While US beauty brands scramble to capture the Gen Alpha market, launching tween skincare lines, partnering with child influencers, positioning products for 8-year-olds, European founders are watching from a distance, asking:

"Is this where we're headed? Should we be doing this here, too?"

The honest answer: You're asking the wrong question.

The Gen Alpha phenomenon isn't about whether you should create products for tweens. It's about recognising a fundamental shift in how an entire generation discovers, evaluates, and connects with brands. This shift will define how ALL consumers behave in the next decade, regardless of age.

The US market is running full speed into this shift, making expensive mistakes in real time. You get to watch, learn, and build differently.

That's not being behind. That's having the advantage of perspective.

In this piece:

✦ What Gen Alpha behaviour reveals about the future of discovery (regardless of demographic)
✦ How US brands are responding vs. how European founders could build smarter
✦The strategic questions you should be asking now, before this shift becomes your problem

Quick favour: This is Part 2 of a series on how cultural shifts are changing brand strategy. If you want to understand these patterns before your competitors do, subscribe below.y

Here's where it gets interesting.

The US market saw the Gen Alpha behaviour and responded by expanding the category downward.

The European opportunity is to see the same behaviour and respond by designing for the pattern, not the demographic.

Let me show you the difference.

What they're doing:

What they think they're building:
Early brand loyalty. Lifetime customers who start young.

What they're actually building:
A market that will face regulatory scrutiny, parental backlash, and a generation that will eventually ask: "Why did you teach me my face was a project when I was eight?"

The core assumption:
"If kids want skincare, we should give them skincare."

But that assumes the want is organic. It's not. The want is created by the infrastructure, algorithmic content loops, influencer marketing, and retail environments designed to put products at kid eye-level.

They're not meeting demand. They're manufacturing it. And then profiting from it.

What if instead of asking "should we build for Gen Alpha too?" you asked:

"What is Gen Alpha behaviour teaching us about how ALL consumers will discover and connect with brands in the future?"

Because here's what's coming, whether you target tweens or not:

Discovery will be ambient, not intentional.
Your future customers won't search for you. They'll scroll past your content 47 times before they even realise they're learning about you. Discovery happens through cultural presence, not active seeking.

Validation will come from algorithmic consensus, not brand claims.
Your future customers won't trust what you say about yourself. They'll trust what the algorithm shows them, everyone else is saying. Repetition creates credibility. Shareability creates validation.

Purchase will be identity-driven, not need-driven.
Your future customers won't buy because they have a problem to solve. They'll buy because using your product makes them recognisable within their culture. The product becomes proof that they understand the code.

This is the shift Gen Alpha is showing you early.

US brands are responding by creating products for 8-year-olds.

European founders could respond by creating brands designed for this new discovery logic, without needing to target children to do it.

The strategic difference:

US brands see Gen Alpha and think: "New demographic to capture."

European founders could see Gen Alpha and think: "New discovery pattern to design for."

One is a market play that ages out when Gen Alpha grows up.
The other is a structural understanding that becomes your competitive advantage for the next 20 years.

If you're building a beauty or wellness brand in Europe, the Gen Alpha phenomenon reveals three strategic tensions you'll face in the next five years, regardless of who you're targeting.

The old model: Customer has a problem → searches for solutions → discovers your brand → evaluates options → makes a purchase

The new model: Customer scrolls → sees your content passively → scrolls past again → sees it again → algorithm validates through repetition → buys to participate in what feels like consensus

Your brand is discovered before your customer even knows they're looking.

The strategic implication:

If discovery is ambient, your brand needs to be culturally present before it's commercially relevant.

You can't optimise for "the moment they search." You need to optimise for the 47 moments they scroll past you without realising they're learning who you are.

Question for your strategy:
Is your brand designed to be discovered through search engines or through culture?

Are you building for people who know what they're looking for, or for people who don't know they're looking yet?

If your entire strategy depends on someone typing your category into Google, you're building for a discovery model that's already disappearing.

The old model: Brand tells a compelling story → customer believes the story → customer trusts the brand

The new model: Customer sees content from 5 different sources → algorithm shows it again → sees someone they relate to using it → consensus forms → trust is assumed

You don't convince people you're credible anymore. The algorithm does it for you through repetition and social proof.

The strategic implication:

If validation comes from consensus, you need to build experiences worth sharing, not just messages worth hearing.

Your brand story matters less than whether your customers can tell their own story through your brand.

Shareability isn't a nice-to-have. It's the primary validation mechanism.

Question for your strategy:
Are you optimising for narrative control (what YOU say about your brand) or for cultural amplification (what your customers say when they share)?

Do you have a beautiful brand story that lives on your website, or do you have shareable moments that live in your customers' content?

