Future Consumer 2027: From digital to IRL brand communities
Brand communities are emerging to directly respond to a shared global feeling of exhaustion, digital noise and loneliness. With digital stressors and workplaces creating a general sentiment of burnout and overload, feelings like ‘Witherwill’ – a key emotion for 2027 – will be a fundamental tactic to help people overcome fatigue both individually and collectively.
As we predicted in 2024, 2026 will be marked by ‘Great Exhaustion’ – a collective state of fatigue, chronic stress and emotional burnout – which deepens the feeling of isolation among people.
WGSN has been tracking the loneliness epidemic since 2017. At that time, the focus was on Millennials, who faced the challenge of building deeper connections as they entered adulthood. Everything indicated that this would be the loneliest generation in history. However, Gen Z ended up taking that place as 73% of Gen Z in the US report feeling lonely sometimes or always.
By 2027, the search for less noise and more digital disconnection will become increasingly the new normal, emerging as a demonstration of self-care that will lead consumers to seek calmer, safer and more meaningful environments.
Is your brand prepared for this new consumer moment?
Brand community as a collective cure
In response to emotional burnout – which has ceased to be an individual phenomenon and has become a collective condition – humanity will increasingly recognise that the ‘I’ cannot exist without the ‘we’ and vice versa, making “Brand Communities” the keyword for 2027.
We found that 70% of consumers worldwide want to belong to something bigger. When it comes to solving problems and scaling solutions, organisations that embrace community and seek strength in unity will be the most successful in the coming years. This success will manifest not only in profits but also in brand loyalty, as these companies will create true emotional support networks, promote meaningful exchanges and generate a deep sense of community.
Brands should encourage cultivating interpersonal connections as part of wellbeing and create real opportunities for communities to flourish. This includes supporting in-person initiatives, spaces for exchange and collective experiences that favour belonging.
A practical example of this strategy is Nivea CONNECT. Nivea’s CONNECT program aims to help people create meaningful connections and avoid social isolation. Furthermore, during the war in Ukraine, the architect Nastia Mirzoyan, from Kyiv, continued to design places where people could gather. According to her, well-designed spaces can offer emotional refuge, uplift the spirit and help people maintain a connection with their culture and heritage, reinforcing identities and community ties in difficult times.
Future Consumer 2027: Emotions
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Read by more than 31,000 leaders annually, Future Consumer is WGSN’s leading annual forecast, which presents the six feelings and four consumer profiles that will shape the macroeconomic, political, social and technological landscape in the next two years, presenting the main strategies that companies need to implement today to succeed in the future.
In this year’s White Paper, we reveal three of the six emotions that will influence behaviour in 2027, allowing you to abandon assumptions and create products and experiences aligned with your consumers’ thoughts, feelings and behaviours.