Oct. 6, 2025
Gen Alpha's Surprising Influence on Your PR Strategy
The player is loading ...
That Solo Life, Episode 316: Gen Alpha's Surprising Influence on Your PR StrategyEpisode Summary
In this episode, hosts Karen Swim and Michelle Kane dive into a fascinating study about Generation Alpha—today's kids and teens aged 0-15. You might think your target audience is the adults with the wallets, but this new generation is wielding surprising economic power, influencing major family purchases from cars to technology. Karen and Michelle explore what this shift means for PR and communications professionals. They discuss how to adapt your messaging to acknowledge this younger, content-savvy audience without alienating the primary buyers. The conversation underscores the importance of crafting authentic, high-quality, and personal content that resonates with Gen Alpha's values, treating them as influencers rather than just children. Tune in to learn how to future-proof your PR strategy by understanding the decisive role this generation plays in today's purchasing decisions.
Episode Highlights- [00:56] Introduction to the PR News Online study on Generation Alpha's economic influence.
- [01:49] Discussion on how Gen Alpha is shaping B2C and even B2B purchasing decisions in areas like technology and vacations.
- [03:01] The challenge for communicators: How to craft messaging that appeals to Gen Alpha's interests without directly targeting them.
- [04:26] The fine line between being inclusive of younger audiences and creating "kid branding" that can quickly become a turn-off.
- [05:06] Why Gen Alpha prioritizes authentic, quality content over sheer fame, and what this means for brands and creators.
- [06:42] The importance of personalizing communications to feel like a "For You Page" (FYP) to connect with modern audiences.
- [08:11] How to balance your messaging to acknowledge the multiple influencers in a family's purchasing cycle, including kids who introduce parents to new brands.
- [09:43] The long-term benefit of building brand relationships with consumers from a much earlier age.
- [10:43] A look at the future: How Gen Alpha's focus on critical thinking and facts could reshape the communication landscape.
- USC Annenberg and ACC Study. Gen Alpha: Mini, Mighty, and Market Ready
That Solo Life is a podcast created for public relations, communication, and marketing professionals who work as independent and small practitioners. Hosted by Karen Swim, APR, founder of Words For Hire and President of Solo PR, and Michelle Kane, Principal of Voice Matters, the show delivers expert insights, encouragement, and advice for solo PR pros navigating today’s dynamic professional landscape.
Loved this episode? Don't keep it to yourself! Share it with a fellow PR pro and be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an insight. We’d also love it if you could leave us a review; even a sentence or two will make a difference!
That Solo Life, Episode 316: Gen Alpha's Surprising Influence on Your PR Strategy
Michelle Kane (00:12):
Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane, and my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hey. Hey, Karen. Here we are. It's a beautiful day for podcasting.
Karen Swim, APR (00:28):
Good morning, Michelle. It is a beautiful day for podcasting. It's not a necessarily beautiful weather day, but it's a beautiful day. Every day is a good day to podcast.
Michelle Kane (00:39):
Podcast. That's right. Exactly. Especially when you're talking pr.
Karen Swim, APR (00:43):
This is so true. My favorite topic.
Michelle Kane (00:47):
Well, you found a really interesting study. I believe it was on PR news online about Generation Alpha.
Karen Swim, APR (00:56):
Yes, yes,
Michelle Kane (00:57):
Yes. This is what ages zero to 15, I believe. So the youngsters are driving economic decisions of their families in eye-opening ways. So we're going to talk about that a little bit and what that means for us as communications practitioners and as we craft messaging for our audiences. It's good to know what the adults are thinking. And just to kick it off, apparently 11% of parents out there think it's okay for their zero to 15-year-old to weigh in on buying a car.
