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Gen Alpha, the youngest generation of active consumers in the market, are teetering on the onset of teen angst. For many of them, an unavoidable trigger of it will be those pesky hormonal-triggered breakouts. Its a moment for the skincare industry to once again swoop in and offer tweens and teens a smorgasbord of problem-skin creams, gels, patches and facemasks treatments. That part hasnt changed for generations of consumers. Whats evolved are the strategies brands are using today to reach the youngest of them. Previous generations of teens, for instance, would see ads for acne brands in glossy magazines, newspaper inserts, on TV during Nickelodeon commercial breaks and on the radio. None of this will effectively work with Gen Alpha, a fully digitally native cohort. They live and breathe the internet, gaming and social media. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-04-at-7.22.40\u202fAM.png","headline":"Subscribe to Bagable ","description":"Discover the brands and trends to shop, by Parija Kavilanz. To learn more visit bagable.com","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.bagable.com","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}} So in March, Switzerland-based Galderma, maker of skincare brand Cetaphil and Differin (a popular over-the-counter acne treatment sold in Walmart, Target, Ulta and on Amazon), for the first time took its acne brand to one of Gen Alphas most popular hangoutsthe gaming platform Roblox. Roblox has about 98 million active daily users, with 80% of them below the age of 25. On average, users spent a total of 21.7 billion hours on the platform just in its first quarter this year, up 30% from a year ago. The when, the where and the why of [our] effort is very rooted in data, says Tara Loftis, global president of dermatological skincare at Galderma. Acne impacts 85% of people between the ages of 12 and 24. Where are tweens and younger GenZers spending most of their time? The answer is gaming. Loftis and her team partnered with marketing agency Dentsu and dreamed up what it would look like for Differin to integrate directly into Roblox. [Screenshot: Galderma] A novel approach for skincare Walmart, Fenty Beauty, Crocs, H&M, PacSun, Nike and e.l.f. Beauty are among dozens of major brands that have created their presence in the Roblox metaverse. However, Differins entry, according to industry experts, makes it one of the first brands in the acne-care category to now be on Roblox. It is a novel approach by skincare brands trying to connect with young consumers, says Larissa Jensen, senior vice president and global beauty industry advisor at market research firm Circana. Cosmetics brands, such as e.l.f, have been turning to Roblox to reach a very specific younger demographic. That isnt new. But, for skincare [brands], its a little bit more challenging to integrate skincare into a gaming platform, Jensen says. With makeup, you can engage with the brand through gameplay where you put makeup on your avatar. Its harder to interact in the metaverse with skincare. If Galderma has success with this strategy, you can bet that other brands will be paying attention. The Roblox activation for Differin involves three mini games (for players ages 13 and up) as part of the brands Level Up Lobby. [Screenshot: Galderma] In one game called Foam Blaster, the challenge is to use a blaster to clean hovering faces with Differin’s 10% benzoyl peroxide maximum strength foaming cleanser. Players in Power Patch Splat launch Differin power patches at the right moment to splat pimples. In Zit Zapper, the objective is to zap zits as they appear on hovering faces with Differin’s 10% Benzoyl Peroxide spot treatment. The goal with these roblox games, said Loftis, is to create brand awareness and educate Gen Zalpa (Gen Alpha and younger GenZers) about skincare through gamifying acne care and integrating Differin into that experience. Although players cant buy Differin products on Roblox, they are able to upload their receipt for any Differin purchase to unlock virtual rewards in the games. What we didnt want to do was to have this look like ad necessarily, in the traditional sense, says Loftis. Two reasons for that. We are not able to target anyone under the age of 13, or to target people specifically that have acne. But what we can do is make that assumption about where 80% of acne sufferers are. They are Gen Zalpa and theyre on Roblox. [Screenshot: Galderma] Chasing the Roblox Gold Rush Clay Colarusso, head of TeenVoice, a teen market research and insights company, is very familiar with the Gold Rush of brands to the Roblox metaverse as they strive to capture the attention of the youngest hoppers and influence their future spending habits. Marketers trying to unlock the tween and teen markets and the billions of household dollars that theyre either influencing their parents to spend, or the dollars theyre spending directly, has been happening for decades, says Colarusso. Im a child of the 80s and I distinctly remember the toy and breakfast cereal commercials that would play one after another as I watched Saturday morning cartoons, says Colarusso. Kids back then would go to mom and dad and ask them to put the toy on the birthday wishlist. The difference today, he says, is that the path to purchase is much shorter through digital marketing than it was with traditional media in the 80s. If Im on Roblox and I have an opportunity to buy, and maybe even have my parents credit card already preloaded in there, I can purchase immediately. Or, I can influence my parents to buy it