By Anna Larson, Director of PESO Content Strategy – Flint Group
I have a Highland cow Warmie. I still love the color purple, gel pens, Hello Kitty, friendship bracelets and doing things simply because they’re fun.
An adult woman longing for childhood? A little. Or an adult woman seeking joy and reclaiming her whimsy in a stressful world? There’s a name for this: kidulting.
I first heard the term while listening to NPR Marketplace. It describes adults embracing things we typically associate with childhood, like the 27-year-old featured in the story who collects Labubus.
Once you notice it, you see kidulting everywhere. Adults now account for a meaningful share of toy sales, spending billions of dollars each year buying toys for themselves.
Dunkaroos are back. Olipop built a massive following by reinventing classic soda flavors. Beauty brands like e.l.f. lean into creativity and playfulness. Pizza Hut brought back retro-inspired restaurants and BOOK IT!
These brands and people like me are tapping into something deeper than nostalgia. We’re tapping into human nature.
We’re living through a period of relentless change. AI is reshaping work and our world. Economic uncertainty continues, and news headlines can feel like one big dumpster fire.
It’s no surprise that people are looking for moments that feel a little lighter, a little more hopeful.
Kidulting creates space for curiosity, comfort, delight and play.
Those needs don’t go away once we’re grown up, and they shouldn’t disappear from brand experiences.
Nostalgia isn’t the strategy. Emotion is.
Nostalgia has become one of marketing’s favorite tools. Brands revive products, bring back iconic packaging and revisit familiar experiences because they know memories evoke emotion.
Research has consistently found that nostalgia increases feelings of social connection, meaning and optimism. We don’t only remember products. We remember birthday parties. Summer afternoons. Riding bikes until the streetlights came on. Saturday mornings eating pancakes in our pajamas.
The product becomes a shortcut to the emotion attached to it.
Consumers aren’t looking to go backward, though. They’re looking for experiences that make them feel something.
Not every brand leans on nostalgia alone. Some understand that people enjoy interacting with brands that feel like people.
Duolingo transformed a language-learning app into one of the internet’s most recognizable personalities through humor and self-awareness. Liquid Death built an entire brand by refusing to market water like every other beverage company.
The common denominator? Emotional resonance.
People choose to spend time with these brands because the interaction is enjoyable.
The same principle applies whether you’re selling construction equipment or healthcare services. The decision-making process looks different, but the human one doesn’t. People remember the experience long after they’ve forgotten the headline, the campaign or the call to action.
Authenticity isn’t a campaign.
Authenticity has become one of the most overused words in marketing, but gosh, I love it. And it’s important.
People don’t experience authenticity because a brand claims to be authentic. They experience it when what a brand says consistently matches what it does.
It’s answering a comment like a real person would, not from a script.
Sharing expertise without asking for something in return.
Acknowledging mistakes and having a point of view and values.
Authenticity is something your audience decides you’ve earned.
Kids understand this instinctively. They’re curious. They ask a lot of questions. They know when something feels forced. They have remarkably little patience for anything fake.
Somewhere along the way, many of us started measuring success by what we produced instead of what we created.
Great marketing is about relationships. Trust. The feeling someone walks away with after interacting with your organization or brand.
That changes the questions we ask.
Instead of only asking, “Will this perform?” we consider “Will someone be glad they spent time with this?”
Marketing won’t eliminate uncertainty and chaos in our world. But every interaction is an opportunity.
It can make someone feel understood. It can teach them something. Make them smile. Remind them there are real people behind the logo.
I see kidulting less as a trend and more as permission to create things that are useful, joyful and genuinely worth someone’s time.
If we have just a few seconds of their attention, we have a responsibility to make those seconds worthwhile.
Warmies, gel pens, Labubus … no matter how old we are, we don’t outgrow the need for joy, curiosity or connection. Kidulting.
We never outgrow being human.
The best marketing remembers that.