If people can't easily explain what using your brand says about them, you're not giving the algorithm anything to validate.

The old model: Customer has a problem → product solves the problem → customer is satisfied

The new model: Customer wants to be seen as a certain kind of person → product signals that identity → customer feels recognised within their culture

The product's function matters less than what using the product means.

The strategic implication:

If the purchase is identity-driven, your positioning needs to answer: "What does using this product say about me?"

Not just: "What does this product do for me?"

People don't buy to transform anymore. They buy to participate. To signal. To belong.

Your brand isn't solving a deficit. It's offering access to a cultural code.

Question for your strategy:
Can someone articulate what using your brand says about them in one sentence?

Or do they just know what your product does?

If your entire value proposition is functional ("this serum reduces redness"), you're still operating in the old model. The new model requires cultural clarity: "this brand understands how I want to be seen."

The US market is showing you these tensions in their most extreme form: children buying products they don't need to participate in a culture they inherited algorithmically.

But these tensions exist across ALL consumer behaviour now. Gen Alpha just makes them visible.

So before you build your next product, campaign, or brand strategy, ask yourself:

If my customer scrolls past my content 47 times before they realise they need me, is my brand designed to make those 47 impressions count?

Or am I still optimising for "the moment they decide to search"?

Most brands are still building for intentional discovery. Homepage copy that assumes the visitor already knows why they're there. Ad campaigns that assume awareness. Content strategies that assume active seeking.

But if discovery is ambient, you need to design for passive absorption. For the customer who doesn't know they're learning about you yet.

✦ That means: presence in culture, not just presence in search results. Shareability, not just discoverability. Resonance that builds over time, not conversion that happens in one click.

Am I building a brand that creates shareable moments, or am I building a brand that requires me to convince people I'm credible?

Does my customer validate me through their experience, or do I validate myself through my claims?

If you're still writing long paragraphs about "why we're different", "our unique approach", and "what makes us special," you're operating in the old model.

✦ The new model: your customers do the validation for you. Through shares. Through tags. Through showing up in their content, their routines, their lives.

Your job isn't to convince. Your job is to create experiences worth amplifying.

Can someone articulate what using my brand says about them in one sentence?

Not what your product does. What does using it means.

Because if they can't say it clearly, they can't share it clearly. And if they can't share it, the algorithm can't validate it. And if the algorithm can't validate it, you're invisible.

This is why some brands become cultural phenomena, and others stay niche. Not because the product is better. Because the identity signal is clearer.

Am I watching lead markets (like the US) to see patterns before they arrive in Europe?

Or am I waiting until the pattern is already here and I'm reacting instead of anticipating?

The US market is 18-24 months ahead of Europe on most consumer behaviour shifts. That's your advantage. You get to see what works, what fails, what creates backlash, and what builds trust.

But only if you're actually watching. And learning. And translating those patterns into your context before they become your reality.

Am I building for the customer I can serve sustainably for decades?

Or am I optimising for growth metrics that look good now but create dependencies I'll regret later?

This is the question US brands didn't ask before rushing into Gen Alpha. They saw growth. They didn't see consequence.

European founders have the chance to ask this question before building.

If your growth strategy requires creating needs that don't exist, teaching people to see themselves as insufficient, or targeting customers who aren't developmentally ready to make these decisions, you're building a house on sand.

It'll grow fast. And it'll collapse when the culture turns.

The US beauty market is teaching you something valuable right now:

They're showing you what happens when brands optimise for demographic opportunity without thinking through the behavioural consequences.

They're showing you what happens when you expand the category downward without asking whether you should.

They're showing you the future of discovery, validation, and identity-driven purchase, and they're showing you the mistakes you can avoid.

You have two paths:

Watch US brands build for Gen Alpha. See the growth metrics. Decide you should do it too. Launch your own tween line. Optimise for short-term market capture. Deal with the backlash later.

This path is easier. The infrastructure already exists. The playbook is written. You just execute.

Watch US brands build for Gen Alpha. See the pattern beneath the demographic. Understand that discovery is ambient, validation is algorithmic, and purchase is identity-driven. Design your brand for those truths without needing to target children to prove you understand them.

This path is smarter. And it's the one that builds brands people will still trust in 20 years.

Because here's the thing about patterns: they don't stay contained to one demographic.

The way Gen Alpha discovers brands? That's how Gen Z increasingly discovers brands. And Millennials. And eventually, everyone.

Ambient discovery. Algorithmic validation. Identity-driven purchase.

You can wait until that's your entire market and scramble to catch up.

Or you can design for it now, thoughtfully, without the ethical compromises US brands are making.

That's the European advantage. You’re not slower, you’re more strategic.