Grace Kao (Snap) | The Truth About Gen Z and Why Marketers Keep Getting It Wrong

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0:36So thank you for being part of it. Now onto the show. What's the first brand, Grace, you remember making an impact on you as a young girl? You know, I don't know if it's because it's the NBA finals, but I remember when Spike Lee showed up with It's the Shoes. with Michael Jordan. I remember being kid watch. I'm like, it just blew my mind on the creativity, the black and white, the artisticness. It was so provocative and different. Like that was just like, Oh, this advertising thing is amazing, you know, to feel that. And yeah, it was just the two of them, black and white and Mars Blackman, you know, it's incredible.

1:19Hi, I'm Jim Stengel. I've helped hundreds of major brands discover and activate their purpose. Because when a brand's purpose is clear, compelling, and authentic, profit naturally follows. Each week, I welcome the CMOs, the chief marketing officers of your favorite brands, to speak to how their job is so much more than marketing. These leaders share their inspiration and challenges, along with how they try to build a full, healthy, and happy life in and out of the office. And it's that energy that reaches everyone they touch. And we're glad you're here to feel that energy and to learn from these remarkable leaders.

1:55So here we go. Every generation reshapes marketing in its own way, but few have challenged marketers' assumptions as much as Gen Z, the generation that is now in high school, college, and in early career jobs. This week, we're returning to our series exploring how brand leaders are learning which audience is the most important for their future. And for this specific generation, there's no one better to help us understand Gen Z than my guest, Grace Cowell, Chief Marketing Officer at Snap Inc. Founded in 2011 by Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, Snap began with a simple idea, creating a more authentic visual way for people to communicate.

2:31Now in 2026, Snapchat reaches more than 940 million monthly active users around the world and has grown into a nearly$6 billion by revenue business. My guest, Grace, joined Snap in December 2024 as Vice President of Consumer and Business Marketing. Just a few months later, in April 2025, she was promoted to Chief Marketing Officer. Grace leads the company's global marketing efforts and helps brands, creators, and developers build meaningful connections through the Snapchat platform. Before joining Snap, Grace led global business marketing at both Spotify and Instagram, working with businesses and creators.

3:05Now, tune in for a conversation with a leader who is preparing for the Cannes Lions Festival, which opens next week, and who is leading the way on how brands can build authentic connections with the Gen Z audience. Here's Grace. Well, Grace, welcome to the CMO Podcast. We are recording the show about a week before CanLions 2026, and I will be hosting you and a few of the leaders on stage on Monday morning early for, quote, CMOs in the spotlight. So I get you twice in 10 days. I'm a lucky guy. Love it. I'm a lucky girl. Thank you so much, Jim. I'm so excited about today's podcast and even more excited.

3:41I get to see it in Cannes again. So fun. In person in Cannes, which is so good. Now, first question, we were chatting before the show started and a memory popped up on my phone last night of your Ferris wheel. Oh, yeah. The Snapchat Ferris wheel back in, I don't know, 2017 or 18? We're not dating ourselves, Jim. Yes. Yeah, I know. I've been going there many years. So my question for you first is how is Snap showing up this year at Cannes? Oh, yeah. I'm super excited for how we're showing up about Snapchat this year. I think because it's a very big year for Snapchat. You know, we are obviously there's Snapchat itself and there's also amazing things that we're doing, whether it's sponsored snaps or what we're working with AI and also promoted places, which is our map.

4:25And also, you might have heard we are launching some glasses, which is a very, very big moment for our company. So I can't wait to unveil that to the world. So that will be your agenda, Ken, unveiling that to the world. Unveiling that to the world. But at the core, we're also there for Snapchat. So we've got lots of exciting things happening. And, you know, I don't want to give away some surprises. I know, I get it. You know, I would say - You've teased us. We will not disappoint. I always pride ourselves over here at Snapchat that we like to zag when others are zigging. And it'll be the same.

