Consumer Trends 2025: What Smart Businesses Are Quietly Asking Themselves
Nikki Neale • May 9, 2025
I went to a great trends briefing from Mintel yesterday. And while it was packed with data, one thing stood out: there’s not a lot of new out there. Consumers are still cautious, still buying with care, and still leaning on familiar behaviours. This isn’t a market racing ahead. It’s steady as she goes. And that’s exactly why it’s worth paying attention.
So we’ve taken the six key signals from Mintel’s update and turned them into something a bit more interactive - think Choose Your Own Adventure, but for your business. Whether you run a consumer brand, a B2B company or an agency, these are the questions worth asking now across your brand, your team, your operations and your commercial foundations.
Most people are surviving, not thriving.
Around 80% of consumers expect to get by this year. Not flourish. Not upgrade. Just hold steady. That doesn’t mean they’ve stopped spending - it means they’re more selective, more rational and more protective of their time, money and energy. Businesses that feel like a risk, a faff, or a luxury will quietly be avoided.
| B2C Business | B2B Business | Agency |
|---|---|---|
| Are we making ourselves an easy, low-friction choice for customers? | Are we structured to weather pressure or are we stretched too thin? | Do we know where our time and energy is really going and is it worth it? |
| Do we understand what makes people hesitate and remove those blockers? | Have we reviewed our pricing and margins considering how selective our clients now are? | Are we chasing work to stay busy, or choosing work that builds stability? |
| Are we spending money and time in ways that support sustainable growth? | Are we building processes that protect our delivery teams, not just our reputation? | Are we giving our team clear priorities or reacting to the loudest thing in the inbox? |
Spending is emotionally motivated.
Growth is happening in categories that offer emotional payoff - not indulgence, but control, calm, or connection. Even B2B decisions are shaped by how secure people feel. It’s not about manipulating emotion. It’s about respecting it.
| B2C Business | B2B Business | Agency |
|---|---|---|
| Are we tuned into how people want to feel when they buy from us? | Do our team and clients feel genuinely supported or just serviced? | How emotionally intelligent is our internal culture, do we allow space for emotion or just performance? |
| Does our service model actually make people’s lives easier? | Are we creating internal ways of working that make decision-making feel calm and confident? | Are we building a studio people can think in or one that overwhelms? |
| Are we building brand memory by creating meaningful emotional touchpoints? | Are we investing in team wellbeing as seriously as we are in client delivery? | What’s the tone of our leadership when pressure hits? |
Priorities are shifting unevenly.
People are still prioritising health, financial security and mental wellbeing. Other areas - career progress, social life, hobbies - have slipped down. This isn’t a total overhaul of values, but it is a rebalancing. If your internal priorities are misaligned with your audience or your own team’s reality, performance will start to drift.
| B2C Business | B2B Business | Agency |
|---|---|---|
| Are we adapting fast enough to what really matters to our customers? | Are we looking after our own people’s financial and mental wellbeing or assuming they’re fine? | Are we talking about mental health but running teams into the ground? |
| Are we spending on things that matter to them, or just to us? | Do we need to rethink how we define success right now - for clients, teams and leaders? | Have we reviewed what we reward is it hours, output or actual impact? |
| Do we know when to sell and when to serve? | Have we created breathing space for real strategic thinking or just filled the calendar? | Are our ways of working fit for purpose in a world where energy, not just time, is in short supply? |
Younger audiences are more open.
Younger people are more willing to try new categories, formats and experiences. Older groups are sticking with the tried and tested. This is less about age and more about appetite for risk and how clearly the reward is positioned. Internally, it’s also about who you’re listening to, and who’s shaping your thinking.
| B2C Business | B2B Business | Agency |
|---|---|---|
| Are we launching new things because customers want them or because we’re bored? | Are we giving our team space to bring in new thinking, tools or ideas? | Are we creating space for junior and midweight voices to influence how we work? |
| Have we tested our ideas with the right group before rolling them out broadly? | Are we mentoring people to explore change safely, or gatekeeping innovation? | Do we encourage new approaches internally or say we do, but punish mistakes? |
| Are we confident our brand stretches where we want it to go? | Are we keeping risk low by adding clarity, not just caution? | Have we built a leadership culture that tolerates newness, or defaults to what’s familiar? |
The night in is still winning.
