We have all the things. We haven't even introduced our guests, and he's like arguing with us. That's me. That's me. |
| 2:03.2 | Well, in that case, let me introduce our guest and he's like arguing with us. That's me. That's me. Well, in this case, let me introduce our guest. We've got a really, I'm super excited to talk to him. His name is Zad |
| 2:09.2 | Ahmed. He's 23. He's the chief executive and co-founder of Juv consulting, a New York City-based |
| 2:14.8 | firm that advises companies on how to market to Gen Z. And of course, |
| 2:18.9 | before we even ask him to tell us who he is and what he does and why, I just want to say that I |
| 2:23.8 | came across the ad in a New York Times article a few months back and realized he would be a great |
| 2:28.9 | source for a New York Times article I was writing about the evolving meaning of luxury and how Swiss watch brands were |
| 2:36.2 | becoming more purpose led. And I thought, well, let me get the take of somebody who's young and |
| 2:41.3 | specializes in talking to companies about how they can position themselves for this new |
| 2:46.9 | generation of Gen Z consumers. And for those of you who don't know how to define Gen Z, I'm told it's basically people born between 1997 and 2012. If you were too young to remember 9-11, then you're probably a member of Gen Z. Does that sound right to you, Zed? Yeah, I mean, that's loosely correct. We usually say around the same years, we say 96 to 2010, right? But it's, you know, generational science is a very |
| 3:07.9 | imperfect field. But yeah, it's around there for sure. I was born in 99. You were born in 99. My |
| 3:13.7 | God. Well, so we know you're from Princeton. We know you're a huge lover of Jersey. I am. |
| 3:19.3 | Well, tell us a little bit about growing up where you went to school and eventually how you got to be a specialist on your generation. But let's go to the beginning. Were you born in Princeton? I was in 1999. I was born in Princeton, New Jersey. Born and raised and proud. I guess long story short, I grew up in Princeton. I grew up in an American Muslim household. You know, in Bangladeshi, American Muslim. That's really important to, I think, a lot of how I look at the world and have moved through the world. Really fortunate and privileged to grow up, you know, with a lot of financial stability, right, and having gone to private school my whole life. And an eighth grade basically started a nonprofit builds around this idea that I felt really uniquely privileged, you know, to have access to a computer, right, to have a really vibrant and social life. And I, as an American Muslim, as a person of color, as a political progressive, I noticed in my hallways how kids were being otherwise, right, or treated differently and it didn't sit right with me. And so I wanted to do something about it because I thought it'd only get worse at high school. And so I started redefide, just a nonprofit that's basically a byteens,, four-teens organization that creates resources to make |
| 4:15.5 | communities and schools more equitable and inclusive. And I had no idea what the hell I was doing |
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