Karen Swim, APR (01:37):
Yeah. There's some interesting findings in this, and we will link to the study in the notes. It's from USC, my alma mater, go ye Mighty, Trojans, and USC, and I found Interesting that you expect Gen Alpha to maybe drive cultural trends, but they are really controlling the family's wallet with big ticket purchases like vacations, expensive things like cars, technology, which obviously technology plays into so many facets of our life. So
Michelle Kane (02:20):
Where
Karen Swim, APR (02:21):
I would not have believed that this was mostly like a B2C thing, this can definitely affect B2B as well. And
Michelle Kane (02:30):
For sure we were
Karen Swim, APR (02:31):
So young, and there are some things in the study that made me feel super old, of course, but also that it's a little disturbing how we're erasing older generation so rapidly and it, but for us communicators who participate, it really forces us to look at the communication tools that we're using, what this generation thinks is important, and making sure that our messaging is not directed at them because you can't stare directly at them or talk directly to them, or they'll ignore you, but isn't is mirroring the things that are of interest since their families are turning to them and asking their opinions on purchases?
Michelle Kane (03:26):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that is definitely true. Like you say, it's not like we're telling everyone, okay, craft all your messaging to 14-year-olds. No, no. But one of the statistics was that 70% say they help their family keep up with new trends and cool things to try. That's a big number. That is a big number. It's definitely something to keep in mind as you do your messaging. Clearly, you still want to target the people with the wallets who can actually make the transaction, although what was the number of some that put them on their credit cards as users?
Karen Swim, APR (04:13):
So a big percentage of parents are actually adding their Gen Alpha kids as authorized users on their credit card. But I think the study also made an important point. Even as you are thinking inclusively about this generation, you also don't want to make it kid branding because that's a turnoff and will age out of that very quickly. So I think balance is the key, not saying kid, and it advise that brands treat kids as influencers, not as children. One of the things that I really did like, and I love that Gen Alpha is driving this trend is that to Gen Alpha, it's not about fame, it's about content and the content hits they're all in, it doesn't matter. So wherever their interests are, they're going to consume content by those people if the content resonates for them rather than if they're famous, they may follow some famous people, but they're more about what you're saying in this age. That's a key differentiator in my mind, and it's something for us to really be intentional about the content. So true, we're getting trying to go viral, and I know that that's not communicators necessarily, but our client brands will sometimes have that. But it's not about the cool visuals or over the top stuff. But really digging down, is this content to resonate with our audience? Is it shareable? We are seeing the impacts of different generations. And the report kind of made note of
(06:09):
How each generation has influence. Millennials make mood boards, gen Z curated the aesthetics, and now we have Gen Alpha with the content and with curating experiences. So keeping those things in mind as we're communicating is this not only good solid content, but will it really resonate? Is it something that people will perceive as communication tailored to them? The term came up of it should look like an FYPA for you page, so it should feel personal. Are we doing that in our communication? So are we too broad, too general, that it doesn't really feel like it's for us?
Michelle Kane (06:59):
Right? I mean, really what I really love about this is it all comes back to it's a conversation. It's an interaction between me, the brand and you, the potential consumer. And I am all for quality content, winning the day. I mean, that's exciting because, and I'm not saying this is true certainly for all influencers, but I know people whose kids are like, I want to be a YouTuber. It's like, okay, that's fine, but I didn't hear you lead with, I want to help people do X. It's just, oh, I see you can make money just doing stuff, so I'm going to do it. So I love that this generation coming up appears to be more interested in, well, what's useful to me, which could very well be while they're informing all these decisions.
Karen Swim, APR (07:54):
And brands have to, as always, this has always been true. You really have to ensure that you're balancing out your audience, if your audience really is the parents, again, it doesn't mean that you're making a wholesale switch to market to them, but you're keeping their interest and how they view things and their perspective in mind so that you're serving up things in a way that's meaningful to your audience, but your audience is turning to their kids for validation confirmation in the focus group, that was part of the study. Moms were saying that their kids would bring their attention to a brand that they didn't know about, and then they loved the brand so much that they started buying it for themselves. Or moms were taking makeup advice from their 12-year-old daughters. So it's a real thing. It's
Michelle Kane (08:55):
A thing.