People are choosing comfort, simplicity and connection at home over going out. It’s not about frugality. It’s about managing energy and emotional capacity. That doesn’t just affect how people spend it changes how teams show up, how leaders lead, and how work fits into life.
| B2C Business | B2B Business | Agency |
|---|---|---|
| Are we creating products or experiences that feel restorative or rewarding? | What’s our actual policy on late working and is it respected? | Are we still feeding the ‘late night pizza’ culture or building something better? |
| Do our delivery and customer support models respect people’s time and energy? | Have we structured work to fit human lives, or are we relying on overextension to deliver? | Do we set realistic timelines, or reward heroics? |
| Have we built convenience and effortlessness into how people access what we offer? | Are we honest about wellbeing or papering over burnout with perks? | Are we designing a culture that reflects real life or the highlight reel? |
Belonging still builds connection.
People want to feel aligned with the businesses they support, work with and work for. This isn’t about plastering values on a wall. It’s about consistency, clarity and behaviour. Belonging is built inside first then reflected outwards.
| B2C Business | B2B Business | Agency |
|---|---|---|
| Do our values show up in how we treat customers and staff or just in our marketing? | B2B SME Is there clarity on what we stand for, internally and externally? | Are we creating a sense of belonging for our team that doesn’t rely on ‘culture’ as code for beer? |
| Would our employees recommend us as a place to work? | Do our team feel like they’re part of something or just delivering to target? | Are our values operationalised do they shape how we lead, price, hire and say no? |
| Are we confident our brand stretches where we want it to go? | Have we built a culture of contribution or just compliance? | Do we have clarity on who we are not for - in terms of clients, behaviours and expectations? |
In summary.
This isn’t a time for reinvention. But it is a time for sharper reflection. These consumer trends don’t shout. They signal. And in many cases, they’re reminding us of things we already knew, but perhaps haven’t acted on.
The best-performing organisations this year won’t be the ones chasing the next big shift. They’ll be the ones getting braver and more honest about what’s already true.
If you want to explore these questions in more depth, or use them as a starting point for a deeper Perspective Analysis of your business, we’re always up for a chat.
A LITTLE MORE READING
How Jellycat made their fortune There is a version of strategy that lives entirely inside the category you operate in (in fact most strategy is here). It studies competitors, benchmarks pricing, refines positioning statements and tweaks messaging frameworks. It is diligent, sensible and often very well executed. And then there is the version that asks a more expansive question: what is happening in the wider market that could fundamentally change the trajectory of this business? Jellycat is a compelling example of what happens when you write strategy with that second lens. Founded in 1999, Jellycat spent years building a strong reputation as a premium plush brand. Its products were soft, distinctive and giftable, and it achieved wide distribution. It was a good business and a steady one. What it had not yet become was a cultural phenomenon. The inflection point did not begin in the toy aisle. It began in culture. During the pandemic, comfort became a form of social permission. Softness stopped being something that belonged purely to childhood and became something adults embraced publicly. Nostalgia evolved from memory into aesthetic. The rise of the so-called “kidult” reflected a genuine generational shift, with Millennials and Gen Z openly purchasing objects that felt playful, ironic and emotionally expressive.
