• by Tony Silber , February 2, 2022

There’s a huge gulf between what consumers expect from brands, and the perceived reality of what consumers get. In fact, only 13% of respondents in a new study by Atlantic Brand Partners feel more empowered by brands today than they did two years ago.

With regard to the brand-consumer disconnect, the study, “Forces of Influence,” found that 71% of respondents expect brands to understand them, but only 43% actually feel understood. Further, 72% expect brands to “keep me, my family, and the world safe,” but only 14% say brands are doing more than individuals and the government to do so. Sixty-two percent of respondents expected brands to empower them -- but only 13% say they’re more empowered by brands today.

“While there are plenty of sources for consumer insights tied to the individual cultural shifts of the past few years, we noticed that not many were connecting the dots between them,” Gina Bulla, executive director of Atlantic Insights, said in a press release. "For example, universal childcare or the great resignation both independently signal very intense perspectives—yet even more powerful is an understanding of what the collective force of those topics signal. We believe that type of synthesis can be exponentially more powerful for brand behavior in the real world.”

Other topline findings include:

• A dramatic shift has occurred in how individuals are empowering themselves, forcing brands to consider how they can give consumers more control over their experiences. Seventy-four percent of respondents say it’s never been more important that their voice be heard by authorities and institutions.

• And while 43% said they had less control over their lives since the beginning of the pandemic, only 21% say they feel less empowered at work. Slightly more, 22%, say they feel more empowered at work and 57% say they have the same level of empowerment at work.

• The demand for work flexibility will continue, according to the findings. The number-one thing people said they want more control over is their time. On work culture, 30% say they feel more distant from their colleagues from an emotional perspective than they did before the pandemic. It’s even more acute for adults ages 26-40, at 36%.

• The impact of the past two years was universal, but uneven. Young adults (ages 18-25) were an average of 18 percentage points more likely than total respondents to say that wealth, indulgence, self-interest, and ambition are more important to them now than they were two years ago.

• Women are more likely than men to say their finances (44% compared to 30%), careers (31% versus 24%), and mental health (35% versus 24%) felt less secure now versus two years ago. Respondents who are people of color were nearly twice as likely as white respondents to say having power over their lives was more important now versus two years ago (25% versus 14%).

The study was conducted online among 3,005 respondents ages 18 to 74 in the U.S. (2,003 respondents) and the U.K. (1,002 respondents), and was fielded from Nov. 15 to 22, 2021. It was conducted by Lucid, a programmatic research technology platform. The data was weighted to approximate a target sample of adults based on age, gender, race, and region.

Read the complete report here.