Karen Swim, APR (08:57):
Be aware of it. And again, it doesn't mean that we should start talking in kid-friendly language. You don't want to do that, but you do want to think through. And I mean, it goes back to the whole discipline of understanding that you have purchasers, reviewers, influencers, and analyzers as part of that purchasing decision. It doesn't usually rest on one person. And so thinking about that entire cycle and making sure that our messaging is resonating not only with the end purchaser, but the users of those purchases and those who influence that purchase.
Michelle Kane (09:43):
I mean, and the good news is in keeping this younger audience in mind, my goodness, you're establishing this consumer relationship with them
Karen Swim, APR (09:53):
Far
Michelle Kane (09:54):
Earlier. And just from a relationship-building standpoint, that's a good thing. Not that you want to commodify a tween's experience because, well, you don't like life. You don't like to think of life like that. But I mean, oh my goodness, I guess I think back, we all had to have the Jes jeans and things like that. So some of it's not super new, but I think the degree to which parents are like, oh, okay, as opposed to you're going to get tough skins, and it
Karen Swim, APR (10:33):
Shout out to the parents who are under a lot of pressure because it's a tough spot to be in. But yeah, we're in, and I hope that Gen Alpha ushers back in an era of critical thinking and facts mattering. It would be so great if we could bring that back in where we have this generation that is a little bit more on their game because we need that. It's interesting though, to think about this generation coming up, being so influential in purchase decisions and so influential on the wallet while at the same time we've reached this milestone of this next year, I believe, of students entering college is the biggest one. And then it drops off. The arrows go down for the next 40 years.
Michelle Kane (11:30):
Interesting.
Karen Swim, APR (11:31):
Yeah. So that is really interesting. We have these influential kids coming up and they're going to be smaller out number, and it's going to impact the educational system because some of those schools may not survive. They may merge into others. So we're seeing a lot of wholesale changes on the horizon.
Michelle Kane (11:52):
Yeah, yeah. With challenges come innovation, and it makes us all work smarter. So I'll remain optimistic about it. Sure,
(12:08):
Sure. Was that convincing? No, it's true though. I mean, hey, we have to adapt to the hands were dealt right, and I think having this data is just an incredible way to look ahead as we serve our current audiences so well. We hope this has been a valuable time for you. Whether you're out taking a walk, taking a break from being behind the desk or out running errands, we hope this time is always worthwhile to you. Please hit us up at solopro.com. We do want to hear from you, whatever platform you're listening on, and we're on all of them. Please leave a review. We would love that as well. And if there's something you want us to talk about, if there's a communications issue you're dealing with, please send it along to us. And until next time, thanks for listening to That Solo Life.
Transcribing live conversations can be tricky so please be forgiving of any typos or errors that you find. Love something here and want to share? Great, please read on!
You are more than welcome to share the transcript (up to 500 words) in media articles (e.g., PR News, O’Dwyers), on your personal website, in a non-commercial article or blog post (e.g., Substack), and/or on a personal social media account for non-commercial purposes, provided that you include attribution to “That Solo Life” and link back to the soloprpro/podcast URL.
For the sake of clarity, media outlets with advertising models are permitted to use excerpts from the transcript, as outlined above.But no one is authorized to copy any portion of the podcast content or use That Solo Life’s name, image or likeness for any commercial purpose or use, including without limitation inclusion in any books, e-books, book summaries or synopses, or on a commercial website or social media site (e.g., Facebook, X, Instagram, etc.) that offers or promotes your or another’s products or services.
Got questions? Email us at info@soloprpro.com.
Michelle Kane (00:12):
Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane, and my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hey. Hey, Karen. Here we are. It's a beautiful day for podcasting.
Karen Swim, APR (00:28):
Good morning, Michelle. It is a beautiful day for podcasting. It's not a necessarily beautiful weather day, but it's a beautiful day. Every day is a good day to podcast.
Michelle Kane (00:39):
Podcast. That's right. Exactly. Especially when you're talking pr.
Karen Swim, APR (00:43):
This is so true. My favorite topic.
Michelle Kane (00:47):
Well, you found a really interesting study. I believe it was on PR news online about Generation Alpha.
