All ages of consumers can wear Crocs, from toddlers to the elderly, but Gen Z is the footwear brand’s marketing target, said Chief Marketing Officer Carly Gomez.
“Our true bullseye is Gen Z,” Gomez said. “They are really driving culture for the generations below and above them.”
Gomez discussed some of its marketing tactics during the panel discussion, “Tactics for Enticing Gen Z and Gen Alpha” at the Shoptalk 2026 conference in March in Las Vegas. Chief Marketer caught up with Gomez before the panel about her key takeaways.
The two points Gomez shared with fellow marketers are around deep story telling and showing up where the target consumer is. She used the brand’s recent initiative — a microdrama on entertainment streaming app ReelShort — as an example of how Crocs is targeting the younger generation.
‘Snackable,’ Deep Content
The Crocs microdrama “Charmed To Meet You” launched on Feb. 14. A microdrama is a short video story with high production value that Gomez calls “snackable content.” Crocs worked with ReelShort to create five episodes that are one to two minutes long, each with a cliff hanger.
The story was inspired by one of Crocs’ Gen Z marketing employees. She noticed a neighbor in her apartment building leave out his Crocs every day outside his door. She started to put Crocs’ shoe charms, called Jibbitz, on the neighbor’s shoes and learned about him that way, such as he likes hot sauce but not pizza. The employee told Gomez about this meet cute, and they decided to use the premise as a marketing story for the microdrama.
“It basically tells this amazing story about Crocs and of course our product, but really through personalization, which we know is a key focus of both Gen Z and Gen Alpha,” Gomez said. “I’m definitely a storyteller as a marketer, so I love that we’re telling unique stories.”
Crocs launched the series on Valentine’s Day 2026, and today more than 10 million consumers have watched Charmed to Meet You. When it launched, the series was in ReelShort’s “Top 10”— which Gomez said is akin to the promoted content Netflix puts in its “Top 10” — and it is still in the Top 20 today.
From concept to go live, it took Crocs eight weeks to create the entire series. The retailer published it on ReelShort and on its YouTube channel.
“When we talk about being where their consumer is, people are consuming content in the platform that they’re spending time,” Gomez said. “ReelShort’s audience, they have a pretty big daily download, and it’s a growing platform.”
Crocs on TikTok
Even though Crocs has a strong presence on TikTok, it did not post the series there because of its longer length. Instead, the brand used TikTok to advertise the series and post behind-the-scenes content.
“We really focused on key platforms where people were consuming this type of content when we launched it,” Gomez said. “This is a fast-moving trend. So I would tell you that in very short order, additional platforms are jumping on. But at the time we partnered with ReelShort as kind of our key partner because they were really leaders in this space.”
Gomez also emphasizes how TikTok is a key component to its overall marketing strategy because that’s where this generation spends its time. Crocs is the No. 1 footwear brand on TikTok Shop, CEO Andrew Rees told investors on its Q4 2025 earnings call, according to a SeekingAlpha Transcript.
“We anticipate significant future growth in social selling, including on this platform,” Rees said. “In 2025, we launched seven new markets globally with TikTok Shop and have more on our road map for 2026.”
While at Shoptalk, Gomez is not shopping for any technology but aims to learn from other marketers about how to engage with its target audience.
“It’s a generation that I spend all of my time thinking about,” Gomez said. “I love talking about what Gen Z is up to, how to engage with Gen Z and Gen Alphas.”
