An Gen A Beauty takeover
The Future Laboratory recently revealed its annual trends report for the upcoming year and one of these trends was the Rise of Gen Alpha Beauty, which we’ve already been seeing in 2024, but is likely to gain more traction next year.
Gen Alpha (AKA those born between 2013 – 2025) are a tech-savvy and social media-driven generation that are big on education and scientific evidence.
This generation is highly influenced by online content and according to The Future Laboratory’s research, households with Gen Alpha children are outpacing others in beauty spending.
According to The Future Laboratory’s deputy creative foresight editor and resident beauty expert, Olivia Houghton, brands such as Bubble, Sol de Janeiro, Elf and Touchland have capitalised on this, driving sales growth with targeted, affordable cosmetics for tweens.
“Collaborations between beauty brands and gaming platforms like Roblox, including Elf’s virtual campus, further illustrate how brands are reaching younger consumers through their favourite online spaces,” she said.
“As Gen Alpha continue to grow in influence, beauty brands must adapt to their expectations for engaging, digital-first experiences that are playful, authentic and age appropriate,” said Houghton.
The growth of neurocosmetics
Senior consultant at Mintel Consulting Vivienne Rudd believes neurocosmetics will start to be present in more beauty innovations this year.
“Neuroscience and psychodermatology have been passions for me for at least six years and it’s been a little frustrating to see the slow progress of both,” she said. “However, the last year has witnessed an acceleration of available technologies and product activations will inevitably catch up.”
“I find it particularly interesting when a brand like Eucerin connect skincare products with quality of life – either through skin comfort or (and it’s connected) the amount and quality of sleep,” she shared.
Rudd said she believed this was “a pathway for both neuroscience and psychodermatology to create a suite of products that form a daily regimen whose pay-off is a combination of physical and emotional benefits that measurably improve the user’s quality of life.”
She highlighted that many beauty houses are actively exploring the potential of nutricosmetics to step into this space.
“The number of start-ups and rapid acquisitions underlines the potential of this fast-evolving category. In the future, as technology advances companies will feel more empowered to make bolder claims and move beyond the current, relatively restricted sub-categories and palette of ingredients,” she continued.
Rudd also cautioned that any brand looking to move into these areas must be fully aware of the needs and hesitations of consumers and “must ensure that their claims are substantiated if they are to avoid accusations of wellness-washing and scientific romance.”
Livestream shopping will gain more momentum
According to Kantar’s trends report for next year, livestreaming in China has transformed commerce and brand building in recent years, with platforms like Taobao Live, Douyin and WeChat reaching a huge amount of people.
Kantar said that management consulting firm McKinsey forecasts that live-commerce sales could comprise 20% of total retail in China by 2026, with Gen Z and Millennials as key audiences.
“While marketers focus on behavioural metrics, they often overlook metrics like consumer sentiment and brand recall.
Successful hosts will craft engaging narratives to retain viewers and encourage repeat purchases.
Kantar said that its Context Lab “reveals that livestreaming adverts boost both short-term purchase intent and long-term brand affinity.”
“For established brands, focus on building long-term assets such as driving ‘meets needs’ which can result in 10% to 15% uplift, while medium and smaller brands should prioritise increasing awareness (potential uplift between 10% and 23%) and driving immediate interest (lead to uplift of up to 30%) respectively,” it said.
The UK-based market research firm flagged that “social commerce lowers barriers for smaller brands” and gave the example of Made by Mitchell’s $1m sales within 12 hours in a UK TikTok Shop event.
“Bigger brands must compete to protect market share,” continued Kantar. “While live commerce suits fast moving and small items, success can extend to all sectors including automotive and luxury fashion.
Consumers will spend more ‘strategically’ on beauty
Prolonged economic uncertainty has created new spending norms,” said Euromonitor’s trends team, adding that “temporary shifts to relieve financial strain have become embedded into consumption habits.”
The data analytics firm said that long-term economic uncertainty has created new spending norms, even as global inflation eases to 4.2% in 2025.
As a result, shopping has become more strategic, and people now generally weigh the worth of their purchases against their priorities.
Euromonitor said that companies can respond with solutions that convey clear benefits and tangible, useful incentives to remain top of mind for their target audience.
It appears that purchase decisions are now highly intentional. The firm’s consumer said that 57% of people quizzed have extensively researched products or services and only 18% said they often made impulse purchases in 2024.
“These shoppers are also considering how a product or service could solve an immediate need and also provide benefits down the line,” it said. “Therefore, this means that cost-effective options aren’t always the preferred choice.”
Euromonitor expects that premium options will grow faster than standard or economy price tiers in certain regions like Western Europe and Latin America, but not others. And that overall, consumers are focused on all-around value and expect brands to deliver meaningful incentives with long-term impact.
“Brands that demonstrate credible added value stand to gain from this trend,” it said.
“Quality, functionality, convenience and price are all factors that influence purchase decisions,” it continued and highlighted that private label brands across several consumer goods sectors saw some of the largest retail sales gains compared to other category players in recent years.
More use of AI in the shopping experience
According to CEO at beauty technology company Perfect Corp, Alice Chang, the adoption of AI will continue to blur the lines between online, in-store, and social shopping.
“Brick-and-mortars aren’t going anywhere, but online third-party marketplaces are growing at a remarkable pace: Walmart Marketplace is growing by over 30% QoQ, Amazon is on track to become the country’s leading beauty platform next year, and TikTok Shop, though nascent, is already the 9th largest beauty retailer in the US,” said Chang.
“As in-store shopping evolves with new technologies and consumers continue to turn to their favourite online and social channels, these different shopping experiences will increasingly converge to create one unified experience,” she said.
One example she gave is Sephora allowing shoppers to virtually try on products in-store and engage in interactive campaigns like “Swipe it. Shop it.”, a Tinder-inspired experience in which guests “like” or “dislike” products by swiping right or left and receive customised recommendations.
“Brands will increasingly leverage generative AI to create custom design tools for consumers,” Change continued.
“As consumers continue to search for personalised products and experiences, brands will increasingly put this power in the hands of their own consumers. Generative AI tools can enable people to quickly create professional-looking, artistic images and videos with simple prompts, inviting a playful call-and-response process provoking increased engagement. It can also produce content that wouldn’t normally be accessible. DIY designs, similar to those created by brands like Reebok, Adore Me, and even luxury brand Versace, will invite consumers to use generative art to create new works inspired by a brand’s look and feel.”
Chang also believed that more companies in the beauty and fashion spaces will increasingly adopt AI assistants and chatbots trained on proprietary data for more tailored, on-brand responses.
“Research indicates that AI assistants can help reduce shoppers’ mental load and shopping time, ultimately increasing satisfaction and sales conversions,” she concluded.
“We predict that companies will continue introducing AI chatbots but increasingly leverage customised models rather than using general purpose AI. Models trained on proprietary datasets have a better understanding of the company, industry, and customers, producing more informed and relevant answers – thus driving even better business outcomes.”
