Under25 youth media network is rewriting the rules of Gen Z marketing

For brands chasing Gen Z, Under25 youth media network uses campuses, content and community to build real relationships instead of interruptive ads.

Most brands still try to reach young audiences with the same playbook they use for everyone else more ads, more influencers, more noise. Under25 is showing that the next generation does not respond to that. They respond to people who show up in their world and stay there.

At the heart of this shift is the Under25 youth media network, a student powered ecosystem that stretches across more than one thousand five hundred campuses and over two million young people. Instead of pushing messages from the outside, it invites students to become the storytellers, organisers and community builders who bring brands into their spaces in ways that feel honest and natural.

How does Under25 turn campuses into media and community hubs

The company operates on a simple understanding that the real internet for students is not only on their phones, it is also in corridors, canteens and classrooms. To tap into that, Under25 has built a stack of formats that intersect content, culture and participation.

On campuses, its Summit at Campus property functions as a student run cultural festival. Two hundred plus student leaders and a crew of thousands handle everything from programming and logistics to partnerships and promotion. In the current season alone, one hundred such summits have already taken place, touching nearly five lakh students on ground and well over one hundred twenty million people online.

These summits are not just events. They are learning labs where young organisers experiment with leadership, communication and pressure management in real time. For brands, this means association with something students actually care about, rather than a logo pasted on a backdrop.

What should brands know about the Under25 youth media network

Under25 offers brands multiple entry points into youth culture without forcing themselves into the conversation. Some of the key building blocks include

• Content led campaigns that turn students into creators and narrators
• Vox pop style interactions that capture unfiltered views in campus settings
• Ambassador programmes where students advocate for brands they genuinely like
• On ground experiences tied to surveys and research that decode youth priorities

The network also runs more than two hundred student led hyperlocal pages that document campus life through memes, micro news and community updates. Topping this structure is a flagship handle that reaches around one hundred twenty million people every month, decoding youth behaviour and linking it to wider internet trends.

All of this is tied together by a dedicated app that acts as a digital campus for students. Here they discover opportunities, collaborate on projects, and interact with brand campaigns in a space that feels like their own, not a rented billboard.

Is this approach delivering results for partner brands

Recent collaborations suggest the model is working. For Zerodha, Under25 framed investing as a form of investing in oneself through the Invest In You theme across multiple summit seasons. The campaign reached more than one million students offline and hundreds of millions online by turning financial literacy into a lived culture rather than a classroom lecture.

Campaigns with OPPO for the K13 device transformed a standard launch into a cultural moment inside the app, where user generated content made the phone part of everyday conversations. For Philips OneBlade, students showcased grooming routines in unscripted, relatable ways, driving product trials without relying on heavy ad spends.

Leadership at Under25 describes this as proof that when Gen Z leads the storytelling, brand discovery and trust follow naturally. Awards at a recent industry forum for the OPPO and Philips work underline that this youth first approach is being noticed beyond campuses too.

By embedding itself in classrooms, corridors, feeds and group chats, the Under25 youth media network is offering brands a blueprint for Gen Z engagement that is built on participation, not interruption. Its mix of student led events, hyperlocal media, digital community spaces and authentic storytelling shows that when young people are treated as partners rather than targets, attention and affinity follow as a natural outcome.

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