Trends: 126 findings, with sources

Reach has become a cheap dashboard metric: it no longer shows whether ideas are being shared by real people or converting customers. Make work that begs to be clipped rather than paying for your own post to be seen 100,000 times.

Static performance assets compete for the 5% of social time that is not short-form video

Performance campaigns built around static assets are competing for the 5% of social time that is not short-form video - a four-minute daily window, and a shrinking one.

Attention accumulated across repeated short exposures converts better than the same seconds in one impression

Attention accumulated across repeated short exposures outperforms the same attention delivered in one sitting. Viewers reaching five cumulative attentive seconds in a week converted 21% better than viewers who got five attentive seconds in a single impression; at ten seconds the advantage was 13%.

Nike's 'Why Do It?' campaign reframed its own iconic tagline to address the pressure of perfection - inviting young athletes to take the first step despite fear or doubt. A flagship example of Fiercely Unfiltered: the brand questioning its own catchphrase to meet a radically honest audience.

Lidl became the first legacy grocer in the UK to host a TikTok Shop livestream in 2025, promoting limited-edition high-protein bundles - and sold out in under 20 minutes. Platform-native commerce works for mainstream retail, not just DTC challengers.

Menlo Ventures' five consumer AI predictions for 2027: agentic purchases drive USD 100 billion in online sales; regular agent use becomes mainstream; AI becomes a critical advertising channel; voice shifts from dictation to instruction; AI-powered robots reach USD 500 million in sales while humanoids lag.

Comedy is the most shared content category on social, ahead of motivation

Comedy was the most shared content category of 2025 with 173 billion shares globally; motivation was third with 119 billion.

Meta ad spend has grown to nearly match global linear TV spend

Global Meta ad spend grew from US$7.0bn in 2013 to US$155.6bn in the latest year shown, close to linear TV's US$163.0bn, shifting budgets from a high-attention channel to a low-attention one where ads are mostly sales-driven.

Influencers deliver one of the highest long-term ROIs of any channel

In IPA research with Andrew Tindall, influencers scored a long-term ROI index of 151 against an all-channel average of 100, on just 6.2% sales contribution, returns that rival linear TV for far less spend.

Almost half of the most entertaining brands achieved double-digit revenue growth

Among the 2026 Entertainment Index Top 30 brands with financial data (83%), only five reported revenue decline and 47% achieved double-digit growth, despite tariffs hitting brands like Porsche and Mattel.

Hot Topic's TikTok sitcom nearly doubled store-visit intent

Hot Topic's TikTok-first series Mall Rats drew 10m+ views, and a custom lift study showed intent to visit a Hot Topic store rose from 18% in the control group to 34% among viewers.

Anime is now a mass fandom among Gen Z

Anime is watched at least weekly by 50% of Gen Z, even in markets traditionally dominated by Hollywood studio entertainment, making it a fandom many brands have successfully joined.

Creativity now outranks possessions as a marker of status

Creativity is becoming a marker of personal status: 43% say how creative someone is defines a person's status, ahead of care for the planet (39%) and positive health metrics (36%). Status is migrating from what you own to what you can make.

Two thirds follow creators for authenticity, and most feel a personal connection

68% of people follow creators because they seem authentic and relatable, and 60% feel a personal connection to them. The mechanism behind creator effectiveness is parasocial trust, not reach.

Three quarters of young consumers want a hand in shaping the brands they buy

75% of gen Z and millennials say they are interested in getting more involved with their favourite brands, from co-creation to influencing innovation. The audience for co-creation is not a niche of superfans - it is three quarters of the young market.

Five in six consumers want their money going to brands that reflect their values

84% of people want their money to go to brands that reflect their values, 79% say brands have a responsibility to take care of the planet and its people, and 74% say brands should make more effort to speak to people like them. The brand mandate skews to values and representation over price.

Gen alpha already influences four in ten dollars of US household spending

Gen alpha already steers 42% of US household spending - 49% in households earning over $100k - and 61% of gen alpha parents say their kids have the final say on which car they buy. Their own spending power exceeds $100 billion a year.

Everyone thinks truth is dying - and most think they personally can spot the fakes

81% of people say the truth is an endangered concept these days and 71% believe AI is making it impossible to understand what is true - yet 68% are confident they personally can distinguish real from fake online. The confidence gap is exactly where misinformation lives.