4:56I think we'll have that same strategy this year as well. Well, the Ferris wheel was a zag, by the way, way back. I'm glad you still remember. Oh, yeah. It was big and yellow and fun. Oh, there's more yellow coming. More yellow coming. Okay, good. Speaking of your agenda next week at Cannes, what are the highlights for you? I know our agendas are nutty, all of us. That's what's sort of the magic of Cannes. But what are you really looking forward to next week? You know, I would say part of the reason I love going to Cannes, obviously, it's meeting old friends, meeting new friends. But quite honestly, I really love how everyone shows up.

5:31I'm actually really looking forward to seeing work in general in terms of creative. I love how the beach has also been a display of amazing creativity. So I'm really looking forward to that being inspired and also kind of looking at the competition because I do think it makes all of us better. So I'm actually really, really looking forward to that. And then in terms of for Snapchat was really big for us this year is we are really centering one of our core differentiations of chat. chat in itself as being an amazing channel that I think has been underestimated and underutilized by brands. Like if you look at how consumer behaviors have been evolving, and then you look at like the evolution of AI, what's not going to be a prompt?

6:14What's not going to be a chat UI? So I feel very fortunate that I get to work at a company where at the core we were founded on chat. And so I'll be shouting a lot about how people are not utilizing chat more in their marketing strategies. Well, you made chat more creative. That was your founding. That was the insight, right? You made it visual. You made it creative. You made it fun. You made it so that you, I did this with my family. We could come together and share like really weird stuff that we wouldn't put out in the public discourse because they were so quirky and funny and inside jokes.

6:47But that's what you enable. Yes, we really wanted to. We opened camera, right? We really felt that we should be able to easily express themselves unfiltered, uncurated. And I don't know about you, but I do feel like we're in a point in the world today. I think we're craving maybe a bit of that. Yeah, I agree. There was definitely an era of over curation. I remember I would just slide about, OK, what am I going to put on my post or what my caption copy should be just as a person? And I really love that Snapchat. It's exactly what you said, Jim. I think we really wanted to create a space where people feel like, no, you should just be able to express yourself and you're going to be welcomed in that way.

7:26I also think it's been fascinating to see, obviously, the rise of AI. There is, I feel like, the balance of that, of people really wanting to feel some realness, too. It's the best of both or wanting both. Yeah. Well, we'll talk a lot more about AI in a few minutes. But you said something a minute ago that you enjoy going and seeing the work. at Cannes. It kind of changes your standards, elevates your standards, makes you think about, oh man, why don't we think about that? So talk more about how you create the time for that in Cannes and how you navigate the overwhelmingness of the festival. I know this is hard, but I get up early.

8:03Oh, okay. I almost get up early before the beaches, all the different activations start. And I love, I can walk the streets and not be overly crowded, but I really actually try to get up early and walk and take a look at what's going on and experience things in person. I think that is the beauty. I think that's why the industry still loves CAN is that IRL aspect of it. What about you, Jim? I'm curious for you. How do you make the time? I confess, I don't think I make enough time anymore for the work just because of the show. We record a lot of episodes at CAN. I host a two-day program, a training and development program.

8:43You're working hard. I am working hard. So it's a busy week. I mean, back when I was at P &G, I did schedule time to wander around. In fact, a couple of years at P &G, I brought my teenage daughter with me. Oh, yeah. And I asked her to wander around. I got her a pass. And at the end of the day, before we turned off the light at night, I would say, what did you see today that is interesting? What should I know about that you – and she spent her time just looking at work like all day. So that's a good tip if you have a partner, a daughter, a son to send them out. What struck you and have that – and she had good judgment.

9:23Obviously, she was a target audience for a lot of our brands. Yeah. But she had great judgment. I have a 17-year-old son. I wonder what his reaction will be of whether you want to go to the south of France. I think that's actually a great – I think he might. Yeah. I think he might. So no, but I think going in with, and I counsel people on this, I think my partner, Suzanne Tosilini, who runs the class with me, she goes through the full agenda every year and says, here is what you shouldn't miss. And we share that with a class. And if you miss it for a month with your pass, you can watch it. So we give them probably 20-ish things that they shouldn't miss from the week because we scan everything before the week starts.

