Don't panic. Generation Alpha will still want free chicken-wings

From baby boomers to baby busters, from millennials to Generation Z to Generation Alpha. Underneath that manicured beard, behind that selfie-obsessed Instagram feed, people are still people. They will always need food, clothing and shelter. They will also always want to be loved, to laugh, to cry, not to mention get free stuff. And, they will also get older and see in the next generation of misunderstood freaks.

Technology is evolving at a much faster rate than we are as a species. Our options for communication are racing out of control. Our devices are faster, more connected, and now they’re on the cusp of becoming biologically integrated. Before you know it, you’ll know the recipe for Chicken à la King by just thinking about it. But that doesn’t change the desire for Chicken à la King in the first place.

We’ve always communicated. It used to be a poster on a wall that people would actually read; then it became the spoken voice over wireless transmission; soon it will be in your personalised augmented world through smart contact lenses for only you to see, hear or touch. No matter how technology changes the ways to connect with people, the things that make us human remain the same.

An old man walks slowly into town and goes into a tailor shop which he heard about through word of mouth. He would like a tweed blazer to be repaired. It has a small tear on the lapel from a ZCC badge that was placed there far too many times over the years. Across the street, a 19-year-old girl walks into a tattoo parlour. She read a hundred reviews online before going to this particular one. She’s getting the finishing touches of that intricate geometric pattern based on the Fibonacci sequence that runs from her groin all the way and up to her neck, finally disappearing into her hairline.

These two people are 50 years and four generations apart. But they’re buying the same thing - esteem, pride, confidence, love and social security.

If you’re not selling health, food, water, sleep or sex, you better be selling love, respect, success or happiness. Seek out those universal truths, make them look pretty, make them fit all the formats of all available smart devices, make one live in a VR headset. But more than anything, if you make sure it’s human, if you make sure what you’re saying or showing connects with those fundamental cornerstones of humanity, then your message will resonate - no matter how it’s sent out or who is receiving it.