for me, Colarusso says. Its a marketers dream. But where it gets tricky is on the data side. Brands have to be careful when they target young consumers. The Federal Trade Commission, through its Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA), prohibits companies, websites and online services from collecting personal information of children under 13 without parental approval. The concern is really less about brands marketing to this demographic, with certain obvious exceptions, and more about data collection and privacy concerns especially when dealing with consumers under 13, Colarusso says. This is why folks get really nervous when they think about marketing or how to market to kids, and rightfully so. They need to behave in a judicious and prudent way.Roblox says on its website that the platform is compliant with the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) and other international regulatory standards.” For people 13 and older who are eligible to see ads, Roblox said ads must be clearly and prominently disclosed using simple and understandable language. Hate to be sold to According to Galderma, in less than 30 days after the Differin Roblox games launched, the Differin Level Up Lobby campaign (which ends on May 31) has attracted more than three million visits with more than 365,000 mini games and nearly 12,000 hours of brand engagement on the gaming platform. We know that Gen Zalpha hates being sold to. These are games. If they struggle with acne, we hope to educate them about skincare through gaming that resonates, says Loftis. If not, its still a fun game. So far, she says a fairly high number of people playing the games are playing them completely. We went big on our gaming, which means we basically moved away 100% from traditional advertising for Differin, Loftis says. Gen Zalpha isnt going to buy an acne patch because they see an ad. Theyre going to buy it because they see a really compelling before and after result that their favorite gamer or TikToker talks about. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-04-at-7.22.40\u202fAM.png","headline":"Subscribe to Bagable ","description":"Discover the brands and trends to shop, by Parija Kavilanz. To learn more visit bagable.com","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.bagable.com","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}}
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Across the country, nonprofits are confronting a sudden and severe financial shock: federal funding theyve long relied on is being pulled backabruptly, and in some cases, entirely. In recent weeks, the Trump administrations spending cuts have triggered frozen contracts, rescinded grants, and stop-work orders across federal agencies. The moment has highlighted the financial vulnerability of many institutions, and underscored the importance of building more resilient, diversified funding models that arent solely dependent on federal dollars. Organizations that once built multi-year budgets around government commitments are now rewriting financial plans weekly just to keep up. Delays, backlogs, and revenue gaps have become routine. According to the Urban Institute, between 60% and 80% of nonprofits that rely on public funding would face serious financial shortfalls if that support disappeared. Due to resource constraints, many nonprofits have treated financial management as a day-to-day operational function, with less emphasis on its role as a strategic driver of mission impact. But in todays environment, that approach is no longer sustainable. Volatilityfrom elections, markets, and geopoliticshas become a permanent feature of the landscape. Organizations that fail to adapt risk not only missing opportunities but also jeopardizing their ability to weather the next downturn. To meet this challenge, nonprofits must elevate financial strategy to a central pillar of leadership. That starts with three critical shifts: Investment oversight must be proactive, not passive In todays climate, checking in on financial performance once a year just isnt enough. Many nonprofits are now reviewing liquidity monthly or quarterly and running scenario planning exercises to stress-test how unexpected shiftslike a delayed government payment or a rescinded grantwould affect their ability to meet payroll or sustain core programs. Boards can support this work by ensuring theres a clear investment policy aligned with the organizations real-world cash flow needs and risk tolerance, and by revisiting that policy regularly. Investment committees, in turn, can work with advisors to shift more assets into more liquid investments, giving them flexibility when contract payments are late or major gifts dont come through. Donor strategy must become a financial strategy. With once-reliable federal funding no longer a given, nonprofits must actively cultivate alternative revenue streamsand that responsibility shouldn’t fall solely to the development team. Donor engagement must be tightly integrated with financial planning. That includes segmenting and expanding donor bases to identify those with capacity to give more, using predictive analytics to anticipate giving patterns and gaps, and aligning fundraising calendars with financial forecasts. Finance and development teams, or external financial partners, should work together to build models that estimate how different donor strategies impact year-end liquidity and long-term planning. In short: Strengthening donor revenue is not just a development goal, its a financial imperative. Endowments must be treated as mission-sustaining tools. Endowments