Consumer PR Trends in 2026 – What’s Next?

With agencies leaning toward digital marketing specialists, they should take care not to jump ship too soon. Traditional PR retains value, and indeed, is complementary to evolving digital needs. The two need not be positioned against one another, given they are not competing for the same budgets.

B2C PR is oft plagued by Goodhart’s Law. Its namesake, British economist Charles Goodart, is credited with coining the idea in a 1970s article on monetary policy. In short, the adage states, “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” Marketers and PR specialists will focus on securing vanity statistics (likes, followers, view counts) which often fail to translate into hard sales. Consumer industry operates with small profit margins, and it is primarily a volumes game. With the ban of TikTok in the US, adaptative thinking, beyond the vanity statistics, can be the difference in an organisation sinking or swimming. Advertisers, influencer marketers, storytelling-driven PR campaigners must have alternatives in their back pocket. Relying on a single channel to drive success is a risky game, and when platforms are taken offline, it necessitates industry diversification. Given influencer marketing will continue to grow and play a significant role for consumer marketers and PR agencies, social media is an ever-changing, fast-moving world and PR will need to remain one step ahead. The consumer voice is discussed eloquently on the BBC Sounds podcast Consumer Fight Back.

Consumer PR remains a mammoth entity and will continue to grow throughout 2026:

In The Public Relations Handbook, Susan Hutchinson defined consumer PR:

Consumer PR focuses on end-users, rather than other businesses. The messaging will therefore differ to PR for the B2B verticals. Consumer PR leans heavily on emotional, forthright storytelling to influence purchase decisions, unlike the logical, ROI-driven messaging which saturates B2B PR. 

Budgeting is calculated differently, and allocations are diverse when compared to B2B. Channels and tools differ, with consumer PR preferring social media and general media sites. B2B PR relies heavily on finding the right channels and adopting a highly targeted messaging to address specific decision-making roles within organisations. These roles may include, but are in no way limited to, a Chief Financial Officer, Chief Technology Officer, Chief Executive Officer, or Chief Marketing Officer.

Consumer verticals (referring to specific categories or segments within the consumer market) including household, food and beverage, personal care, beauty and wellness will all target industries relevant to their audience. For example, health and wellness verticals may use education-focused campaigns while entertainment will capitalise on the short-lived buzz naturally occurring around a release date by delivering timely and high-impact campaigns with narratives centred around events and premieres. 

Taking fashion PR as an example, Sapience CEO Richard Morgan Evans believes, 

Approaches will differ across verticals. For example, hospitality B2B PR may include management bylines in the trade press, such as the one below by Burgh Island Hotel’s Managing Director:

The reverse of this is captured below, with Burgh Island’s consistent and multiple appearances across national terrestrial television a solid example of well-executed consumer campaigning:

A few months ago, TikTok published its global “What’s Next” 2025 trends report (PDF) for marketing creatives. The report details the culture and technology trends that will shape marketing in the year ahead. In short, this year’s report advised marketers to try out AI tech and hire a wider group of creators to reach niche and diverse communities. TikTok also discussed how marketers should change how they talk about life stages with consumers. Understandably, this comes back to adaptation. A new, younger crop of consumers will inevitably view life stages differently than generations before. The report did not address the divest-or-ban law, thus a gaping hole is apparent in the report’s findings. US markets will need to move to short-video platforms such as Instagram reels or YouTube shorts. The elephant is now very much in the room. 

The objective is to focus on the long-term. Though this may sound counterintuitive, TikTok argues that trends move fast, not all of them last, and most are fleeting. Cultural shifts with staying-power offer a deeper look into user behaviour and ethics. Collaborating with diverse creators builds authentic connections across cultures and communities. Consistency and trust offer more value than flash, fast, campaigns ever can. It is vital that businesses work with a PR agency that understands the above deeply. 

Generally, consumers both want and do respond to ethical consumerism more positively than otherwise and the statistics prove this: 84% of customers say that poor environmental practices will alienate them from a brand or company and 42% of consumers think that goods produced locally/domestically are higher quality (PDF). Sapience regularly tailors campaigning toward the ethical consumer and we consider this a power-move for any organisation looking to grow in 2026.

The consumer demand for ethical services naturally entails the need for ethical marketing & PR practices. Buzzwords are no longer a catch-all strategy. Rather, they present a reputational risk if used insincerely. Greenwashing (the act of consciously, or unconsciously, misrepresenting products or services as environmentally responsible) is a consumer repellent and its certainly advisable that a business communicates their environmental stance with care, lest they wade into muddy waters. 

Sapience have written on greenwashing (the witty portmanteau was coined by American ecologist Jay Westerveld) in more detail here: What is greenwashing and why does it matter to my business?

While the world evolves considerably, some things never change. Indeed, investment in thorough consumer behaviour trends and market research is as important now as it was to the establishment of Cadbury in the early 20^th century. In the 2005 paper, ‘Products, Firms and Consumption: Cadbury and the Development of Marketing, 1900–1939’, Robert Fitzgerald of Royal Hollway, University of London, argued that, “it was Cadbury in particular that acquired, by the interwar period, the marketing capabilities that transformed a consumer market, without becoming the archetypal ‘marketing-orientated’ firm closely associated with ‘advanced’ practice”. Crudely put; Cadburys did their research. These days, this type of research is so easily carried out that to overlook its findings makes for an inexcusable business blunder. Further, neuroscience can provide a clear backdrop for marketing optimisation. Dr Terry Wu, founder of Neuromarketing Services, covers this in his 2019 TedTalk Neuromarketing: The new science of consumer decisions.

