The news: Drunk Elephant’s sales plunged by 65% in Q1, parent company Shiseido reported, as the brand struggles to find its audience amid broader industry headwinds.

How we got here: Drunk Elephant’s precipitous fall shows the perils of relying too heavily on Gen Alpha and tween consumers. While those cohorts are driving growth in beauty, they are also notoriously fickle.

• Tweens are “not brand loyal,” Casey Lewis, author of the youth consumer trend newsletter After School, told Business of Fashion. “They simply seek out what’s new and trending, and when the market is as saturated as this one, consumers will literally never run out of other brands and products to try.”
• On that basis, it’s no surprise that sales have dried up as the brand falls out of the public consciousness: Drunk Elephant’s social media mentions are down 72% in the past year, according to beauty insights platform Spate.

Other headwinds: Drunk Elephant’s association with “Sephora tweens” has hurt not just its sales, but also its reputation among older consumers—many of whom criticize the brand for wooing younger consumers and failing to dissuade them from purchasing products ill-suited to their sensitive skin.

That has compounded the impact of strategic missteps, like failing to stock enough inventory of its viral Bronzing Drops, which left an opening for competitors. The brand has also been hit hard by weakness in China and travel retail sector, as well as trade-down behavior from US consumers.

Our take: Beauty brands have been understandably eager to capitalize on fierce demand from younger consumers. But Drunk Elephant’s struggles show that companies need to take a measured approach to the cohort: Rather than putting all their eggs in the Gen Alpha basket, brands need to make sure they maintain their appeal to the customers who control the purse strings.