are more than rainy-day fundstheyre meant to ensure the perpetuity of the organizations. Over the past two decades, nonprofits have taken important steps to diversify their portfolios. In fact, average exposure to public equity and fixed income has dropped from 70% to 39%, while allocations to alternatives such as private equity and hedge funds have more than doubled. That shift can offer stronger returns, but diversification isnt a one-size-fits-all strategy. For organizations that depend heavily on government contracts or grants, an overly rigid or illiquid portfolio can create real vulnerabilities in times of stress. Take, for example, some of the nations most prestigious universities. Even institutions with multi-billion-dollar endowments have recently moved to sell private equity holdings to increase liquidity, citing political and financial uncertainty around federal funding. When organizations of that scale and sophistication reconsider their exposure to illiquid assets under stress, its a clear signal: Alternative investments must be approached strategically, with a careful understanding of both short- and long-term cash needs and risk tolerance. A tiered approach to liquidityreserving some assets for near-term access while investing the rest for long-term growthcan help organizations stay resilient, especially those that rely heavily on government grants or contracts to fund operations. Ultimately, resilient philanthropic missions require resilient financial models. That means seeking expertise not only in investment performance, but in governance, risk management, and long-range planning. Advisors and teams that understand how to connect financial oversight to mission outcomes can help institutions build confidence internally, with donors, and with the communities they serve. The current crisis has made one thing clear: Static portfolios and static strategies are liabilities. Financial oversight must evolve from a compliance checkbox into a dynamic leadership function, one that safeguards todays operations and secures tomorrows mission.
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Adam Becker is a science journalist and astrophysicist. He has written for The New York Times, BBC, NPR, Scientific American, New Scientist, Quanta, Undark, Aeon, and others. He also recorded a video series with the BBC, and has appeared on numerous radio shows and podcasts, including Ologies, The Story Collider, and KQED Forum. Whats the big idea? Tech billionaires like to hype up delusional doomsday fantasies in which they are the saviors and overlords of civilization. Many people may just laugh or disregard these outlandish claims, but a closer look reveals the scary truth of how seriously, specifically, and consequentially these thought leaders are committed to their ridiculous visions for the future. They abstain from making meaningful choices to improve the here and now because of their faith in unreasonable techno-solutions. It is important that society stays aware that their nightmares and promised utopias are founded in fiction. Below, Becker shares five key insights from his new book, More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valleys Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity. Listen to the audio versionread by Becker himselfin the Next Big Idea App. 1. Tech billionaires have ludicrously implausible power fantasies about the future. Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and other tech billionaires have made surprisingly outlandish claims about what a good future for humanity should look like. Elon Musk has spoken repeatedly about the need to set up a colony on Mars. He has said that hes going to put a million people on Mars by 2050 by sending one rocket launch a day for years, and that the colony needs to be self-sufficient, surviving even if the supply rockets from Earth stop coming. Musk contends that this is vital for the future of humanity, claiming that our species will go extinct if it doesnt happen soon. He claims Mars is our lifeboat for civilization. This is all pure fantasy: Mars is too inhospitable to allow a million people to live there anytime remotely soon, if ever. The gravity is too low, the radiation is too high, theres no air, and the Martian dirt is filled with poison. Theres no plausible way around these problems, and thats not even all of them. Nor does the idea of Mars as a lifeboat for humanity make sense: Even after an extinction event like an asteroid strike, Earth would still be more habitable than Mars. Mammals survived the asteroid strike that killed the dinosaurs, but no mammals could survive unprotected on Mars today. Putting all of that aside, if Musk somehow did put a colony on Mars, it would be wholly dependent on his company, SpaceX, for supplies. Thats one feature that tech oligarchs fantasies have in common: they all involve billionaires holding total control over the rest of us. 2. AI isnt going to be as good (or bad!) as the tech industry claims. Silicon Valley billionaires and thought leaders have been making wild promises about AI. They claim that AI will soon become superintelligent, far outstripping human intellect, and this will lead to a total revolution in human civilizationif these godlike AIs dont destroy humanity first. Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, says that superintelligent AI is coming within the next four years. He also claims that once we have it, every product and service will halve in price every two years as AI takes over the economy. Bill Gates has made similar claims, suggesting that AI will free us for a life of leisure as it caters to our every need. Other industry leaders claim AI will revolutionize science, ushering in an unprecedented era of discovery and near-magical technology. Theres virtually no evidence for any of this: it is specious reasoning amplified by tech industry money and hype. These are narratives based on science fiction. They fundamentally misunderstand both the nature of intelligence and how current AI systems operate. Even calling something like ChatGPT AI is misleading; its a marketing term thats gotten way out of hand. 3. Were not colonizing space. Tech billionaires like Musk and Bezos have dreamed of colonizing space for decades. Despite their promises, its not happening. Musks dreams of Mars are modest compared to some of the other specious fantasies spun by tech billionaires and the think tanks they fund. Bezos doesnt want to put a million people in spacehe wants a trillion people living in a fleet of giant cylindrical space stations with interior areas bigger than Manhattan. He claims this is the best way to ensure future generations thrive. Otherwise, he warns, our species will stagnate on Earth. Yet such space stations would be staggeringly difficult and phenomenally dangerous to build. And Bezoss concerns about stagnation are based on a mix of faulty reasoning and an attachment to long-discredited ideas about sociology and history. Others in the tech industry (or funded by tech billionaires) have advocated for a future beyond our solar system, pushing humanity to take over the galaxy or the entire universe. This is even more unlikely to work: the distances between stars are too great, and theres little reason to leave the solar system. The impossible promise of an interstellar empire is held out as a shiny fantasy to justify the actions of tech billionaires. Musk has used the supposed need to colonize Mars as an excuse to ignore details like worker safety at SpaceX. Bezos has said that the pursuit of such a future is the most important thing he could be doing with his fortune, more important than addressing Earthbound problems here and now. 4. How Big Tech gets science wrong and distracts from present threats. Tech industry leaders often present themselves as scientific experts on everything from human biology to astrophysics to nuclear fusion. The truth is that they are business leaders, not scientists, and frequently get in far over their heads when discussing scientific concepts. They believe that their wealth makes them general experts on everything. Musk has repeatedly gotten facts about Mars wrong, even when hes been publicly corrected. He has repeatedly claimed that Mars can be terraformed (made into a more Earth-like planet) by using nuclear weapons to melt the Martian ice caps. Musk contends this would beef up the Martian atmosphere enough to allow humans to live there, but this isnt true: There arent nearly enough frozen gases in those ice caps to get the job done. When scientists pointed this out to him, he doubled down. Hes not alone in this. Altman has never given good justification for his claims about AI. Bezoss ideas about space come from old plans from the 1970s that were later shown to be unworkable. These arent just careless mistakes about unimportant details. Getting these scientific facts wrong allows these tech billionaires to maintain faith in their power fantasies and gives them an excuse to ignore todays problems. Altmn has said that the AI systems he believes are coming soon will be able to solve global warming quickly and easily, and therefore, hes not concerned about new AI data centers requiring huge amounts of power. Pushing humanity toward the impossible goals of tech oligarchs will lead to destructive consequences for everyone. 5. The racist origins of the tech industrys core ideology. Underneath the bizarre proclamations of tech billionaires, there is an ideology that technology can solve every problem, even fundamentally social and political problems like strife in the Middle East or political polarization in the United States. This ideology of technological salvation stems from a toxic mix of misunderstood science fiction, fringe religious movements, and racist pseudoscience. The same online subcultures that spawned the ideas about AI that Altman, Musk, and the rest have swallowed also have connections with the American far-right and a troubling history of promoting scientifically discredited claims about fundamental differences in innate intelligence between different races. This goes hand in hand with their obsession with AI: They believe that AI can become godlike because they believe that intelligence is a single measurable trait corresponding to IQ, and that a sufficiently powerful AI would be able to simply dial up its IQ to an arbitrarily high number. But IQ has always been used for eugenics and institutional racism, and theres little evidence that it measures anything real about people. Its mostly just been used to say that some groups of people are inherently better than others. Its no surprise that such stories are attractive to billionaires who want to justify their desire to remain in power over the rest of us forever. Recognizing the hollowness of these ideas is the first step to taking back our power. They want to set the terms on which we imagine the future, but the future isnt theirs for the taking. The future is something we all build together. They want us to believe that their promised utopias and nightmares are our only option. But in reality, the future is open. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
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