Warning, if you’re not one of the 7 million people who watched Celeb Traitor’s live last week (look at you go terrestrial telly!) you might want to scroll on. For everyone else, here are my top five comparisons between the castle and the average workplace. Alan and Paloma: when friendship and politics mix Alan Carr murdering Paloma Faith early on is the perfect example of how proximity and power collide. They were friends. They laughed together. Worked together. Seemed inseparable. He killed her anyway. Not maliciously or even strategically, she was just an easy target, and he needed to save his own skin. Because in Traitors, like work, beware the relationships that only last as long as they’re useful. Charisma isn’t integrity, and “getting on well” doesn’t mean “aligned.” We’ve all had a ‘mate’ at work like Alan: funny, charming, likeable and the next minute torching your project to get ahead. Sh*t! Jonathan Ross vs Ruth Codd: the calm, the storm, and the power dynamic Jonathan Ross is now facing heat, definitely helped along by Ruth Codd going in on him! She had a point, she just didn’t land it. Ruth got angry, frustrated, emotional. Jonathan stayed calm, almost detached. And that was it: in the group’s eyes, the rational one won. But watch it again. That wasn’t calm; it was control. Ruth’s younger, newer, female. Jonathan’s older, famous, a man of the establishment. It was a masterclass in unspoken hierarchy and how people can manipulate the unconscious bias of everyone around them. So many meetings have that moment: one person fighting to be heard while another takes over, with zero merit, because they have privilege and a power dynamic you can’t beat. Bums!
As my nan used to say - you can tell a lot about a place from its toilets. And it's fair to say, when it comes to experiences, I'm obsessed with them. You might arrive at a beautiful office, a busy café, or a slick visitor attraction. The welcome is polished, the branding sharp, the service rehearsed. And then you slip away to the loo and suddenly you see the truth. A broken lock. A soap dispenser that hasn’t been filled in days. A faded Covid sign still taped to the mirror like a ghost of 2020. All the polish of the front-of-house vanishes. Because if they’ve stopped noticing here, what else have they stopped noticing? Why toilets punch above their weight Toilets don’t get design awards (often), they don’t appear on campaign mood boards, and they rarely make the budget spreadsheet. Yet they shape experience and demonstrate culture more than almost any other space. The numbers prove it: over 80% of facility complaints relate to toilets, and more than four in five people say a bad loo puts them off returning. In restaurants and hospitality, dirty toilets cut repeat visits by around 20%. Psychologists call it the Peak-End Rule: people judge experiences by their extremes and by how they end. Which makes the loo dangerous territory. For many customers, it’s the last stop before they leave. If the final impression is disappointment - no soap, a cracked seat, the faint smell of neglect (or worse), that’s what tips the memory from positive to no thanks. The workplace test In offices, toilets are culture in miniature. An employer can talk endlessly about wellbeing, inclusion, and values, but the loos tell the truth. Free sanitary products? Clean mirrors? Lighting that flatters rather than exposes? These are the signals staff notice every day. They’re not perks; they’re respect. And don’t start me on the signs telling people to clean up after themselves. Really? Are we dealing with adults or running a nursery? More often than not it’s a response to one incident with one person, and the rest of the workforce gets a lifetime of infantilising posters. That says more about the culture than the mess ever did. Employees don’t measure culture by the slogans on the wall. They measure it by whether the hand dryer works.
