Under25: Redefining Gen Z Marketing

Under25 is leading a transformation in Gen Z marketing, recently winning two awards for its unique approach. Instead of relying on influencers or typical advertisements, it engages with young people where they are most active: in classrooms, colleges, and hallways. As India’s largest youth media network, Under25 connects with over 2 million young individuals across more than 1,500 campuses, supported by a robust ecosystem that ensures brands are relevant rather than just visible.

Engaging Gen Z Authentically

Under25 provides brands with a direct route to Gen Z through naturally integrated formats. Its content-driven campaigns encourage students to become storytellers, generating genuine, scalable brand narratives. Vox pop-style activations promote meaningful discussions on campuses, while student-focused advocacy and ambassador programmes cultivate lasting trust. By combining curated on-ground experiences with survey-backed insights into youth preferences, Under25 enables brands to connect authentically with young audiences, fostering loyalty and measurable impact where it counts the most: among students in India.

Partnerships That Matter

Under25 has collaborated with over 350 leading brands to forge meaningful connections with Gen Z, resulting in strong, quantifiable outcomes. For brands aiming to connect with students online, there is the Summit at Campus (SAC), a culturally vibrant experience orchestrated by over 200 student leaders and a dedicated crew of more than 4,000 members. These students enhance their leadership skills, learning to manage pressure, collaborate effectively, communicate on a larger scale, and build initiatives from scratch. In the upcoming 2024-25 season alone, Under25 has already executed 100 SACs, engaging over 490,000 students on-the-ground and reaching 128 million online. The ambition is to expand to 200 colleges across 30 cities by the season’s conclusion.

Strategies for Digital Natives

To effectively reach digital natives, Under25 operates a hyperlocal media network comprising over 200 student-led pages, capturing, memeing, and chronicling youth culture directly from campuses. Leading this initiative is @under25dictionary, which has a monthly audience exceeding 120 million, serving as the leading source for understanding Gen Z behaviours and linking them to internet trends.

The Under25 App: A Hub for Student Engagement

At the heart of Under25’s efforts is its app, a digital campus where students create communities, discover opportunities, and engage with brands. Every collaboration with brands, whether online or offline, becomes interwoven into this ecosystem, influencing the journey of students. Zerodha’s “Invest In You” campaign during Summit At Campus Seasons 2 and 3 exemplified this, promoting investment as a means of self-growth. Through student-led sessions and activities, the initiative transformed financial literacy into a cultural phenomenon, reaching over 1 million students offline and 203 million youth online.

Awards and Recognition for Innovative Campaigns

This unique access to youth through the Under25 ecosystem has led to two awards being awarded to Under25 at startupsuperb! Brand Storyz 2025 for their campaigns with OPPO and Philips OneBlade. When OPPO sought to launch its K13 5G, they aimed to resonate with India’s youth rather than merely introduce another tech product. Under25 stepped in to facilitate one of the year’s most impactful youth-led brand collaborations. What began as a product launch evolved into a cultural movement within the Under25 app, enabling Gen Z not only to consume content but also to create it. This made the OPPO K13 a talking point among Gen Z, enhancing its image as a representation of their self-expression, driven by India’s largest youth community. Consequently, searches for the phone surged post-launch, boosting engagement significantly.

Success of Philips OneBlade Campaign

For Philips OneBlade, Under25 strategically positioned it as the essential grooming tool for Gen Z men through authentic storytelling. Without resorting to advertisements or heavy branding, the campaign relied on genuine, relatable everyday usage to drive strong engagement and product trials. By favouring authenticity over broad publicity, the campaign ignited real interest, deeply resonating with young consumers.

Insights from Under25’s Leadership Team

Jeel Gandhi, CEO of Under25 remarked that the campaigns for OPPO K13 5G and Philips OneBlade demonstrated that when Gen Z takes the lead in storytelling, the results are both immediate and authentic. He noted that the user-generated content within their ecosystem fostered genuine discovery while ensuring that Philips OneBlade engaged users through relatable and practical content created by the students themselves. These initiatives highlighted that brands speaking in the language of Gen Z can achieve not just attention but also real connection.

Ranjitha Priyadarshini, the head of monetisation at Under25 added that Under25 has uncovered what many brands struggle to grasp: building true, reciprocal relationships with Gen Z. The initiatives for OPPO and Philips OneBlade serve as powerful examples of what occurs when authenticity takes precedence over mere amplification. By engaging real student communities and allowing young creators to guide the narrative, Under25 has reshaped the interaction between culture, content, and commerce. The accolades received are reflections of their commitment to producing measurable outcomes while staying aligned with the genuine interests of young India.