10:02So that's one. And then I think second is go in thinking about what you're wrestling with and make that explicit and then look for things that will give you inspiration on that. Oh, for sure. For sure. Also, another tip is I love what's coming out of emerging markets or international markets. I am always floored to see the things that are coming from places outside of the U.S., to be honest. It's incredible that, again, really provocative, new thinking, more risks taking. So I also go out of my way to really look at perhaps maybe what may be smaller but actually has huge big impact. You'll see a lot of things there that are very offbeat from a different culture.

10:47You may not understand it, but that's the point. That's the point, yeah. Why is it winning an award? When I think it's offbeat, why do I think it's offbeat? Why do we think it's working? Is there a principle behind that that I could learn from? I mean, that's why Ken's so great. Yeah. How do they approach it? Like, why did they do it this way as well? Yeah. I think the other best thing about Ken is having conversations, like actually talking to people, actually debating the work or actually commiserating some of the challenges that we're all going through. Yeah, I know. I think it's every single year it's like, really, Ken?

11:22I'm like, I don't know. I always walk away from the week getting a lot out of it, too. Yeah, I think so, too. That's why it is stuck. So listen, this episode that we're recording today is part of our CMO sort of series this year on marketing to different audiences or generations. You, Grace, have got to be, if not the world's expert, one of the world's experts in building a brand with Gen Z people. So I want to begin there. And I was reading a lot about you before and watching a lot of you before the show. And you said at Age recently that you're attracted to creative, youthful companies and your career path definitely affirms that, right?

12:00You're walking the talk. So the first question, why? I think, first of all, perhaps a lot of what we were just talking about before, and now I live with teenagers, and I wonder if you feel this way about kids too. They're an amazing audience segment. That youth segment, you know, again, over the years of the decades that I've been in the business, this youth audience is fascinating. I love that they, no matter what age, right or or decade or generation there's something about youth where they're incredibly creative they're they're incredibly vulnerable there and they're also incredibly willing to try new things and and that moment of discovery like that pure moment of first discovery i find incredibly inspirational as a marketer to take those insights as an audience and try to resonate with them and And so whether it's me, you know, I spent a lot of years working at TVWH on PlayStation, which I think really kind of grounded my roots of like, oh, this is an amazing, amazing audience to even now with Snapchat.

13:00It's still the same. It's like when your audience is so creative itself, we have to be just as creative as the audience. And so I think that's always fueled me and I've always been learning. Do you feel like this generation, this Gen Z generation, which is roughly what, 14 to 29 years old. Do you think it's more creative than any generation, at least in our lifetime? I don't know if more. I think we've always been creative. I think we were creative too when we were that age as well. It's just our tools or how we express ourselves are different. I would say this generation is pressured to be more creative versus maybe, Jim, when you and I were growing up, maybe we were more encouraged to follow the line or follow, oh, that's what greatness looks like, versus I love that this generation or when I look at my kids, being creative is something that they aspire to have more of and to try more things and put themselves out more.

13:56So I think that maybe is a difference is that creativity is actually a valuable skill set that I think whether it's parents like probably ourselves encouraging or even schools as well. I feel very fortunate that both my kids are at schools that definitely enforce creativity. That's so good. Now, when did it dawn on you explicitly that you loved working with this audience? Was it at PlayStation when you were at TWA? Is that the kind of the awakening you had? It was. It was just sitting in so many focus groups of this youth audience, playing games, or even what I saw where I was fortunate enough to be able to work on a Brownlight PlayStation and do great work out of it.

14:40It just felt like, oh, this is, this is a fun audience to work with. They're also brutal because when they don't like what you do, it's pretty immediate and fast. But yes, I think, you know, I worked on PlayStation for seven years. And so, yeah, I think probably even just a whole generation of teens went through. And yes, that was a moment like, oh yeah, I think maybe intentionally or maybe not intentionally, I just continue to work within this segment.

