Marketing to Gen Z Offline Starts With Friction

If you were born before 1997, you remember a portion of life lived completely offline: having to write down and keep track of phone numbers, tacking photographs to the fridge, making face-to-face contact for every transaction essential to life. 

For Gen Z, those memories form a shrinking minority of life. Education, socializing, romance, and every kind of transaction got increasingly convenient as worlds got smaller. 

Gen Z’s tastes are starting to shift. Life became too sterile, too simplified, too online, and too convenient. Now they want friction. 

We ran a survey of 5,604 consumers in the US and Canada and found that Gen Z (18-29) isn’t anti-social, but they suffer from micro-social friction. Our research found that over 70% of Gen Z want more opportunities to meet in person via fitness or hobby-based groups. But 40% of Gen Z in Canada and 32% in the US feel self-conscious making small talk with strangers, and 33% worry about bothering people in public settings. It’s a pattern we first saw in the 2024 Citizen Connections Report: more than half of the 4,000+ people we surveyed globally said they felt less connected than the year before, even as they had access to more ways to connect than ever.

These are all a result of the desire expressed by Gen Z’s embrace of retro tech, collective experiences, shopping malls, and more. They long for the friction erased by smartphones, apps, and life online.

For brands who want to co-author culture and for effective marketing to Gen Z offline, that friction is the opening. 

Reading is a collective experience 

Younger millennials may have started the “analog rebellion,” but Gen Z made it a bonafide movement. News media may report on the embrace of analog tech as a quirk, but our research says otherwise: 60% of Gen Z in the US and 52% in Canada adopted a retro device in the last year. 

Hardware is following demand. Earlier in the year, Noble Mobile partnered with Light Phone on a plan that pays subscribers for staying off their phones, betting that people will pick financial incentive over willpower. At the same time that 25% of Gen Z in the US made the switch to a “dumbphone,” the publishing industry reported an increase in sales in the first half of 2026. Even Wine Enthusiast magazine noticed a trend that more bookstores have added liquor licenses. 

In an effort to connect offline and find new third spaces, Eventbrite reports a 33% increase in book club events in the first half of 2026. Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine launched a Gen Z-specific offshoot this year, and Audible’s Story House, a free bookless bookstore, saw over 7,000 visitors within a month. We see this as a tactical, mainstream strategy by the first generation raised on algorithms to take back control of their mental health and attention spans.

Malls are back because Gen Z wants somewhere to go

Dozens of movies in the 1980s and 1990s glamourized the excitement of being at the mall for suburban kids across North America. The last 20 years saw a decline in popularity and the proliferation of empty storefronts in malls. But now, younger generations have brought it back. 

According to our research, 1-in-3 Gen Z adults visit a shopping mall weekly with no intention of buying anything. As the media narrative talks about a “retail apocalypse,” brands ahead of the curve are already seeing an opportunity. Kendra Scott’s debut Nashville location features a Hat Customization Atelier and Color Bar. PacSun has switched from closing its store footprint to growing it for the first time in 18 years. SHEIN – an algorithmic digital-first retailer – has invested in physical pop-ups to increase discoverability. 

Gen Z repurposed malls as free, climate-controlled, non-judgmental digital detox spaces. They might not buy big-ticket items, but they report visiting just to walk around (55-60%), meet friends (41-47%), or get a $6 “little treat” (47-52%). As they strive for third spaces, they’ve turned commercial real estate back into a public meeting place.

Introduce the friction of meeting new people

The loneliness epidemic has been cited in the media for the last couple of years. But our latest research shows that nearly 60% of Gen Z feel socially connected. 

Part of the reason is they’ve found new ways to connect offline. Half of Gen Z (52%) use low-tech devices like dumbphones and film cameras. And it isn’t just for aesthetics. Gen Z’s inclination toward an analog rebellion comes from a desire to get out of algorithms and take back control of their mental health and attention spans. 

The most exclusive events in urban centers ban photos or lock up phones altogether. Our research shows that 37% of Gen Z are more likely to attend an event with a phone ban. Yondr, the company behind lockable pouches, has secured more than 20 million phones since 2014, partnering with artists such as Dave Chappelle, Madonna and Bruno Mars. 

In London, The Offline Club runs two-hour phone-free socials several times a month, where guests lock their phones away and spend the evening reading, making things, or talking to strangers, and tickets often sell out days in advance. Most recently, Public School New York hosted a phone-free afterparty during New York Fashion Week, for a night designed for presence and the ultimate experience. 

Run-club sponsorship now sits inside a $97.5 billion global sponsorship market, and the category has stopped being just a running-shoe story. Even brands with nothing to do with fitness have caught on: Netflix built a run-club matchmaking game to promote a recent series, treating the club format itself as marketing infrastructure rather than sponsoring someone else’s.

We take this to mean that young people want to socialize and feel connected, but unscripted casual interactions provoke high anxiety. The explosion of book clubs above and the 78% of Gen Z interested in clubs and other affinity groups bring us to one conclusion: shared activities help break the ice and bring back the welcome friction of participating at a time and place.

Where you fit in

The friction Gen Z is chasing is the invitation for brands. A campaign built for the feed doesn’t land in a room where phones are banned at the door. A discount code doesn’t replace the reason someone shows up every Thursday to run with strangers. Brands need to earn a reason to be in the room with Gen Z. 

It’s not just if your brand shows up in these spaces. It’s whether it knows how to show up, with enough restraint, and not ruin the experience. We’ve been figuring this out through the Citizen GenLens: Gen Z Collective, decoding Gen Z beyond the stereotypes. Get in touch if you want to find your way marketing to Gen Z offline.