marketplace, show up where consumers seek value, and ensure that their sale and promotional tactics drive real value—even if consumers say that they’re delaying purchases to find deals. Four strategic imperatives that can help consumer players win A new baseline has emerged for consumer decision-making. Despite a high level of uncertainty—not only in consumer sentiment, but also in geopolitical and economic outlook—there are many areas in which brands can find growth. We have identified four strategic imperatives for consumer players in the year ahead: — Get even closer to the consumer. Consumer sentiment is no longer neatly aligned with consumer spending, and simple methods for predicting consumer behavior are insufficient. Companies need to build a 360-degree view of their consumers that enables proactive decision-making. This means leveraging new capabilities, such as AI-powered social- listening tools, and ensuring that the organization has granular behavioral data from its owned site or stores. For consumer goods companies with limited first-party data, building capabilities to gather consumer insights and third-party data beyond their subsector is key. Still, gathering insights is only half the battle. Consumer companies can deploy machine learning tools to generate both predictive and prescriptive analytics (these include data points, such as churn risk and product preferences, and personalized recommendations, respectively). Together, a strong insight and analytics backbone allows consumer players to unlock the power of personalization and targeted marketing. — Invest in the revenue-growth-management (RGM) engine. Consumers have become more price aware and deal oriented, and they evaluate trade-offs in broader ways than they did in the past. Offering the right product at the right price at the right time has become more important and harder to do than ever, especially as digital platforms enable consumers to comparison shop. For brands, it’s table stakes to get RGM right. This includes using analytics to drive informed pricing decisions, strategically managing trade terms, and conducting regular assortment optimization. Innovating across the RGM ecosystem, however, can unlock additional value . Doing so means building advanced, automated analytical models that use predictive AI, consumer-backed insights, and behavioral- data sources. Making these investments allows consumer players to deploy promotional spending in more personalized ways, reaching consumers at the right moments with the Consumers have become more price aware and deal oriented, and they evaluate trade-offs in broader ways than they did in the past. 12 State of the Consumer 2025: When disruption becomes permanent