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Worldwide, audience behaviours are evolving alongside rapid developments in AI, smartphones and social media, reshaping the global media landscape (O’Malley 2024). As Generation Alpha (Gen Alpha), born between 2010 and 2024 (Rude 2026), begins to enter the consumer marketplace, brands must rethink how they segment and engage audiences. Traditional demographic segmentation alone is becoming insufficient as consumers increasingly expect personalised communications delivered through their preferred digital channels.

The emergence of Generation Alpha

Raised in an always-connected, online environment, Gen Alpha primarily consumes media through mobile devices (Walsh 2025), reinforcing the need for mobile-first media planning. For Gen Alpha, video content is the top priority, with YouTube being their most engaged media platform (Ramirez 2026). Short-form content in particular is dominant for this age group (Ramirez 2026), as it is for Gen Z (Vancauwenberghe 2025), making it the ideal media format for brands to select to transition communications between these two audiences.

One thing that remains true for both generations, and therefore must stay a focus in media planning, is the expectation of authenticity (Mariano 2026). Authentic communications build trust in a brand (Wong 2024) which can keep consumers coming back (Wong 2024). Centering marketing communications around authentic user generated content can promote a brand’s trustworthiness, and pairing this approach with video content can help brands to not only reach younger audiences, but to also keep them engaged. As a result, brands may benefit from using the Paid, Earned, Shared and Owned (PESO) model to review their marketing strategy, in particular thinking about how to best utilise earned media through user generated content to promote authenticity without harming their brand image by sacrificing the control they have when producing owned media content.

Gen Alpha responds well to high levels of personalisation in their communications (McDougall 2025), and whilst Gen Z also have a preference for highly personalised content (Dunne 2024), Gen Alpha has grown up in an AI centred world, meaning that for them personalisation is expected as the norm. AI allows for much higher levels of personalisation, but should be used strategically and sparingly due to its environmental impact (Zewe 2025) when marketing to Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences who value brands that practice sustainability (Walsh 2025). AI also comes with concerns regarding privacy and data usage, which media planners must navigate to find the right balance between meeting consumer demands for advancements and personalisation with legal requirements for data compliance and protection.

Cardiff Metropolitan University: Producing media that appeals to Gen Z & Gen Alpha

One example of an industry forced to keep up with the shift from Gen Z to Gen Alpha is higher education. With the oldest Gen Alphas being 16 as of 2026, universities globally will now be looking to market to this new demographic of prospective students for upcoming academic cycles. To appeal to both Gen Z and Gen Alpha simultaneously, Cardiff Metropolitan University launched their ‘Help! I’m going to Uni’ podcast in 2024 (Cardiff Metropolitan University 2024).
Adapting to Gen Z and now Gen Alpha audiences, the podcast features real students telling their personal stories, boosting the organisation’s authenticity. Since 2021, Gen Alpha’s engagement with podcasts has risen by 29% (Walsh 2025). This coupled with their preference for video content makes Cardiff Met’s video podcast campaign a strategic and data driven choice to draw in prospective students. The campaign reflects a wider shift away from institution-led messaging towards peer-led storytelling, recognising that younger audiences increasingly place greater trust in authentic experiences than polished promotional content.

Spotify: Meeting audience expectations of personalisation

From a personalisation point of view, Spotify stands out as an example of a brand producing highly tailored content and recommendations for their users, in line with what we know younger audiences value (Dunne 2024). Using first-party data, Spotify delivers a highly personalised service to users, encouraging higher levels of engagement and earned media. Every year, Spotify Wrapped is reshared all over social media, giving Spotify plenty of earned media exposure. Beyond Spotify Wrapped, the platform also allows users to view personalised playlist recommendations updated daily based on their listening habits. These tailored recommendations are made using AI algorithms (Spotify 2023) to keep users engaged with the platform. However, whilst younger generations want brands to keep up with advancements in technology, leaning too heavily on AI may turn away Gen Z and Gen Alpha who value sustainability and protecting the environment. 

What this means for media planners

The emergence of Gen Alpha represents a broader shift in audience expectations that is reshaping media planning. As consumers increasingly expect digital-first, authentic and personalised experiences, traditional demographic assumptions are becoming less effective. Media planners should move from channel-first planning to audience-first planning, prioritising audience behaviours, motivations and preferences when selecting media and developing communications. However, understanding audience change is only one part of the challenge. As media consumption continues to diversify across an ever-growing number of platforms, planners must also consider how to reach increasingly fragmented audiences through multi-channel, adaptable media strategies.