15:18Hi, everybody. I'm Andrea Sullivan, the CEO of Vive, and we have produced the CMO podcast with Jim Stengel for many years. And I'm sitting in his seat right now. It's so exciting. I wanted to tell you a little bit about one of our programs that's called Vive by Vayner. It's a 12-month program that's designed for C-suiters and founders. And we want to help people to grow their businesses, but also to grow themselves. And so we bring in people from Shark Tank to talk to our founders, but we also focus on wellness. We want to make sure that people are leaning into becoming their best selves, their best and happiest selves.

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16:16You worked at, obviously you were in the agency business for 17 years before moving client side, and we're going to talk about that in a bit. But I want you to, through the lens of building a brand with Gen Z, I mean, you worked with three amazing companies, Instagram, Spotify, and now Snap. So I'd like you to reflect a bit with us about a lesson or two from each of those experiences about building a brand with Gen Z. I think for me, Instagram, and it was a bit about what I talked about before, how do you out creative an incredibly amazing platform where people are making amazing creative things every single day.

16:55And so I think my biggest lesson that I learned, and which maybe just doesn't seem that obvious now, is being native to the platform is key. Like you can't make things in a silo and then just broadcast them out. You really need to look at what people are talking about, what they're interested in, and then create things that just feel native to the, to that conversation. And I think that was the biggest thing on Instagram, on my biggest move of, you know, having been in ad agencies for a gazillion years of like, make it and ship it. And I'll just go over where like Instagram was just a really right turn.

17:36I'm like, Oh, that is, that is long gone, you know, and, and the speed at which you need to create things have to be so much faster. So those, that was kind of the biggest lesson was like native, be fast, fail forward faster, quite honestly. For Spotify, and I have such heart for Spotify, and even my other company, Pandora, music is amazing. And for brands to not leverage music as a way to storytell or to move people, you're crazy. Sound on, always. And so I think whether it's a lesson from Spotify or just even just you have such a great tool as brands to use music. Why aren't you using that? And I think that was really a lesson of Spotify that I always remind myself even today is like sound on what's the sound.

18:31And then going for Snapchat, I think my biggest lesson or what I'm really interested in is this form of chat, this idea of and Jim, I think right before we got the call, this concept of the group chat is, is so powerful. Like right now, what I always talk to brands are like, are you in the group chat? Because if you're not in the group chat and being talked about in the group chat, then there's something wrong. Then you're already kind of behind. And so I'm kind of fascinated. And what I'm learning is this concept of conversation, like engagement isn't just clicking, right? Engagement is like truly two-way.

19:06And I'm just fascinated again of how we can build certain things or certain experiences where you can have a direct conversation, literally a direct conversation with your customers. So I'm really interested in really showing the power of that channel. And that's kind of a lesson I've been really delving into, like joined in Snapchat. But those are some lessons I'm learning and still working through, quite honestly. You have a good career path, Grace. Oh, thanks. I've been very lucky. Yeah. But, you know, to reflect on Spotify for a minute, before this conversation, we were talking to Fabi Torres at Gap.

19:44Yeah. Seeing her at Gap, and I'll be seeing her in Cannes. And she was just talking about music a lot. I mean, Gap was kind of founded on music, and they're back to it. They're doing really interesting music. And she talked about creating moments versus reacting to moments. But they get the power of music. and the brand is resurgent. Right. And could you imagine the epic piece of work that they just launched if it didn't have Katzai? Like truly, you know, that was core to the idea. I could only have worked with the brilliance of Katzai. Oh, such a fan, such a fan. Yeah, me too. And the other thing I want to say about Spotify and music, I don't know, you were probably there when you did this.

20:25This was Cannes a couple of years ago and I thought it was one of the best examples of B2B marketing. Jim, it's one of my favorite, most proudest moments was, yes, thank you so much. Tell the audience about that. I think it was unreal. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for bringing this up. I am so proud of that piece of work. I'm so proud because it was B2B, to be honest. For someone who's been in consumer marketing for a really long time, I love B2B. And the insight on that was, why don't you think media planners are creative? Like we all got in the business of marketing and advertising. And I felt like that was sort of the biggest missed insight was that media planners, that B2B audience only thinks, what's the difference?