3 in 7 consumers enjoy life without planning for the future

3 in 7 consumers say they like to enjoy life and do not worry about planning for the future, and outstanding balances on short-term personal loans keep rising globally. Short-term fulfilment - including doom spending - is a durable consumer posture, not a blip.

Half of consumers will pay a 10% premium for scientifically formulated beauty

49% of consumers would pay at least 10% more for premium beauty products with a scientific formulation, and more than half rate medical endorsement or medicated formulation as premium-worthy features. Science and clinical proof, not indulgence, now justify the beauty premium.

Four of the five top global e-commerce retailers originated or are based in China

Four of the five top retailers by 2024 global e-commerce sales either originated or are based in China, China is forecast to export USD 4 trillion in goods and services in 2026, and its cross-border retail e-commerce is projected at USD 127.4 billion. The Next Asian Wave is a distribution fact, not a cultural curiosity.

A quarter of Americans use AI daily; intensity is growing faster than adoption

25% of Americans now use AI daily, up from 19% in 2025; among AI users, daily usage jumped from 31% to 39%, and 24% spend more than an hour a day with AI. Overall US adult adoption moved only from 61% to 64% - intensity is growing much faster than reach.

92% of AI agent users pay for AI - agents are the monetisation frontier

Agents and money travel together: 92% of AI agent users pay for AI, 63% use AI daily, and 65% of AI payers use agents versus 13% of non-payers. Agentic capability is where consumer willingness to pay concentrates.

Distrust of AI-generated information among non-users rose from 58% to 70%

AI holdouts are hardening, not softening: 83% prefer dealing with humans, 76% cite privacy concerns, 52% believe AI tools are biased, and distrust of AI-generated information rose from 58% to 70% in a year. The remaining third of non-users will not be won by feature lists.

Nearly half of AI users already talk to their AI; legacy assistants are fading

Voice is becoming a genuine AI interface: 46% of AI users speak to their AI at least sometimes and 19% use voice as their primary mode - while the legacy voice assistants slide (Alexa down from 32% to 22% reach, Siri from 25% to 20%). Menlo's 2027 prediction: voice moves from dictation to instruction.

Nearly half of shoppers now research through AI assistants rather than search

45% of shoppers now research through AI assistants rather than a search engine, which turns search into a transactional step taken after the decision has already been made.

Small W•rld's Entertainment Funnel has six stages: Exposed (impression), Hooked (view), Watched (completed view), Moved (likes, comments), Saved and Shared. Saves and shares count most because they signal value and word of mouth.

Small W•rld only puts paid behind work once shares are at least 25% of likes, the sign it's spreading on its own. Their Oatly Matcha Urgency Bag hit a 2:1 likes-to-shares ratio. Paid should amplify momentum, not try to create it.

Disruptor brands like Gentle Monster, Nothing and Vacation Inc. have under 10% prompted awareness but outperform the average brand on entertainment score, a signal of future cultural momentum and awareness growth.

Behind-the-scenes and process content increasingly outperforms the originals: showing the craft proves creativity is human, not AI-generated, as Apple TV's ident BTS and Craighill's design videos show.

Creators are recognisable before you see their face because of consistent visual codes, formats, characters and sounds. Brands that repeat recurring characters, sounds or images in a series build the same instant recognition.

CMOs are prioritising brand while planning fewer traditional brand campaigns than ever

CMOs are moving money toward brand while moving away from the format brand money used to buy: for the first time, under 50% are planning traditional brand campaigns. The budget is being reallocated to creator and video formats rather than to campaigns in the old sense.

Nostalgia is a comfort strategy with box-office proof: two of the highest-grossing movies to date, Barbie and Super Mario Bros, are retro IP. McDonald's revived McDonaldland with collectible merchandise and Taco Bell ran a limited-edition Decades Y2K menu - familiarity engineered as a product, not just an ad theme.

Vaseline's creator-led hacks campaign lifted ad recall 15 points without a traditional brand campaign

Vaseline built a brand campaign entirely out of creator-made 'hacks' - the spice hack, the runner hack, the hair dye hack - run as partnership ads rather than as a traditional brand campaign. It lifted ad recall by 15.0 points and consideration by 4.2 points, and took a Cannes Lions Titanium plus two Grand Prix.

