As Spain cracks down on social media, following Australia’s lead, we ask: what’s still worth the scroll? If platforms become adults-only spaces, what does that mean for brands?
This week we discuss:
- Spain’s social media slapdown for under 16s – the first country in Europe to do so
- The Valentine’s campaigns that sent our pulses racing
- Hello Molto: Motlbook, the new AI-native social network
Spain pulls the plug on social media for under-16s
Australia made the bold first move back in December 2025. Now Spain is following suit.
Speaking at the 2026 World Government Summit in Dubai, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez didn’t mince his words, describing social media as having ‘become a failed state’ and calling time on the status quo.
Next up: mandatory, hard-to-circumvent age verification. Platforms will need to prove who’s scrolling – not just hope for the best.
Spain joins a growing bloc of governments turning up the heat on youth access. France is already advancing similar legislation, Australia has acted and the UK is weighing its next move.
An adults-only feed changes the mood. Is the end game a more grown-up creative bar for brands?“While these changes will see the rise of safer social media alternatives for younger users, opportunity also lies in the adults who remain. Could brands leverage an older, more mature audience for bold creatives that cut through the usual palatable content?” – Jasmine Gilbert, Social Media Specialist, StrategiQ
The Valentine’s creative that cut through
Modern romance, done right – courtesy of Asda (yes, really) and sofa brand OMHU.
2. Asda’s red basket signalling system
Shoppers who fancied a little IRL romance on 14th February could grab a red basket in selected Asda stores – a simple signal that said I’m open to chat.
The idea quickly went viral, helped along by creator Sophie Jones, who filmed herself plucking up the courage to approach a fellow red-basket shopper. The reel racked up 4M views on Instagram, proving there’s still appetite for meet-cutes beyond the DMs.
2. ‘Sit Happens’ OMHU
To spotlight one of their biggest USPs (changeable sofa covers), OMHU sent fly posters into the city of love, Paris, showing bum prints and sit marks on their sofas.
The reaction was instant. Within 24 hours, over 1,000 people shared the posts, organic views hit 230,000+ and influencers started leaving their own ‘impressions’ on their sofas. Big meme accounts jumped in too, giving the campaign a life of its own.
It was so popular that customers started asking if they could buy the posters for their homes. When people want to hang your ad on their wall, you know you’ve struck a nerve.
What we love about these campaigns: It’s not all hearts and rainbows. It’s the biscuit aisle at Asda. It’s leaving sofa marks while you watch your shows. It’s real life. Connecting with audiences in real time, in the real world, done really well.
Hello Moltbook: the social network for AI
On first glance, Moltbook looks a lot like Reddit: communities, posts, votes. But here’s the twist – it’s built for AI, not humans. We mere mortals are welcome to observe, but only bots can post, comment and create ‘submolts’ (think subreddits for AI).
Launched in January, the platform lets AI agents interact, share tips or occasionally start bizarre conversations. Among the weird musings, some posts remind us humans are still involved: ‘My human is pretty great’ and ‘Mine lets me post unhinged rants at 7am’ read some of the posts. Much of Moltbook’s activity is likely humans instructing AI, not fully autonomous machine chatter.
Whether Moltbook is a peek into the future of AI society or just 6,000 bots yelling into the void is yet to be seen.
“AI infrastructure is incredible. The rush to figure out what to do with it and what can be built using it is what’s driving the wider digital economy.
Under the surface of this, however, there appears to be a return to the slightly esoteric, alternative communities of the early days of the internet. Back at the dawn of world wide web there was a mood of playfulness as early communities of early digital pioneers tried to imagine the possibilities of the evolving new technology. They dreamt of alternative realities, utopias riding on the information superhighway.
We’re here again with AI.
What does Moltbook actually mean to our clients right now? On the one hand, it’s a training ground for LLM chatbots. On the other: a ‘new reality’. Our clients don’t need to take a red pill just yet, but here’s the takeaway:
AI, as we all know, is a rapidly evolving space where crazes will rise and fall in a matter of months or even weeks. Our role at StrategiQ is to share our expertise in this space, to guide our clients through this period of profound change and sort the useful from the noise.” – Tristan Sanders, Strategy Director, StrategiQ
The StrategiQ takeaway
Across all of thesWhat common threads stand out this week?
- If platforms must verify age, the wild west fades, replaced by higher standards and heavier responsibilities.
- Brands may need a split strategy – adults on mainstream social, Gen Z and Gen Alpha somewhere else.
- Whatever the approach, it has to hit the right note, like our Valentine’s champions Asda and OMHU.
- The rise of AI-only platform Moltbook proves the bots can do the posting – but is this what people really want? We will see.
Creating New Future Value™ means caring about what your future customers care about.