Dr Wu could not, however, foresee a global pandemic. Consumer behaviour was grossly impacted by multiple nation-wide lockdowns. Ecommerce and digital shopping surge and the effects have lingered. More people now order online than ever before, with 27% of the population now shopping online. Even if the purchase itself is in-store, nearly two-thirds of all purchases now begin online, according to Zappia. In some ways, this is the consumer’s market research. SEO and search marketing continues to go strong despite of, and perhaps because of, AI search, with informational and transactional searches on the up, accounting for over 50% of all search traffic.  

However, The Wall Street Journal highlights a “pervasive online distrust” which will likely make “tried-and-true household names more valuable”. Mark Curtis, Head of Innovation for the creative services division of consulting giant Accenture asserts that “Trust has come up repeatedly for the last 10 or 15 years, but what we’re hearing this year is, ‘I’m not sure about clicking,”. Consumers are more privacy-aware and adopt browsers like Brave and Firefox, implementing adblockers more fervently. Tech continues to fight back, as seen in Google Chrome’s Manifest V3 initiative in particular, which is designed to address privacy concerns and counter adblocking. 

Naturally, B2C verticals are vulnerable to these consumer behaviour shifts to varying degrees. Retail and ecommerce are particularly susceptible to the pandemic-driven shift toward online shopping. Retailers cannot ignore the saturation of the online marketplace and must prioritise strong SEO and trust-building to entice customers. Again, omnichannel strategies will take precedence. Similarly, wellness will be susceptible to lessening consumer trust levels. Hanover have identified that product safety, efficacy and ethicality will play a major role in consumer decision-making. Consumers research extensively and read reviews across platforms alongside cross-referencing ingredient lists before committing to a wellness or personal care purchase. Thus, transparency in marketing across official certifications and visible reviews is vital for trust-building. 

Authenticity and trust are especially important for influencer marketing and consumer relations. Beyond this, however, the values broadly apply to all aspects of consumer public relations. 

Different audiences, as we know, have different preferences. We know now that Generation Z (born 1997-2013) makes up approximately 30% of the world’s population and boasts an estimated $853 billion in global spending power. Gen-Z focuses heavily on UGC (user-generated content). Authentic, unpaid content created by fans, customers, or users (in contrast to celebrities) is preferred. In fact, 70% of Gen-Z cite UGC as an influential factor. 

This authenticity is just as important for alternative advertisement, such as across programmatic streaming TV. M&C Saatchi Performance’s Guide to Programmatic Streaming TV highlights the importance of transparency in ad placements and performance metrics for fostering consumer trust. Invasive, misleading, or misplaced advertising is disruptive and more likely to deter trust. Programmatic platforms allow brands to exclude their placement from content that does not align with the brand’s ethos and thus, through personalised, careful, decision-making, a brand can prevent negative associations. 

As we have seen, consumers seek a genuine, transparent brand that reflects their values when making purchase decisions. This shift has undoubtedly led marketers to prioritise storytelling, community engagement, and personalisation.

Shubhi Grover, Sapience’s PR Director for Consumer and Lifestyle Practices, is an award-winning PR and communications expert with extensive experience in leading campaigns for consumer brands globally. Professionally trained in communications at the London School of Economics, she has successfully led the rebranding of multiple B2B companies and launched various consumer-facing products to help businesses stay relevant and drive commercial success. Shubhi reiterates the power of leveraging analytics to more meaningfully forge these moments of connection: 

And this engagement goes beyond marketing. The total ethos of an organisation is apparent through word of mouth, too. Positive employment strategies, benefits, and care can transform them into accidental brand advocates (if the brand is genuinely worth advocating for, that is). Brands that cannot foster good relationships with customers are forced to spend a lot more on advertising, depending on the vertical. CSR is a key tool. Consumers care about ethical companies. 

Consumer loyalty can be the ultimate make or break factor for brands. PR agencies need to spend sufficient time studying and understand consumer thoughts and feelings around the services and products they consume. Agencies should devise approaches to maintain or grow the loyalty when it exists, or alleviate the issues affecting loyalty when somewhat lost. 

Sometimes it could be a reputational thing (a Boeing review carried out by the US government, for example, found serious safety concerns around Boeing’s safety management systems, apparently in attempts to capture more profit). Other times, new competitors simply came along and proved to have superior products or delivery models. 79% of US consumers in 2022 said they were loyal to specific brands, retailers, and stores. Crucially, however, that number dropped 14% and 13% in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

There are multiple reasons for this kind of drop. The cost of living has become a problem for a greater number of consumers, who will now search for ways to make savings. Further, consumers spend more time researching B2C products and services to make more informed decisions. A low-quality brand will be found out and lose out. 

Consumer PR agencies are ideally placed to help companies recover or improve their public-facing image, including dealing with crisis situations (while following the Barcelona Principles). 

Sapience Communications is made up of resolute, expert consumer PR professionals. If consumer public relations feels akin to a metaphorical minefield, then reach out to us. We can help.

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