Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1309 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to pharmaveterans2017@gmail.com for publishing your contributions here.
Preamble
This blogpost takes insights from a recent Boston Consulting Group article. Link to the article at the end.
The Consumer Has Changed: Five Shifts That Will Reshape Growth
For decades, companies have built growth strategies around relatively familiar assumptions: consumers want lower prices, households are built around families, brands influence purchasing decisions, advertising creates awareness, and people make buying decisions largely on their own.
Those assumptions are becoming less reliable.
Consumers are changing not simply what they buy, but how they live, what they value, whom they trust and how they make decisions. A new study by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), based on more than 13,000 consumers across 12 markets and an analysis of more than 1,000 brands, identifies five enduring shifts that are reshaping consumer demand: value over price, the longevity mindset, solo living, a new trust compass, and AI-guided decision-making.
These are not temporary trends. They reflect deeper demographic, technological and social changes. For business leaders, the message is clear: growth strategies designed around yesterday’s consumer may increasingly miss tomorrow’s opportunities.
1. Consumers Want Value, Not Simply Low Prices
Inflation and economic uncertainty have understandably made price highly visible. But BCG’s research reveals an important distinction: consumers may be price-conscious without being purely price-driven.
Sixty-seven percent of consumers said they would not buy a product they could afford if they did not perceive sufficient value. Across BCG’s research since 2022, perceived value has consistently been a stronger predictor of purchase than affordability.
Value can come from quality, convenience, reliability, performance, design, service, trust, emotional relevance or a combination of these.
Price remains important because it determines whether a product enters the consumer’s consideration set. But once that threshold is crossed, the consumer begins asking whether the product justifies the expenditure.
This distinction has major implications for companies operating in competitive markets. Competing exclusively through discounts can erode margins without creating loyalty. A stronger strategy is to understand the specific dimensions of value that matter most to particular customers and occasions. The winning proposition is therefore not necessarily cheaper. It is better value.
2. The Longevity Mindset Is Changing Consumption
Another major shift is the growing importance of health, wellbeing and longevity.
BCG found that three-quarters of consumers identify health and wellbeing as the leading marker of a prosperous life, ahead of career and financial wealth. Approximately one-third of consumers have already embraced a longevity-oriented mindset. This is bigger than the traditional health-and-wellness industry.
Consumers pursuing longer, healthier and more fulfilling lives are changing their behavior across nutrition, fitness, beauty, preventive healthcare, financial planning and mental wellbeing.
Importantly, longevity is also defined by what consumers avoid. BCG notes that longevity-oriented consumers reject behaviors associated with poorer long-term health, including fast food, binge eating, alcohol and tobacco, particularly strongly.
The impact of GLP-1 therapies illustrates the point. In the United States, the number of GLP-1 users has grown more than eightfold since 2020 to an estimated 16 million, with further growth projected. The consequences extend beyond healthcare into food, beverages, apparel, beauty and fitness.
A change in health behavior can alter food consumption, clothing choices, restaurant demand, fitness spending and even household routines. Companies need to understand the broader outcome consumers are pursuing rather than merely the product category in which they currently compete.
3. Solo Living Is Becoming a Major Growth Market
One of the most overlooked shifts is the rise of one-person households.
BCG reports that approximately 30 percent of households in mature markets consist of a single person, six percentage points higher than in 2010. In countries such as Germany, Sweden, France and Italy, the proportion is already around 40 percent. What makes this particularly interesting is that solo living is increasingly perceived positively. Consumers associate it with control, peace and independence.
Yet businesses have been slow to adapt. BCG found that solo households spend two to three times more per capita than multiperson households, while 50 to 70 percent of solo consumers surveyed said products and services are not designed with people like them in mind. Large package sizes may be economical for families but wasteful for one person. Minimum delivery thresholds create unnecessary friction. “Buy two, get one free” promotions are less attractive when there is only one consumer.
4. Trust Is Becoming Scarcer and More Valuable
Consumers today have access to more information than any previous generation. Paradoxically, that abundance can make decision-making harder. BCG found that 43 percent of consumers feel mentally overwhelmed by information overload, while more than half say they do not fully trust any source of information.
Consumers are responding by narrowing the number of sources they trust. Experts, friends and family remain important. But a surprising new participant has entered the trust equation: AI.
AI can help consumers filter enormous quantities of information, compare alternatives and receive personalized recommendations. BCG found that 20 percent of respondents completely trust AI tools today, while another 15 percent expect to do so by 2030.
5. AI Is Moving from Assistant to Decision Maker
Perhaps the most disruptive shift is the emergence of AI as a participant in consumer decision-making. BCG found that 31 percent of consumers already use AI at least occasionally during their purchase journeys, while 19 percent rely on it regularly. Among these AI “loyalists,” 70 percent ultimately purchase products recommended by AI.
The implications are enormous. For decades, companies competed to get onto the consumer’s consideration list. Now an AI system may increasingly create that list before the consumer sees it. This changes the nature of marketing. A brand can no longer assume that awareness automatically leads to consideration. It must become relevant to the algorithms and systems influencing consumer choice. BCG notes that AI-assisted recommendations introduce consumers to brands they would not otherwise have considered in roughly 63 percent of AI-assisted purchase journeys. That is both a threat and an opportunity.
These Shifts Are Connected
The five themes should not be treated as separate trends. They reinforce one another.
A consumer living alone may prefer smaller product formats and convenient services. A consumer pursuing longevity may prioritize healthier products. Both may use AI to evaluate alternatives. Both may ignore a familiar brand if its value proposition is unclear. And both may rely on experts or AI rather than advertising when deciding whom to trust. This means traditional demographic segmentation is becoming less powerful.
Age, income and geography still matter, but they do not fully explain emerging consumer behavior. A more useful approach is to understand consumer motivations and lifestyles.
What Should Business Leaders Do?
BCG’s findings point toward several strategic priorities.
- Compete on value
- Build for emerging consumers
- Make trust a business capability
- Prepare for AI-mediated commerce
- Modernize consumer insights
- Align commercial capabilities with new behavior
Sum Up
The most important message from BCG’s research is not that consumer preferences are changing. They have always changed. The difference today is the speed, scale and interconnectedness of change.
Longer lives are changing priorities. More people are living alone. Economic uncertainty is redefining value. Information overload is reshaping trust. AI is transforming how choices are made. These forces will not disappear when the current economic cycle changes. They are structural.
Concluded.
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For most blogs, I research from several sources which are open to public. Their links are mentioned under references. There is no intent to infringe upon anyone’s copyrights. If, any claim is lodged, it will be acknowledged and duly recognized immediately.
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