21:16Right brain? Yeah. They really should be appealing to their left brain. And talking about channels, like where are they all day? They're in their emails and they're, they are in their spreadsheets. And I don't know, Jim, if you have friends, but I have friends who are spreadsheet magicians. Yeah, I know. It is a skill. Oh yeah. And it was just tapping into that. And then the third insight is we're freaking Spotify. If there's not music and what we're sending, then I don't think we're doing our jobs. But what I was, yeah, so proud of was that it was B2B. It was direct mail. And I know, Jim, if you know this, each person who received it, there was an actual real RFP.

22:01So there was another tab that you can actually activate on. But thank you, Jim, for bringing that up. That was one of my proudest things I've done. No, it was so on brand, so creative, so disruptive. So I thought it was just incredible. Oh, thank you so much, Jim. Thank you. Okay. Now, let's stay on the Gen Z. Talk a bit about, again, your career path is just so rich. Talk about building a culture, an internal culture that thrives on engaging with Gen Z and what you have learned about that. Yeah. I think probably to remember that this audience is a fun audience, right? And so for us as a marketing team, and I know it can be a grind.

22:42I mean, we're all grinding, but we have to have fun. And I know this sounds, again, obvious or simple, but it shows in the work. I really, really believe that. And so it is, I think what I try to encourage a culture is a out of office culture of like get down the world and experience the world and experience things that Gen Z is experiencing, like go to concerts, listen to music, you know, make crazy videos yourself. Like you have to consume what they enjoy and what they're inspired by, not just be inspired by them, I guess, is a bit. So as much as I'm like, get out in the world, live life. And I don't think it has to be the Gen Z audience.

23:29I actually firmly believe being in marketing or being in advertising, I get most of my inspiration outside of the category, to be honest. Is there a Gen Z audience in a country that you feel like is foretelling where everything is going? When I was back at P &G, I went to South Korea to spend time with Gen Zers because they were just doing so many amazing things. And we thought, you know, what's happening here is going to spread. So we should go get to see what's happening here, see what inspires us, see what we should do next on our brands that were primarily marketed to Gen Z. What is the state of Gen Z today?

24:06Are there any countries that you look at say, well, what's happening there is eventually going to happen around the world? There's not one, to be honest, that pops to my mind. They're like, oh, this is going to be foretelling for the rest of the world, because I do think that we see nuances everywhere. But I would say that what has inspired me just in terms of culturally or things that I feel that I want to create from being a global brand, I am looking at one of more of these smaller markets where just seeing more risk taking in terms of whether it's creators in itself in that kind of community or even what we're seeing in the industry as well.

24:47So I think a lot of it is getting out of the U.S. and looking at inspiration from other places and, again, other channels, even outside of the platform, like music. Now, we talked about AI briefly a few minutes ago. We're heading to Cannes. That's going to be everywhere in Cannes in every possible way. And, you know, I think people are talking about it as an accelerator for growth, for innovation, for engagement, and then, you know, of course, efficiency. But I want to talk about your experience at Snap in taking full advantage of AI's potential. You have a very interesting lens on this. But what are you learning as you think about leveraging the full potential?

25:27I think everyone's awakened to, hey, this can be used for idea generation, for synthetic research. Where do you think the biggest leverage is with AI for your brand and culture? What we've been trying to do on the Snapchat front, besides all the things that you talked about, which is use it for whether it's automation efficiency or for ideation, we've been actually trying to put AI in the hands of our consumers more to see if we can provide an opportunity or experience for creativity or an opportunity or experience for utility. So, for example, on Snapchat, we have Imagine Lens. So we have our kind of iconic caption and type in put me in Greece.

26:11And, you know, instantly it creates a snap of me in Greece. So that's like an example of putting AI in the hands and making it a creative experience that you can have with your customer. And then we've also looked at the utility front, which is something we're doing with our business audiences, which is AI sponsored snaps where. So, for example, I'm in my chat, my group chat, Jim, where should we go for for Greece or or what are great restaurants where we had a beta with Experian. But could you imagine if there was a brand that you can then in the chat have immediately a question that you can just ask that branch of, oh, you know, where should I go to Greece?