Who is your brand chasing?
The consumer comparing prices? The one waiting for a promotion? The one living in a multi-person household?
BCG’s research shows that all three profiles represent a shrinking share of where growth is actually headed.
The consumer has moved on. Growth strategies haven’t.
Price gets you in the door. Something else closes the sale.
The most consistent finding across BCG’s consumer research since 2022: perceived value is a stronger predictor of purchase than affordability.
The number is unambiguous. 67% of consumers say they would not buy a product — even when they can afford it — if they do not perceive strong value.
The consumer makes two distinct judgments: Can I afford this? And is this worth buying? Price answers only the first question. The actual decision is made on the second.
Yet only 14% of the 1,000+ brands BCG analyzed consistently win on value. The rest continue to use price as leverage, while the consumer is weighing quality, convenience, trust, and personal connection.
Competitive pricing is a threshold. Getting through the door requires a different key.
The consumer’s priority stack has shifted. Most brands haven’t noticed.
74% of survey respondents ranked health and well-being as the primary marker of a prosperous life. Career came in at 40%. Financial wealth at 28%.
This is not a preference shift. It is a structural reordering of priorities that is fundamentally reshaping spending behavior across categories.
BCG defines this cohort as longevity seekers — consumers who prioritize healthy aging as a core component of their well-being. They already represent approximately 37% of all consumers today and grew by 4 percentage points in the past year alone.
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Their behavior carries a notable asymmetry: they adopt healthy habits, but their drive to avoid unhealthy behaviors is twice as strong. Fast food, alcohol, and excess sugar are being rejected — and the brands in those categories largely did not see it coming.
In the US, the number of GLP-1 therapy users has grown more than eightfold since 2020 to an estimated 16 million people, with projections to double again by 2030. These therapies originated in healthcare but are now reshaping demand in food, beverages, apparel, beauty, and fitness. Most brands are still trying to understand the scope of the disruption.
The fastest-growing segment in developed markets is being systematically ignored.
One in three households in mature markets today consists of a single person — up 6 percentage points since 2010. In Germany, Sweden, France, and Italy, approximately 40% of households are solo. Japan and South Korea are approaching similar levels.
Solo households spend two to three times more per capita than multi-person households.
And BCG’s most striking finding from this segment: 50% to 70% of solo consumers say that products and services are not designed for people like them.
Bulk packaging, family-size promotions, minimum delivery thresholds, return policies that require someone to be home — these structures systematically exclude the solo consumer. The result is that the least-served growth segment is also the one generating the most friction at every touchpoint.
Trust is now forming in sources brands cannot control.
43% of consumers in the survey report feeling mentally overwhelmed by the volume of information they encounter. 54% say they do not completely trust any single source of information.
In response, consumers are concentrating their trust in fewer, higher-confidence sources: expert advice, friends and family — and the fastest-growing trusted source of all: AI tools.
20% of consumers today say they completely trust AI tools when making purchase decisions. That figure is expected to grow by an additional 15 percentage points by 2030. Meanwhile, brands continue to allocate budgets toward influencer partnerships and paid advertising while consumer trust is being formed outside their control entirely.
BCG’s conclusion is direct: trust can no longer be bought. It is built through operational performance, transparency, and consistent delivery on the brand promise.
AI is now inside the purchase journey. Most brands have no visibility into it.
18 months ago, 10% of consumers used AI in their purchase journeys. That figure is now 31% — roughly triple.
The structure behind that number matters more than the headline.
Of those who use AI, 19% do so regularly — BCG calls these AI loyalists. 70% of AI loyalists ultimately purchase the product AI recommends.
And perhaps the most consequential finding: in approximately 63% of AI-assisted purchase journeys, consumers discover brands they would not otherwise have considered.
Historically, brands invested to build awareness and enter the consideration set. That consideration set is now increasingly assembled by AI — before the consumer ever reaches a brand’s own channels. The vast majority of brands have no visibility into how they are being positioned, ranked, or excluded in this process.
Five questions for the leadership table.
BCG’s research is not a consumer trend report. It identifies five structural shifts and six strategic imperatives for organizations that intend to grow with them rather than against them.
Translated into leadership terms, these are the five questions that cannot wait:
Which dimensions of value — not price — drive purchase decisions in your category for your specific consumers?
Is your growth strategy aligned with where demand is moving, or where it has historically been?
Can consumers and AI independently verify the reasons to choose your brand?
If AI were your most important sales channel, would you know how your brand is performing today?
Does your consumer insight capability anticipate future demand, or does it primarily explain past behavior?
Organizations that cannot answer these questions today are building their forecasts around a consumer that no longer exists in the same form.
The consumer has already moved on.
The growth opportunity belongs to whoever recognizes that first.
Source: Bharadwaj A, Taylor L, Barrios G, Sanghi K, Malby A, Barton C, Ariav Y, Gell J, Portera T. “Global Consumers Have Moved On. Has Your Growth Strategy Caught Up?” Boston Consulting Group, Center for Customer Insight, August 2026. Based on a survey of more than 13,000 consumers across 12 markets and analysis of more than 1,000 brands.
