Gen-Alpha Teens Are Quietly Becoming the Household’s Most Powerful Brand Influencers

Forget the focus group. Ask the teenager.

Amazon and Nike took the top two spots among brands winning over American households with teenagers. But they got there in very different ways.

Amazon scored 81.9 out of 100 with teens and 78.5 with their parents. Nike had the opposite profile: 76.4 with teens and 81.0 with parents. Overall, Amazon edged Nike 80.7 to 79.3. One won the teen, the other won the parent, and the two brands finished just 1.4 points apart.

The rankings come from the Gen Alpha Household Influence Study, research from HarrisX and Allison Worldwide covering 1,500 respondents and 25 brands.  

What it maps is not a generation but a negotiation. 

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There is an org chart in the house. 

Sixty-two percent of what parents buy

Sixty-two percent of what parents buy for their Gen-Alpha teens starts with the teen asking for the brand by name. With teen girls, it is 67 percent. With teen boys, 59. 

“Teen girls aren’t just influential; they’re actually incredibly commercially decisive,” said Anne Colaiacovo, CEO of North America at Allison Worldwide, in a recent interview with Inc. “That’s not just influence; that is actual purchase authority.” 

That is a job description. She runs discovery, picks the brand, and makes the pitch. Colaiacovo calls teen girls the CMO of the household, and the numbers hold up the title.  

Source: www.inc.com