YAZOO Engages Digital Natives to Drive Relevance and Fame with Gen Z Above-The-Line

In a move to revamp its image and capture a more mature audience, YAZOO, the UK’s number one milk drink, engaged social-first creative agency Digital Natives to launch an integrated campaign to target gen z across TV/TVOD and beyond. 

Throughout this campaign, the aim has been to shift perceptions of the brand and expand the consumer base specifically to gen z, the tech-savvy and trend-conscious age group between 15 and 25 years old. Understanding their preferences and behaviours was crucial to capturing their attention and engagement – insights Digital Natives as a social-first creative agency have access to, and experience delivering on. 

The campaign tapped into the nostalgia and ‘90s iconography trend by incorporating the classic TLC song ‘No Scrubs’ as a backdrop. It leans on a relatable truth about spending time in your car as a teenager with nowhere to go, infusing humour and an amusing storyline to resonate with the audience and encourage them to also “shake up” everyday moments with YAZOO.

Oliver Elmes, Digital Natives’ creative director said: “We’ve been working with Friesland Campina for many years now, and seen YAZOO’s long standing endline ‘Shake it up’ through many iterations – but it’s this campaign that truly brings that statement to life – for the brand, it's audience and the marketing industry. We’ll only be encouraging more brands to shake things up by inviting social-first creative agencies to craft their above-the-line work” 

This is the second TV/TVOD commercial Digital Natives have created for Friesland Campina this year – the first being that for Chocomel that used similar social-first insights to create the campaign. Digital Natives even delivered both campaigns with their in-house production team, proving the social-first approach works well beyond the small screen. 

The YAZOO team said of working with Digital Natives: “It was great working with such a creative powerhouse, we got a front row seat to a well-executed production day and are very happy with the quality of the ad, it really emulates what YAZOO stands for and we can’t wait to see it go live!”

The integrated campaign will see a combined media spend of £3m split across TV, on demand and social. Representing YAZOO’s biggest TV investment to date – the campaign is set to reach 67.6% of UK adults at least once, whilst a quarter of the population will encounter the ad an estimated five times.