Part 1: Introduction

For anyone who has a Gen Alpha (those born 2010-2024) at home, this won’t come as a surprise: they have a point of view about what we do and buy, and they are not afraid to voice it. Fueled by social media and modern parenting trends that center and empower children, Alphas are clear about what they want, highly adept at finding ways to get it, and more brand savvy than any generation before them. They are proactively pushing their grown ups (who are, more than not, happy to be pushed) to try new products, go to new places, and embrace new ideas. 

So while the parents might carry the wallet, Gen Alphas wield their pester power with gusto, making them a key household decision-maker in categories across the board –  from travel and retail to healthcare and automotive. So if you’re a marketer looking to impact and engage Gen X, Millennials, or Gen Zs, you’d better ask yourself how well you know the Gen Alphas living with them. 

This series investigates these young powerhouses. Connecting with them, listening to them, listening for what’s being left unsaid, and going deep into the data to pull out the stories behind the information and the stereotypes. Here is a taste of what we’ll be sharing over the coming months.

– Wide Open Spaces: In response to the hurry, control, noise, and boundaries of the world around them, it is becoming clear that, despite being digitally native and almost constantly online, Gen Alphas – like all humans before them – hunger for and thrive in experiences that offer a counter to their digital norm: wide open spaces, unstructured play, and uninterrupted attention from the people they love. This is a generation for whom accessible and trusted physical third spaces are rare. If we’re looking to build long term-trust and loyalty with our customers, we need to consider how Gen Alpha’s desire for independent, freeform play and interest in slow hobbies might impact everything from their family’s travel choices and their grocery shopping habits to their parents’ and communities’ choice of brand allies.

– How To Be A “Good” Gen Alpha Boy: We have loved seeing the trend of marketers championing girl power and depicting both girls and women as the strong, powerful individuals they are. It is also important to consider how culture, and marketing, has impacted our boys. We’ll explore how the moving goalposts for what boys should be (and how fathers should parent them) has created confusion, polarization, and even shame, making it hard for the next generation of boys to safely figure out who they are. Across the board, we are seeing young boys fall behind in education, career, friendships, and mental health.  How are the narratives of Gen Alpha boys’ struggles, the stereotypes of their Millennial dads as buffoons, and the underlying messages that boys are a problem impacting their understanding of themselves and their relationship with the world? What are the motivations, needs, and fears being created and how can we be part of creating new, compelling scripts?

– Who Is Defining Gen Alpha: Gen Alpha is poised to be the most diverse generation in history, yet they are being raised in an extremely polarized culture. As the first majority non-white generation in the U.S., their complex identities defy the simple narratives marketers crave. This is a generation for whom authenticity is non-negotiable. To connect with them, marketers must consistently abandon generalizations, ask ourselves who is being overlooked, and push ourselves to embrace the paradoxes. This is what we will strive to do as we explore the nuanced, often contradictory truths of a multi-faceted generation that resists easy definition.

– Emerging Into A Post-Hierarchy Work World: The oldest Gen Alphas are a few years away from entering the workforce. When they do, it will not be into the one that previous generations entered. Beyond economic uncertainty, they will be facing the impacts of AI and the decentralization of knowledge on the job market: hierarchies evolving into agile, cross-functional networks, where an entry level Gen Alpha’s predictive insight might outdo that of a 20 year veteran. Marketers need to get ready to engage and nurture the next generation of leaders, and to do so we need to talk about (our own) vulnerabilities, fears, and capacities to coach instead of boss.

Ready to “be unignorable” to this dynamic audience?
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