Joy Falotico, chief marketing officer for Ford Motor Co., has had a busy couple of weeks, introducing a new luxury sport utility vehicle at the New York International Auto Show and dealing with executive changes at her company. But she still carved out time for several meetings on a topic she views as critical to Ford’s future: figuring out Gen Z. “We’re just really digging into all of this right now,” Falotico says of the cohort of emerging consumers aged 7 to 22. Gen Z “is still very young, but they like to talk back to brands, they have points of view. They grew up on social media, so it’s just really different.”
Detroit has struggled to connect with young buyers ever since baby boomers defected to Japanese brands after the 1970s oil crisis. They misfired on millennials, too, rolling out gas-sipping subcompacts earlier this decade just as fuel prices plunged and SUVs became the wheels of choice. Now they’re switching gears again, exiting the sedan market and putting all their chips on high-profit SUVs and trucks—just when cash-strapped Gen Z is showing a preference for compact cars.
