Marketing Consumer Insights

Trend - Skincare brands are launching masculine eye masks designed specifically for male consumers. These products are crafted to address common concerns such as puffiness, dark circles, and signs of fatigue while featuring packaging and branding that appeal to a male aesthetic to normalize male skincare.

Insight - Male consumers are increasingly embracing grooming and skincare as part of their self-care habits, driven by a desire to look and feel confident. However, traditional skincare products often fail to resonate with men due to a lack of targeted marketing. The pressures of modern life, including work and stress, have heightened the need for solutions that deliver quick, visible results. By introducing masculine eye masks, skincare brands address these desires while breaking gender stereotypes.

Trend - Retail companies are increasingly collaborating with artists to host in-person events and activations. These initiatives aim to create immersive and engaging experiences that draw consumers to physical retail stores. By integrating art installations, retailers seek to offer unique experiences.

Insight - Consumers are seeking unique and memorable experiences that can’t be replicated online. The desire for social interaction, cultural engagement, and experiential shopping is driving this trend. Additionally, the pressure on retailers to revive foot traffic in physical stores has led to innovative strategies that blend art and commerce. These artistic collaborations cater to consumers' craving for enrichment and entertainment, while also enhancing brand loyalty and encouraging in-store visits.

Trend - Brands are enhancing product launches and customer experiences by curating playlists that capture the essence of an item’s vibe, purpose, or aesthetic. Designed to be played while using the product, these soundtracks engage multiple senses, creating more immersive and memorable consumer experiences.

Insight - Modern consumers are drawn to products that engage all their senses, allowing them to experience the product's unique character with a fully immersive experience. These individuals gravitate toward multi-sensory products to enhance their environment, helping them relax through visual, auditory, and tactile stimulation. Brands that embrace this trend by pairing products with complementary sensory elements can appeal to those looking to elevate everyday items into something more experiential.

Trend - CPG snack brands are refreshing their packaging designs to draw more attention to their products while emphasizing standout features. These features include better-for-you ingredients and reduced environmental impact, with intent to capture younger audiences with such practices.

Insight - Younger consumers are becoming more environmentally conscious and health-focused in their purchasing decisions. There is a growing awareness of the impact of plastic waste and a desire to support brands that take active steps towards sustainability. Similarly, consumers are increasingly concerned about the ingredients in their food, seeking options free from artificial additives and high in nutritional value. Such pressures are leading to rebrand strategies to appeal to younger demographics.

Trend - Health and wellness brands are rebranding with minimalist designs and simple, easy-to-read labels. This trend reflects a commitment to transparency and authenticity, aiming to create a clean, modern, and approachable aesthetic for consumers.

Insight - Older consumers often seek products with labels that convey simplicity, authenticity, and transparency, While health-conscious individuals appreciate straightforward information for informed choices. The demand for natural and clean products influences this shift. Minimalist designs reflect purity and integrity, addressing the desires of a fast-paced society for clarity. By adopting these designs, brands enhance their image, cater to modern consumer values, and stand out in a competitive market.

Trend - Brands in the CPG food industry are releasing honey-based sauces infused with hot peppers. These sauces are intended to capitalize off the "swicy" trend which shows consumers gravitating toward foods that blend sweet and spicy flavors. The CPG format enables consumers to enjoy these flavors at home.

Insight - Food enthusiast are increasingly looking for more adventurous flavors and combinations. Among the foodie, there are various subsets of consumer, such as the health-conscious consumer, sensory eater, or the convenience eater. Each of these consumers overlap on "swicy" products, or those that blend sweet and spicy flavors, leading to a broader trend that shows clear, widespread consumer demand. Brands are appeasing these consumers with hot pepper-infused honey-based sauces.

Trend - As AI-generated content becomes increasingly prevalent across industries, brands are intentionally showcasing human messiness, imperfection and emotional authenticity in their marketing and products. This manifests through interactive retail experiences that encourage emotional expression, social campaigns highlighting real consumer mishaps, and products designed to celebrate human quirks.

Insight - The rapid advancement of AI and algorithmically perfect content has created a cultural tension where consumers feel disconnected from authentic human experiences. For many, particularly younger demographics, digital perfection has become synonymous with artificial and inauthentic. This is creating demand for brands that acknowledge and embrace human complexity, vulnerability and emotional authenticity. By celebrating imperfection, brands can help consumers reclaim and express their fundamental humanity in an increasingly AI-driven world.

Trend - As consumers flock to physical retail spaces, both established and emerging brands are reimagining their local presence through enhanced experiential offerings. This shift extends beyond traditional retail to include direct-to-consumer brands creating innovative physical touchpoints.

Insight - Contemporary consumers are seeking more than just transactional relationships with brands - they want meaningful connections and experiences that add value to their purchasing journey. This desire for authenticity and community engagement has created opportunities for businesses to establish deeper local roots, whether through permanent locations or temporary activations. The success of these initiatives stems from consumers' post-pandemic appetite for tangible brand interactions that can't be replicated in digital spaces.

Trend - Brands are taking to social media platforms to launch interactive campaigns that encourage users to post unique content to enter. These post-based campaigns are intended to start wider spread trends where consumers boost the reach of the campaign far beyond its original audience.

Insight - When looking to enter into online marketing, particularly through popular social media or video-sharing platforms, brands often find that traditional marketing methods, such as pushing banner ads or pop-ups, are not as effective as they once were. This is in large part due to the live, ever-changing culture of social media platforms adapting to reject typical corporate engagement. To subvert this challenge and better connect with modern audiences, brands are launching interactive campaigns.

Trend - Social media has sparked a trinket-collecting craze among Gen Z, and food brands are leveraging the allure of these items by pairing their food and drink items with blind box collectibles. Spanning mini figurines to themed keepsakes, these collectibles aim to drive sales and encourage repeat visits.

Insight - Faced with societal pressures and environmental challenges, many younger consumers turn to spending as a coping mechanism, seeking the dopamine hit that micro purchases provide. In response, F&B brands are launching collectible collaborations to appeal to Gen Z's desire for personalization and social sharing while delivering a unique experience. By positioning themselves as unofficial suppliers, brands can foster deeper engagement and encourage repeat purchases of their themed or branded products.