Every business faces the same question when planning for the year ahead: what should we spend on marketing? There isn’t a clean-cut answer. Nobody has the formula that guarantees growth. What matters is whether your budget matches the growth you’re actually chasing. From a sales and marketing perspective, most small to mid-sized businesses sit in one of three lanes: Zero, Incremental, or Exceptional. Smaller businesses tend to hover in zero, the more established ones work in incremental, and only a bold few step into exceptional. The trick is not which lane you choose, but whether you’re honest about being in it. Zero: hoping for the best Zero is the lane of survival. Most micro-SMEs end up here by default. Marketing isn’t in the budget, it’s something the founder (or another willing team member) crams into evenings and weekends. Social posts, the odd flyer, and a heavy reliance on word of mouth or personal networks. The problem is that “no budget” never really means no cost. It means you’re paying in hidden ways: slower sales cycles because there’s no air cover for the pipeline, lost opportunities because potential customers don’t know you exist, and founder time that disappears into DIY marketing instead of running the business. Zero can sustain you. It can keep the lights on. But very few businesses scale out of this lane without committing something more deliberate. Survival simply isn’t the same as growth. Incremental: the steady road Incremental growth is where SMEs start to get serious. If you’re getting serious your budget should be within 4–7% of your revenue, which is enough to create rhythm: SEO that doesn’t get forgotten, email that lands every month, campaigns that repeat, and the odd test of a new channel. Sales still lean on retention and referrals, but with more discipline in the pipeline you’ll create more cause and effect. Gail’s Bakery is a brilliant lesson in what incremental looks like at its best. The first site opened in Hampstead in 2005, but for years it was just a few shops in North London. The real shift came in 2011 when external investment gave Gail’s the capital to expand carefully, bakery by bakery. Each new shop was chosen with precision: affluent commuter towns, established London neighbourhoods, places where the brand could bed in rather than overreach - all critical (and often overlooked) essentials of marketing. That’s why today, when you walk through Marlow, Clapham, or St Albans, you can’t miss a Gail’s. It feels like they’re everywhere, but it’s been twenty years of patient, disciplined growth. Incremental doesn’t make headlines in year one, but it compounds until suddenly the brand feels unavoidable. Exceptional: the bold bet Exceptional growth is when we choose to accelerate. Marketing budgets rise to 10–15% of revenue or more, and that spend is matched with operational readiness and, crucially, risk appetite. This lane buys visibility, reach, and cultural momentum if you’re willing to back it. Take Gymshark. The myth will have you believe it was entirely organic; a teenager in a Birmingham garage who struck gold through social media alone. It wasn’t. The truth is more complex. Yes, Ben Francis built a community, but Gymshark also spent aggressively on influencer partnerships, international events, and flagship stores to cement its place. That growth wasn’t accidental or free; it was funded, risky, and carefully engineered. Lucky Saint shows the same dynamic in another category. Founded in 2018, it positioned itself as a credible, grown-up alcohol-free beer in a space dominated by mass brands. From early on, Lucky Saint invested heavily in brand and experience: PR, creative partnerships, and eventually a bricks-and-mortar pub in London. For a small brewer, that’s a bold move, but it paid off. The spend signalled ambition, and the market responded. Exceptional growth isn’t a casual decision. It means bigger budgets, more risk, and a level of operational readiness that many SMEs underestimate. But when ambition and investment line up, it creates step-change growth that incremental spend rarely delivers. The mismatch trap If you’re reading this with huge ambition and a budget line of zero, it’s time for a check-in. The biggest problems happen not when you choose a lane, but when you kid yourself about which lane you’re in. Champagne ambition, beer budget. Some businesses set accelerated growth targets but fund them with incremental budgets. The marketing team (if there even is one) is told to double awareness or leads on the same spend as last year, or to land national coverage with nothing more than local-level funds. It creates frustration, wasted energy, and the creeping belief that “marketing doesn’t work,” when in truth it was never resourced to match the ambition. Champagne budget, no hangover cure. Others do the opposite. They throw big money at marketing while the rest of the business is still built for incremental growth. Leads flow in, awareness rises, but operations can’t deliver the experience. Customer service cracks, delivery timelines slip, and the reputation you just paid to build is quickly eroded. Exceptional marketing without exceptional operations doesn’t accelerate growth; it accelerates churn. Hope springs eternal. Then there’s the subtler trap of sitting in zero while planning for growth. A founder convinces themselves that word of mouth will carry them through another year, while quietly expecting sales to grow 20%. When it doesn’t happen, the blame gets pointed everywhere except the missing budget line. You can’t compound visibility you never paid for in the first place. Planning for the year ahead Budgets are signals of intent. They tell your team, and yourself, whether you’re serious about survival, steady growth, or acceleration. They set expectations for sales, operations, and delivery before a single social post goes live. If you’re one of the 1000s of SMEs working on next year’s plans right now and you’re unsure whether your budget matches your ambition, that’s exactly where Perspective Analysis comes in. We stress-test your business for growth, help bring clarity to which lane you’re really in, and align sales, marketing and ops so your plan has a fighting chance of working. If you want a defensible budget and a growth plan that holds up past January, start with Perspective Analysis.