Karen Swim, APR (00:56):
Yes, yes,
Michelle Kane (00:57):
Yes. This is what ages zero to 15, I believe. So the youngsters are driving economic decisions of their families in eye-opening ways. So we're going to talk about that a little bit and what that means for us as communications practitioners and as we craft messaging for our audiences. It's good to know what the adults are thinking. And just to kick it off, apparently 11% of parents out there think it's okay for their zero to 15-year-old to weigh in on buying a car.
Karen Swim, APR (01:37):
Yeah. There's some interesting findings in this, and we will link to the study in the notes. It's from USC, my alma mater, go ye Mighty, Trojans, and USC, and I found Interesting that you expect Gen Alpha to maybe drive cultural trends, but they are really controlling the family's wallet with big ticket purchases like vacations, expensive things like cars, technology, which obviously technology plays into so many facets of our life. So
Michelle Kane (02:20):
Where
Karen Swim, APR (02:21):
I would not have believed that this was mostly like a B2C thing, this can definitely affect B2B as well. And
Michelle Kane (02:30):
For sure we were
Karen Swim, APR (02:31):
So young, and there are some things in the study that made me feel super old, of course, but also that it's a little disturbing how we're erasing older generation so rapidly and it, but for us communicators who participate, it really forces us to look at the communication tools that we're using, what this generation thinks is important, and making sure that our messaging is not directed at them because you can't stare directly at them or talk directly to them, or they'll ignore you, but isn't is mirroring the things that are of interest since their families are turning to them and asking their opinions on purchases?
Michelle Kane (03:26):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that is definitely true. Like you say, it's not like we're telling everyone, okay, craft all your messaging to 14-year-olds. No, no. But one of the statistics was that 70% say they help their family keep up with new trends and cool things to try. That's a big number. That is a big number. It's definitely something to keep in mind as you do your messaging. Clearly, you still want to target the people with the wallets who can actually make the transaction, although what was the number of some that put them on their credit cards as users?
Karen Swim, APR (04:13):
So a big percentage of parents are actually adding their Gen Alpha kids as authorized users on their credit card. But I think the study also made an important point. Even as you are thinking inclusively about this generation, you also don't want to make it kid branding because that's a turnoff and will age out of that very quickly. So I think balance is the key, not saying kid, and it advise that brands treat kids as influencers, not as children. One of the things that I really did like, and I love that Gen Alpha is driving this trend is that to Gen Alpha, it's not about fame, it's about content and the content hits they're all in, it doesn't matter. So wherever their interests are, they're going to consume content by those people if the content resonates for them rather than if they're famous, they may follow some famous people, but they're more about what you're saying in this age. That's a key differentiator in my mind, and it's something for us to really be intentional about the content. So true, we're getting trying to go viral, and I know that that's not communicators necessarily, but our client brands will sometimes have that. But it's not about the cool visuals or over the top stuff. But really digging down, is this content to resonate with our audience? Is it shareable? We are seeing the impacts of different generations. And the report kind of made note of
(06:09):
How each generation has influence. Millennials make mood boards, gen Z curated the aesthetics, and now we have Gen Alpha with the content and with curating experiences. So keeping those things in mind as we're communicating is this not only good solid content, but will it really resonate? Is it something that people will perceive as communication tailored to them? The term came up of it should look like an FYPA for you page, so it should feel personal. Are we doing that in our communication? So are we too broad, too general, that it doesn't really feel like it's for us?
Michelle Kane (06:59):
Right? I mean, really what I really love about this is it all comes back to it's a conversation. It's an interaction between me, the brand and you, the potential consumer. And I am all for quality content, winning the day. I mean, that's exciting because, and I'm not saying this is true certainly for all influencers, but I know people whose kids are like, I want to be a YouTuber. It's like, okay, that's fine, but I didn't hear you lead with, I want to help people do X. It's just, oh, I see you can make money just doing stuff, so I'm going to do it. So I love that this generation coming up appears to be more interested in, well, what's useful to me, which could very well be while they're informing all these decisions.
