Marketers must wrestle with vanishing middle class in 2026: WARC

• Optimism amongst marketers is falling attributable to economic volatility, with only 54% of industry professionals believing 2026 will likely be higher than this 12 months, in accordance with WARC’s annual Marketer’s Toolkit report. That figure marks an 11 percentage-point drop from 2024.  
• WARC identified five areas in focus for marketers: a vanishing middle class, gambles on creator marketing, delivering escapism through in-person and digital experiences, a shift away from Website positioning and changing consumer milestones which are affecting audience segmentation.
• The report, now in its fifteenth 12 months, underpins an increasingly bifurcated consumer market that may challenge many traditional outreach strategies and puts the onus on marketers to handle affordability while establishing stronger emotional bonds.  

For marketers planning for 2026, the one thing certain is uncertainty as tariffs, geopolitical strife and softer consumer spending proceed to roil the business, in accordance with WARC’s latest industry assessment. The research underpins a widening wealth divide that has effects on marketing fundamentals in addition to the embrace of emergent but riskier media channels, akin to creators and generative engine optimization (GEO) for search.  

Nearly three-quarters (73%) of marketers agree that the term “middle class” is effectively meaningless as income growth slows, costs rise and job security is threatened. As brands are faced with engaging either a high or low end of the market, WARC really useful they assist guide consumers through “affordability tension,” or understanding the gap between what people want and what’s realistically inside their means. 

Conventional consumer milestones, akin to having children or reaching retirement age, are in flux against this backdrop. Fifty-nine percent of marketers imagine audience segmentation based on aspects like age, income and social class are less effective today while 57% think traditional family structures and gender roles are different, including through the presence of more childless households. Given this, marketers must reassess a few of their established assumptions around what triggers spending and whether there are recent entry points for consumers into their brand categories.

Tapping into “cultural and ideological values” is one solution to establish emotional resonance amid this fractured consumer picture, in accordance with WARC. Another route is emphasizing unity and stability in messaging and developing “emotionally immersive experiences.”

WARC argued brands needs to be a counter force to a term variably often known as “crapification,” or the deterioration in the user experience attributable to online platforms maximizing monetization and engagement — a trend that has been greatly exacerbated by digital promoting and generative artificial intelligence (AI). Thinking beyond traditional ads, 78% of marketers are investing in digital channels and 74% are betting on in-person activations to create enhanced brand experiences that may provide escapism in 2026.

Others are ramping up spending on the creator economy, with 61% of marketers expected to pour more resources into the category next 12 months. That said, WARC pointed to a tension between creator reach and results, with studies suggesting ad spend could be wasted or ineffective. The firm pushed marketers to make sure they’re aligned internally on KPIs for creator campaigns and that they’re leveraging levers like paid media and inventive best practices to make sure success.   

Hovering over many points of promoting is the threat and opportunity posed by generative AI. Just 11% of marketers should not anxious about AI’s impact on search, a bedrock digital channel, while 24% are pivoting Website positioning-based strategies to GEO. To cut through the AI noise, WARC encouraged marketers to prioritize tests that carry a measurable consequence on customer journeys and to not let experiments with newfangled technology distract from what’s already proven to work.