Gen Z Is Burning Down Brand Loyalty in India
Indian Gen Z doesn't do lifetime value. They do right-now value. Brands still running CRM playbooks built for their parents are losing the plot — and the wallet share.
Gen Z is not disloyal. They're just ruthlessly present-tense. Every interaction is a fresh audition — the brand that won last quarter gets no credit for this quarter. That's not fickleness; it's a fundamentally different contract with commerce.
India's marketing establishment has been slow to absorb this. Loyalty programmes, anniversary campaigns, the whole apparatus of retention built on accumulated goodwill — it assumes memory as a competitive moat. Gen Z doesn't trade in that currency.
What they do trade in: identity alignment, speed of response, and the sense that a brand *sees* them right now. Not historically. Now. Tata Salt winning at ET Trendies suggests established names can still earn that presence — but winning an award and winning a generation are different games.
The harder question for brand teams: if loyalty is dead as a long-term concept, what does CRM even mean? The answer is probably that the funnel flattens entirely. Every touchpoint becomes an acquisition moment. Every campaign is a first impression to someone.
Building for that reality means faster creative cycles, sharper cultural sensing, and willingness to restart the conversation rather than extend it. That's uncomfortable for big-budget brands used to compounding equity over years. It's a genuine structural problem — not a tone-of-voice fix.