Consumer Trends and Attitudes Shaping Advertising in 2026

What shifting market conditions mean for brands and marketers

As 2026 takes shape, conversations across marketing and the broader business landscape have increasingly focused on volatility, shaped by economic uncertainty, evolving consumer expectations, and rapid technological change. Yet while budget pressure and organizational change are influencing how the industry talks about 2026, much of that dialogue remains inward-looking, anchored in constraint and risk. Volatility, however, is not a strategy. It’s simply the environment in which more intentional, adaptive decisions can be made.

What matters more is how consumers are responding inside the 2026 landscape, and the data shows a clear divergence between marketer anxiety and consumer behavior. Uncertainty hasn’t caused people to disengage or opt out. It’s made them more selective and more deliberate, demanding more value, relevance, and consistency.

From a consumer perspective, volatility functions less as a stop signal and more as a filter. People are paying closer attention to where they spend, which brands they trust, and what experiences earn their time and attention. Intent hasn’t disappeared; rather, it’s become more conditional.

This distinction is critical. When volatility is treated as the headline, brands and marketers risk mistaking caution for collapse. When it’s treated as context, a more accurate picture emerges: a market very much in motion, shaped by vigilance rather than withdrawal. Understanding that reality is the starting point for competing, measuring impact, and making confident advertising decisions in 2026.

This blog examines how that vigilance manifests in their outlook, personal finances, and spending priorities, revealing where intent holds and where it tightens. DISQO’s 2026 Consumer Trends Report delves deeper, exploring how people are navigating uncertainty and what this means for brands seeking to measure, earn, and sustain advertising effectiveness in 2026.

Vigilance defines consumer attitudes entering 2026

Consumers are entering 2026 with their guard up. When asked about the direction of the world in the year ahead, sentiment skews slightly negative, with more than half expressing pessimism. Thirty-one percent say they feel somewhat negative, and another 24% feel very negative about where things are headed. This reflects sustained exposure to economic pressure, geopolitical instability, and uneven signals of progress that shape how people interpret everyday decisions.

However, this negativity shouldn’t be misread as resignation. What the data reveals instead is heightened awareness. Consumers are paying closer attention to the forces that affect their lives, weighing risk more carefully, and scrutinizing the institutions and brands around them with greater discipline; a cautious yet emotional posture.

That posture shifts when the horizon expands. When consumers look beyond the near term and consider the next five years, sentiment softens. Optimism rises, neutrality grows, and extremes recede. While pessimism doesn't disappear entirely, it becomes less dominant as people imagine a future in which today’s pressures ease and conditions become more manageable.

This split between short-term anxiety and longer-term possibility is one of the defining characteristics of the consumer mindset in 2026. People are braced for uncertainty, but they haven’t abandoned the belief that improvement is possible. For brands, this creates a meaningful opening. Attention is not freely given, but it is not closed off. Trust, consistency, and clarity carry more weight when consumers are watching closely and making deliberate decisions.

Consumer finances are stable but under guard

Despite a cautious global outlook, most consumers enter 2026 describing their personal finances as stable. A plurality say their situation is unchanged from the year prior, signaling continuity rather than disruption. This steadiness, however, is not a sign of comfort. It’s something consumers feel they must actively protect.

Inflation remains the dominant pressure shaping that mindset. Even among those who feel financially steady, rising prices influence how people evaluate purchases, prioritize needs, and justify tradeoffs. So while stability exists, it’s conditional, reinforced through restraint and closer scrutiny of value.

Looking further ahead, expectations remain muted. Most consumers don’t anticipate a dramatic improvement or decline in their financial situation. Instead, they project more of the same: careful planning, measured spending, and limited tolerance for risk. The result is a consumer who is still participating in the economy, but doing so with clearer guardrails.

For marketers, this financial posture does not eliminate intent. It reshapes it. Consumers remain open to spending, but only when the value is clear, the relevance is strong, and the return feels justified.