Half of all media time is now spent with user-generated content

50% of media time is now spent with user-generated content. A brand with no face in creator content is absent from half the market's media consumption.

Shares of content that helps people escape uncertainty more than tripled during 2025

Shares of content that helps people escape uncertainty rose 214% between the first and second half of 2025, measured across 1.6 trillion public shares on Facebook, Instagram and Threads.

Dull ads make conversion more expensive

Dull ads make it 27% more expensive for brands to convert, and do nothing to build the emotions needed for long-term brand building (Peter Field).

Young audiences are more excited by creator content than by new TV shows or films

57% of 14- to 24-year-olds say they have been more excited to see new content from creators than new TV shows or movies.

Nearly all of the most entertaining brands grew revenue

97% of the world's 30 most entertaining brands in Small W•rld's 2025 Entertainment Index posted revenue growth, and over two-thirds reported double-digit gains.

Liquid Death graduates ideas from a small social test to TV

Liquid Death tests ideas with around $5k of social spend outside its usual audience; if save and share ratios hold, the idea becomes a YouTube pre-roll, and if people don't skip after five seconds, it can move to TV.

On's extra social content outdrew its hero spot ninefold

On's Dreamers spot with Zendaya got 5m views on YouTube, while its additional social content, including bloopers and jokey Reels with stylist Law Roach, added another 45m+ views.

Four in five shoppers still prefer a human over a bot

80% of people still prefer speaking with a human representative when shopping, and 87% value experiences that foster connection with themselves or others. The more synthetic the landscape gets, the more the human touchpoint differentiates.

Treatonomics: consumers trade down everywhere except the small joys

Austerity and indulgence coexist: 79% of global consumers are trading down (McKinsey), yet 38% of gen Z say they are spending more on themselves and 30% more on little treats - against 14% of gen X. VML calls it treatonomics: small affordable rewards as resilience infrastructure.

Škoda's Reddit-designed Octavia beat order expectations two and a half times over

Škoda let members of Reddit's Car Talk community vote on everything from the engine to the interior trim of a special-edition Octavia. Orders exceeded expectations by 255% and the campaign took a Cannes Lions Gold - co-creation as a commercial mechanism, not community theatre.

Boycotts move real numbers: Disney churn spiked four-fold in a single week

Consumer punishment is as measurable as fandom: Disney+ cancellations ran 436% above the usual churn rate in the week after Jimmy Kimmel's firing, 53% of US gen Z have taken part in brand boycotts (Statista), and Americana - the Middle East's largest fast-food franchise - saw net profits fall nearly 40% amid local boycotts.

Seven in ten shoppers plan to buy off-price even if their budget grows

Value retail is booming alongside experience retail: 70% of customers plan to buy from outlets or off-price retailers in the next 12 months even if their budget increases (BoF-McKinsey), and US warehouse clubs grew revenue roughly 50% from 2020 to 2024. The middle of the market is what's emptying.

GLP-1 use is reshaping spending in categories far from food

17% of people have taken or are taking GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, up from 12% a year earlier, and UBS forecasts 40 million users and $126 billion in sales by 2029. Second-order effects are already visible: US perfume sales to GLP-1 users rose 23% as suppressed appetite redirects the desire for pleasure into other categories.

More than half of consumers only buy from brands they completely trust

More than 50% of consumers only buy from brands or companies they completely trust, and only 15% associate social acceptance with their definition of beauty. Euromonitor's read: authenticity has moved beyond a desirable brand trait to a social currency - a marker of trust in an uncertain world.

Three quarters of consumers track their health with a device or app

3 in 4 consumers track their health with a device or app, nearly 40% are comfortable using at-home diagnostic kits, and 34% of Gen Z track their sleep. Everyday wellness is becoming clinical-grade, real-time and self-directed.

One in five consumers associate Chinese beauty products with innovative technology

Perception of Chinese brands is shifting from cheap to innovative: 1 in 5 consumers already associate Chinese beauty products with innovative technology and formats, and 62% say international products are more readily available than five years ago. The affordability remains - Chinese-origin beauty SKUs in the UK sell at a fraction of non-Asian prices.