Karen Swim, APR (07:54):
And brands have to, as always, this has always been true. You really have to ensure that you're balancing out your audience, if your audience really is the parents, again, it doesn't mean that you're making a wholesale switch to market to them, but you're keeping their interest and how they view things and their perspective in mind so that you're serving up things in a way that's meaningful to your audience, but your audience is turning to their kids for validation confirmation in the focus group, that was part of the study. Moms were saying that their kids would bring their attention to a brand that they didn't know about, and then they loved the brand so much that they started buying it for themselves. Or moms were taking makeup advice from their 12-year-old daughters. So it's a real thing. It's
Michelle Kane (08:55):
A thing.
Karen Swim, APR (08:57):
Be aware of it. And again, it doesn't mean that we should start talking in kid-friendly language. You don't want to do that, but you do want to think through. And I mean, it goes back to the whole discipline of understanding that you have purchasers, reviewers, influencers, and analyzers as part of that purchasing decision. It doesn't usually rest on one person. And so thinking about that entire cycle and making sure that our messaging is resonating not only with the end purchaser, but the users of those purchases and those who influence that purchase.
Michelle Kane (09:43):
I mean, and the good news is in keeping this younger audience in mind, my goodness, you're establishing this consumer relationship with them
Karen Swim, APR (09:53):
Far
Michelle Kane (09:54):
Earlier. And just from a relationship-building standpoint, that's a good thing. Not that you want to commodify a tween's experience because, well, you don't like life. You don't like to think of life like that. But I mean, oh my goodness, I guess I think back, we all had to have the Jes jeans and things like that. So some of it's not super new, but I think the degree to which parents are like, oh, okay, as opposed to you're going to get tough skins, and it
Karen Swim, APR (10:33):
Shout out to the parents who are under a lot of pressure because it's a tough spot to be in. But yeah, we're in, and I hope that Gen Alpha ushers back in an era of critical thinking and facts mattering. It would be so great if we could bring that back in where we have this generation that is a little bit more on their game because we need that. It's interesting though, to think about this generation coming up, being so influential in purchase decisions and so influential on the wallet while at the same time we've reached this milestone of this next year, I believe, of students entering college is the biggest one. And then it drops off. The arrows go down for the next 40 years.
Michelle Kane (11:30):
Interesting.
Karen Swim, APR (11:31):
Yeah. So that is really interesting. We have these influential kids coming up and they're going to be smaller out number, and it's going to impact the educational system because some of those schools may not survive. They may merge into others. So we're seeing a lot of wholesale changes on the horizon.
Michelle Kane (11:52):
Yeah, yeah. With challenges come innovation, and it makes us all work smarter. So I'll remain optimistic about it. Sure,
(12:08):
Sure. Was that convincing? No, it's true though. I mean, hey, we have to adapt to the hands were dealt right, and I think having this data is just an incredible way to look ahead as we serve our current audiences so well. We hope this has been a valuable time for you. Whether you're out taking a walk, taking a break from being behind the desk or out running errands, we hope this time is always worthwhile to you. Please hit us up at solopro.com. We do want to hear from you, whatever platform you're listening on, and we're on all of them. Please leave a review. We would love that as well. And if there's something you want us to talk about, if there's a communications issue you're dealing with, please send it along to us. And until next time, thanks for listening to That Solo Life.
Transcribing live conversations can be tricky so please be forgiving of any typos or errors that you find. Love something here and want to share? Great, please read on!
You are more than welcome to share the transcript (up to 500 words) in media articles (e.g., PR News, O’Dwyers), on your personal website, in a non-commercial article or blog post (e.g., Substack), and/or on a personal social media account for non-commercial purposes, provided that you include attribution to “That Solo Life” and link back to the soloprpro/podcast URL.
For the sake of clarity, media outlets with advertising models are permitted to use excerpts from the transcript, as outlined above.But no one is authorized to copy any portion of the podcast content or use That Solo Life’s name, image or likeness for any commercial purpose or use, including without limitation inclusion in any books, e-books, book summaries or synopses, or on a commercial website or social media site (e.g., Facebook, X, Instagram, etc.) that offers or promotes your or another’s products or services.
Got questions? Email us at info@soloprpro.com.