While there has been much buzz about Gen Alpha and the group’s potential for beauty, the generation’s defining traits — even for its own members — still remain to be seen.
“There’s a lot that we don’t know [about Gen Alpha],” said UTA Next Gen director Nate Jones, in conversation with Esther Song and Jill Biren, who are respective cofounders and chief executive officers of Gen Alpha beauty brands Rini and JB Skrub. “Whether they’re skeptical or nihilistic or robust or tech-forward — these are things we have no answer on yet.”
To that end, resonating with Gen Alpha requires a different approach than with Gen Z or Millennials, whose respective values have come into focus over time.
“The best way to deliver a product or message that resonates with a community is to work with that community — having consistent mechanisms to understand that cohort,” Jones continued.
For Song, who launched Rini with actress Shay Mitchell offering sheet masks and body crayons, Gen Alpha’s own input has been important for product and design processes.
“We create emotional connections with kids through the animals on our packaging, which [Shay and I’s] daughters are involved in choosing,” said Song, adding that in addition to speaking with kids, creating a connection with parents is key.
“We have a dual audience strategy…[for] our parents, we lead with transparency, education and clinical results, which we publish on our website,” she said of the direct-to-consumer brand.
Biren, whose core JB Skrub users are boys between 8 and 16 years old, echoed the sentiment.
“Our primary audience is mothers, who are purchasing the product…they are on multiple platforms, so we have to be on all social networks, AI platforms, the Reddits of the world — and the messaging for each of these platforms is a bit nuanced, so that can be time-challenging,” said Biren.
Then comes speaking to the teen boys, who increasingly “care deeply about their products,” she continued.
“On the back of our body wash bottle, we have three easy steps; wash your Pits, Nuts, Butts (PNB) — in that order. Because there is an order of operations and we need to remind them of that, and we know that it works because then they tell their parents that they’ve run out of their body wash again.”
As Gen Alpha continues to mature, it’s only going to become more important for brand messaging to be clear and feel synergistic with their lives and values.
“It’s no longer about, how do we interrupt people’s attention — but how do we integrate into the things that have people’s attention,” Jones said.