Implications of more intentional consumer purchase behavior in 2026

As they work to preserve financial stability, consumer shopping behavior is becoming more intentional rather than more constrained. The result is not an across-the-board pullback, but a clearer separation between what feels essential and what must be justified.

Purchase intent on core categories such as food, groceries, healthcare, and personal care remains largely protected. These purchases are viewed as non-negotiable, directly tied to daily functioning and personal well-being. In an uncertain environment, consumers prioritize consistency in the areas that provide reliability and control.

Discretionary categories face a higher bar. Travel, retail, dining out, apparel, and entertainment are increasingly evaluated through the lens of necessity, timing, and perceived value. Consumers are not rejecting these categories outright, but they are more selective about when and how they engage. Purchases that once felt routine now require stronger justification.

This shift underscores a broader behavioral reality: intent still exists, but it is applied less evenly. Consumers are directing their spending toward categories and brands that feel dependable, relevant, and worth the tradeoff. For brands competing in discretionary spaces, performance depends less on visibility and more on the ability to clearly articulate value in moments when scrutiny is high, and patience is limited.

Conditional openness defines the 2026 consumer 

Taken together, consumer outlook, financial sentiment, and spending behavior point to a consistent pattern. Consumers are not shutting down. They are tightening the rules by which they engage.

Vigilance is shaping everyday decisions. People are more selective about where they direct their money, more deliberate about which brands they trust, and more critical of experiences that fail to deliver clear value. Rather than a rejection of consumption or brand advertising, it’s a recalibration of standards.

In this environment, openness still exists, but it’s more conditional. Consumers are willing to engage when brands feel relevant, reliable, and aligned with their priorities. They are far less tolerant of noise, inconsistency, or unclear value propositions. The margin for error is smaller, and the consequences of missing the mark are greater.

This shift helps explain why traditional measurement signals can be misleading. Cautious sentiment does not automatically translate into reduced opportunity. Stable finances do not guarantee spend, and presence alone does not create impact. What matters is understanding how these forces intersect and where intent is activated versus withheld. 

Why advertising in 2026 demands better measurement

In a market defined by volatility, surface-level signals become unreliable, sentiment appears cautious, and spending looks uneven. Without deeper visibility, it is easy to mistake noise for truth.

What volatility obscures is how intent actually moves. Vigilant consumers do not stop responding to advertising. They respond differently. Traditional performance metrics struggle to capture this shift because they often fail to distinguish nuances between perception and behavior, treating attitudes and digital outcomes as separate and disconnected events rather than integral parts of the same decision-making process.

Understanding impact in 2026 requires connecting media exposure to how people feel and what they do next. It means seeing where awareness becomes consideration, where hesitation turns into action, and where value earns engagement under scrutiny. Sophisticated measurement with DISQO captures sentiment alongside behavior of real consumers deterministically, revealing where advertising is working, where it is being filtered out, and why.

Why measurement and power brand equity is your advantage 

2026 is not shaping up to be a year of consumer retreat. It’s a year defined by selectivity, discernment, and conditional intent. Consumers remain open, but only to brands and experiences that meet higher standards for relevance, clarity, and trust. In this environment, brand equity is your anchor. It’s the decisive force that turns ordinary products into irreplaceable choices. It earns trust when attention is cheap, and commands margin when price wars drag others down. It’s the moat competitors cannot replicate overnight and the engine of resilience when markets shift.

DISQO’s 2026 Consumer Report explores these shifts in depth, grounding strategy in how people actually navigate uncertainty. By examining consumer outlook, personal finances, artificial intelligence, TV and streaming, and the importance of brand as a whole, we reveal where opportunities lie, where they are limited, and how brands can measure what truly works in a market that rewards proof over instinct.

The data for this report comes from a consumer study that DISQO conducted in the fourth quarter of 2025. We collected data from 3,000 US consumers. To ensure that the data was reflective of the US population, we set quotas for responses to match the gender, age, and income demographics.