Your next consumer cohort is already watching how we use technology. What does Gen Alpha’s growing appetite for human connection and real-world experiences mean for brands, asks MAD//Fest host, Livia Bernardini.

"Mummy, you rely on technology too much."

My eldest daughter said it to me just before the summer, point blank and matter of fact.

And you know you have nothing to retort when a comment stops you in your tracks with that distinctive punch in the stomach that is impossible to ignore. So the only option left is to ask, in your most measured parenting voice, "Why do you think so, my dear?"

"You use ChatGPT to correct your writing, and Maps to go pretty much everywhere, even when I am sure you know how to get to the dentist."

Caught. Yet I felt incredibly good about it, and I knew why. I just needed a moment to articulate it.

When I shared this little home anecdote with Mary Keane-Dawson, who advises MAD//Fest among many other things, she said I had to write it up. When Mary speaks, I listen.

For full disclosure, I have quietly supported the campaign to keep smartphones away from children under sixteen, and I was rather delighted when phone-free schools in England were given the force of law at the end of June. Not ironic at all for someone who spent half her career selling digital experiences, right? If anything, we are people who have seen the inside of the machine and are still trying to make peace with it.

Generations Rebel, As They Always Have

Most trends are cyclical, and the rebellion of one generation more often than not becomes the comfort of the next.

Think about phones, from a rotary handset to a cordless landline to a mobile in three generations. Then Millennials made BlackBerrys aspirational, only to make them obsolete the moment iPhones offered a better idea of what a mobile phone could be. Now a new premium niche is emerging, with sophisticated dumbphones like Light Phone, Punkt and Mudita Kompakt marketed as a way to stay connected, just less so. May the latest rebellion against smart be deliberately, beautifully, unapologetically dumb.

It's what happens in culture: things become uncool the moment your parents love them. We used Facebook and now our parents do. Abercrombie & Fitch, the uniform of choice of teenagers in the late nineties, became the brand their children wouldn't be caught dead in. Snowboarding was our rebellion against skiing parents. Then skiing somehow became cool again just in time for the snowboarders’ children. At this point, I have completely lost track of who is meant to be rebelling against whom on that sky lift. 

And now, as parents, we rush to type questions into our phones like: Where should we go? Can you write this for me? What's this weird spot on my skin? Why on earth didn't she accept my offer? And our five-, ten- and fifteen-year-old kids observe. They see us asking our mobiles for everything we don't know, or, even worse, for what we know but we are too lazy or on autopilot to make the effort to remember. Yes, I am making excuses for my dentist journey.

The Signals Are Already Here

Back to school this year and schools have a new mandate in England as they have been told no more phones for children on the school grounds. Very convenient for me as I had my eldest starting secondary this year.

Another thing that made me happy was this research from GWI on Gen Alpha. 

Real-world fun is back! Cinema is cool again, physical toys are climbing the wishlists, and Fortune Business Insights expects the board games market to more than double by 2034, with my household most likely responsible for a big share of it

Most twelve- to fifteen-year-olds don't post everything they do online, likely laughing behind their parents' backs at their Insta frenzy.

What This Means for Brand Marketers

If you build for fifteen to twenty-year-olds today, you are building for humans that may see overuse of tech the same way millennials saw landlines: not the default. 

Three thoughts:

  • Friction will signal intentionality. For two decades frictionless has been the goal. The next cohort might appreciate more brands that make you wait, ask for the right level of engagement and give you time to choose without rushing – a cohort refusing to get nudged into addiction.

  • "Made by AI" may become a tell. A generation that is growing up watching its parents struggle to find the family dentist without satnav will read "made by a human" as a competence claim as much as a craft choice. (Humpfff) 

  • Verifiable humans as a premium. Gen Alpha is learning to spot generative output and could become the most unforgiving audience for brands that fake warmth, craft or care.

Obviously I have not given up on Maps. Let's be reasonable here - my punctuality is already not what I am famous for. But when I know the way, I no longer turn it on, and when my daughter is in the room I notice what she notices.

I will let you know how it goes. If you see me lost on site at MAD//Fest next year, you will know what happened there. 

And now that she is a few weeks into secondary school, new tribe, updated vocabulary and all, I am half bracing for the day she comes home and tells me: "Mum, don't be a phoney."

I am genuinely curious to hear what your little ones are noticing. 

Be brave and do tell. 

Say hi to me on LinkedIn or subscribe to my Substack, Intuition Edge, where a longer version of this argument will be available in a week or so. It's free.