Beyond-Store Brand Spaces Plug ‘Family Time’ Gaps

Many parents worldwide are now prioritising family time, but a lot of them still want more playtime together. Meanwhile, Gen Alphas themselves are craving overtly safe family-first real-life spaces (see New Youthquakes POV in AdWeek Europe 2024). With space and resources widely lacking, some brands are bridging the gap with non-transactional spaces, often including co-creation with artists and professionals.

Confidence-Boosting Activations: Tween Skincare, Smiles & School Socialising

Beauty and food brands are supporting Gen Alpha with activations tackling tween skin, wonky teeth and school lunchtime loneliness – common rites of passage but now supercharged with anxiety because of social media. Powerful tactics focusing on body and social confidence include TV miniseries, packaging activations and exhibitions, brand imagery and messaging rebuffing perfectionism.

Girls in Sport: AI Futures, Playable Avatars & Support Zines

Forward-thinking brands are encouraging girls’ sporting passions. In regions including Britain and the Middle East, the oldest Gen Alphas (aged 12-14) are leaving sports in droves, damaging their confidence and health and presenting negative implications far beyond their tweenage years. Savvy brands are intervening via artificial-intelligence-(AI)-engineered future selves and Roblox-hosted activations.

Virtual Worlds: Nourishing Creativity, Collaboration & Connection

Gaming/virtual worlds are a key social and creative channel for Gen Alphas – a demographic more likely to want to collaborate with others in-game than any other cohort (see Key Stats). The best brand initiatives are forging new cooperation-centred pathways, from semiprivate virtual hangout pods and enabling co-creation with ultra-covetable brand intellectual property (IP) to offering world-building AI companions.

Customisation Concepts for Empowering Self-Expression

Responding to Gen Alphas’ well-publicised foray into beauty intended for adults (see also Tackling Tween Beauty), smart brands are responsibly nourishing children’s creative individualism and, in some instances, a wider imperative to incubate diversity. Build-your-own bars and dress-up boutiques (for Alphas and their toys) that prize self-expression over perfection are key.

Upskilling the Alphapreneurs

Inherently entrepreneurial, 76% of European Gen Alphas want to work for themselves when they grow up (Visa, 2023). Smart brands/retail concepts from fashion to finance are imaginatively equipping them with the (age-appropriate) required skills, such as decision-making and self-sufficiency, via kid-friendly recommerce and reworked fairy tales.