The top 14% of AI spenders account for 60% of all consumer AI spend

The top 14% of consumer AI spenders - those paying USD 100+ a month - account for 60% of all consumer AI spending. Power spenders are 3x more likely to earn USD 100k+ and 2.5x more likely to be regular agent users.

A third of agent users have let AI act without final approval

41% of AI users have tried AI agents, 24% use them regularly, and 32% have already let an AI act on their behalf without final approval. Delegation - not just conversation - is becoming a consumer behaviour.

Accuracy and trust now beat ease of use in choosing AI tools

Consumers pick AI tools on substance, not slickness: accuracy (45%), trustworthiness (40%) and security/privacy (36%) lead the selection criteria, while ease of use fell from 38% to 32% year over year. Table stakes moved from UX to reliability.

38% say AI improved their lives; half feel no change at all

Consumer sentiment about AI is calm rather than euphoric: 38% say AI has improved their lives, 52% report no meaningful change, and 10% say it made life worse. Meanwhile 43% of working adults see moderate-to-significant risk to their job within five years (46% of Gen Z).

AI now assists the majority of writing, coding and assignment work

Where AI penetrated everyday tasks in 2026: 61% of people who write use AI for writing support, 58% for coding projects, 56% for school or work assignments, 53% for image creation - while among all US adults, researching topics (26%), staying in touch (25%), healthcare navigation and paying bills (23% each) show AI seeping into life admin.

Tracksuit found only a weak correlation between awareness and entertainment value, and brand love was uncorrelated with it. Being a household name doesn't make you entertaining; entertainment may instead be a route to more awareness.

The Entertainment Index groups its statements into four pillars: Connection (loved, fosters community, captures real emotion), Creativity (fresh, imaginative, world building, makes me laugh), Distinctiveness (grabs attention, energetic, immersive) and Relatability (relatable like a TV character). The most entertaining brands score high on all four.

More than three quarters of marketers still measure effectiveness on clicks

78% of marketers still use click-based attribution to measure effectiveness, despite well-documented evidence that clicks under-count everything that works on delay.

Click-based attribution sends a third of spend to sales that would have happened anyway

Click-based attribution pushes advertisers toward the conversions that are easiest to claim, and 35% of that spend lands on sales that would have happened anyway.

People map the division of labour with AI by skill: AI is seen ahead on logic, strategy and operating machinery, humans ahead on empathy, caregiving, creativity, critical thinking and negotiation. 75% agree technology will never take creativity away from humanity - it's part of who we are.

Culture has gone multipolar: China ranks second on soft power, Bad Bunny was Spotify's most-streamed global artist (19.8bn streams), China's Ne Zha 2 became the highest-grossing animated film ever (~$2.2bn), and 76% of people say their cultural tastes are becoming more international. The reference points now come from Seoul, Shenzhen and San Juan as often as from LA.

Two thirds of consumers look for ways to simplify their lives. Euromonitor's Comfort Zone trend: people in protection mode redefine their standard as 'less but better', and reward products that sell calm, ease, control and reassurance.

Most retail sales still happen in store and stay invisible to digital optimisation

73% of retail sales still happen in store, and the forecast for 2029 is 70%. The larger half of retail remains largely invisible to digital performance optimisation.

Optimising ads to in-store as well as online sales multiplies incremental purchases

Ads optimised against both online and in-store sales drove 2.8x more incremental purchases than the same ads optimised for web sales only.

Business messaging is opened three times more often than email

Messages sent through WhatsApp are opened at an average rate of 79%, against 26% for email.

Half of all ads are less engaging than footage of cows grazing

Peter Field and System1 found that 50% of ads are less engaging than watching cows grazing in a field. The most common emotional response to ads is now neutrality.

Most social users open the apps to be entertained

80% of TikTok users, 65% of Instagram users and 55% of Facebook users visit the platform seeking entertainment, which makes dull ads on those channels doubly misplaced.

The most entertaining ads multiply memory, awareness and image lift

Comparing the top and bottom quartile of ads on showmanship features, the most entertaining ads delivered 39% higher memory lift, 2x brand awareness lift and 2.8x brand image lift.

Entertaining brands are far more likely to be people's preferred brand

17 of the 30 most entertaining brands have at least double the preference level of the Bottom 30 brands' average of 9%. Preference was low only for luxury goods and emerging brands.

