Why We Don’t All Love the Same Brands

Asked about the fastest growing brands, not all of us agree.

Fastest Growing Brands

For its new report, data intelligence firm Morning Consult identified the fastest growing brands. Comparing “purchasing intent” between the first and third quarters of this year, their data came from 2,511 companies and products.

Among all adults, the fastest grower was DoorDash. As for who, it was young baby boomers who tended to be divorced or widowed that propelled the firm’s popularity:

From there, though, it gets much more interesting.

We can divide the fastest growing brands universe by income.

The Income Divide

If you earn more than 100K a year, your top five are:

1. Gemini
2. Open AI
3. WhatsApp
4. Amazon Prime Secured Card
5. Canva

Then, in the $50K to $99.9K group, we have:

1. DoorDash
2. MTV
3. Tostitos
4. Frank’s Red Sauce
5. Fruit of the Loom

And, moving lower to less than $50k, the top 5 were:

1. Discount Tire
2. Great Value French Fries
3. Zoom
4. Chime
5. Sargento

Our Bottom Line: The “K” Economy

Perhaps it all relates to the “K” economy.

Composed of close to 68 million people, the top income quintile is doing the spending. Meanwhile, the 280 million (or so) in the bottom 80% are stressed. As a result, we depend on a relatively small slice of the spending pie to sustain prosperity. We have the wealthiest 10% doing 50% of all retail spending:

That takes us to a K with an upward sloping line depicting high income households that can afford to focus on AI. Meanwhile, the downward sloping bottom line of the K reflects financially constrained middle and low income households with a different brand focus from the more affluent:

My sources and more: Always interesting, Axios journalist Emily Peck alerted me to the branding divide. From there, I went to this Morning Consult report and returned to our econlife alphabet post.

Please note that several of today’s sentences were in a previous econlife post.

But most of all I would like to add that I thought it odd that Pringles was #1 for Baby Boomers’ fastest growing brand.