Vaseline turned creator hacks into shoppable ads and grew sales

Vaseline took the beauty 'hacks' 450+ creators were already doing with its product, verified which ones worked and turned those UGC videos into shoppable social spots. Sales jumped 43%.

Samsung and LEGO rose fastest in the index while Houseplant and Duolingo slipped

In the 2026 Entertainment Index, Samsung (+56), LEGO (+54) and Apple (+30) were the biggest risers, while Houseplant (-72) showed the limits of founder-led hype and Duolingo (-19) dipped after social leadership changes and AI-first controversy.

Most people don't care if an ad was made by AI - but music gets judged harder

When an ad is primarily made by AI, 56% of people say it makes no difference to how they feel, 23% would like it more and 21% less. Music is judged more harshly: 32% would like an AI-made song less. Acceptance of AI creative varies by medium, not by principle.

Branded characters raise the odds of very large share gain by a quarter

Campaigns featuring branded characters ('fluent devices') are 23% more likely to generate very large share gain and 22% more likely to generate very large profit gain than the average campaign. The report pairs this with a revival of brand mascots as durable, ownable creator alternatives.

A White Lotus appearance lifted resort interest four-fold and dress sales seven-fold

Entertainment IP moves real commerce: after appearing in The White Lotus, Four Seasons Maui saw online interest jump 425%, and a Jim Thompson kimono dress worn on the show sold up 671% in four days. Placement inside story worlds now outperforms placement beside them.

Fewer than half strongly trust brands to tell the truth - and trust commands a premium

Only 44% of people strongly trust the brands they use to share accurate information, and 87% of customers will pay more for products from trusted brands (Salsify). Trust is scarce and priced accordingly - honesty is a competitive advantage, not a compliance line.

Seven in ten people now call loneliness an epidemic

70% of people globally now see loneliness as an epidemic, up from 67% a year earlier; WHO reports one in six people experienced loneliness. VML frames 'social health' - connection as a wellness category - as one of the biggest white spaces for brands in 2026.

Natural-claim FMCG is a USD 377 billion market

FMCG products carrying a natural claim generated USD 377.2 billion in global retail sales in 2024, with more than 8,000 new natural-claim products launched online in a single year. Comfort-seeking consumers read natural as calmer, safer and less processed.

Half of professionals expect individualism to reshape their industry within five years

53% of industry professionals say the growth of individualism and personalisation trends will highly influence their industry over the next five years, and 48% say their company has already refocused marketing activity in response to changing consumer trends.

Health goods and medical services will be a USD 6.9 trillion market in 2026

Global consumer expenditure on health goods and medical services is expected to reach USD 6.9 trillion in 2026, with dermocosmetics posting double-digit CAGR in every region from 2020 to 2024. Euromonitor's Rewired Wellness prescription: move from seller to partner - brands as copilots in ongoing personal health journeys.

One in four TikTok users has bought directly inside the platform

As of early 2025, one in four TikTok users had made a purchase inside the platform, and 37% of livestream shoppers use the channel to discover new brands, products or services. Content and commerce have converged - discovery, persuasion and checkout happen in one scroll.

Daily AI assistant use beats ride-sharing and food delivery combined

General AI assistants are used daily by 22% of US consumers - more than ride-sharing (6%) and food delivery (7%) combined. In two years, AI assistants became a more frequent habit than the defining consumer apps of the last decade.

Nearly a third of US adults have already earned money with AI

48% of AI users - roughly 30% of all US adults - have earned money with AI, led by content creation (22%) and freelancing (18%). The generational gap is stark: 62% of Gen Z AI users have monetised AI versus 15% of Boomers.

Known AI-generated content carries a 2-to-1 engagement penalty

36% of consumers say they are less likely to engage with content they know is AI-generated; only 14% are more interested. For brands leaning on visibly AI-made creative, the label itself carries an engagement penalty of more than 2 to 1.

Parents and higher-income households lead AI adoption by 20+ points

AI adoption maps onto money and parenthood: 77% of US adults in households earning USD 100k+ use AI versus 56% under USD 50k, and 84% of parents use AI versus 56% of non-parents - with 40% of parents using it daily.