Twenty years ago, in the early days of Britton Marketing, we noticed something unique.
We would present creative work to clients—brands that were beloved in their communities (like Vera Bradley or Peter Millar) but often overlooked by the larger marketing world. When the work resonated, it resonated deeply. Consumers didn’t just notice it; they felt seen by it. They became devoted to it.
At first, we chalked it up to good instincts. Perhaps it was simply the advantage of being close to the consumer. After all, we lived in the same neighborhoods, shopped in the same stores, and raised our families alongside the people these brands served. But over time a pattern began to emerge. The consumers responding most strongly to our work didn’t share a single demographic profile. They weren’t defined by income, geography, or age. What united them was something far less obvious and far more powerful: they shared a set of values.
It would take years of observation, research, and conversation before we finally gave that audience a name. The New American Middle®.
From Intuition to Insight
Ten years ago, we asked ourselves a simple but important question: Why do our clients choose to work with a branding firm in northern Indiana? Why are we particularly successful with certain types of companies? What makes us different from the many marketing firms competing for their attention?
Jeff and the team began digging into the data to better understand our “why.” The answer was illuminating. What emerged was not something invented in a conference room, but something our team had been practicing instinctively for years. We simply hadn’t yet named it. It began with intuition, sharpened by years of working alongside our clients. Over time, that intuition was supported by consumer insights and eventually validated through research and data.
Jeff recalls:
“It was a slow realization. I read constantly and searched for patterns. Occasionally, I’d find an article or an academic paper discussing belief systems. Eventually it became clear—it was psychographics. It wasn’t about demographics. It was about what people believed.”
Our Midwestern roots and our work with brands like Vera Bradley, Peter Millar, Spoonflower, and Pyrex, kept pointing us toward the same audience. An enormous, influential, and often overlooked segment of consumers. They are not defined by income, age, race, gender, or geography, but by mindset.
These were the “everyday” consumers whose choices were shaped primarily by values. They were often suburban, though many had migrated to metropolitan areas. They valued authenticity over flash, substance over spectacle. They were pragmatic, grounded, and aspirational in ways that traditional demographic segmentation often failed to capture.
Sue puts it simply:
“Everyday, hardworking, down-to-earth—that reflects how we were raised. We’re not ‘lux’ people. We don’t put on airs. And that’s something we intuitively understood in a way that many agencies in New York or Los Angeles simply couldn’t.”
As we dug deeper, we realized we were observing something larger than a marketing trend. Across the country, journalists, sociologists, and marketers were beginning to ask similar questions about the consumers who had long been overlooked in cultural narratives. Through years of reading, researching, and comparing insights, a clearer picture began to emerge.
That insight eventually led Jeff to trademark the line: “The Middle of Nowhere? The Center of Everything!®”
Once we named the concept, the work began in earnest. We invested in formal research, refreshed twice each year, built the supporting data, and developed a framework that could guide both strategy and creative work. Client presentations validated the idea. The work confirmed it. Today, it stands as one of the most distinctive ways we help brands understand the consumers they serve.
A Consumer Defined By Values
The New American Middle is guided by a core set of values that consistently shape decision-making:
Primary values
These priorities have evolved slightly over time, particularly during and after COVID, but one value has remained steadfast: family. And family today can mean many things. Roughly half may resemble traditional households, while the other half reflects the many kinds of ways that Americans define family today.
Secondary values
(Updated in our March 2026 research)
The creative that resonates most with the New American Middle is aspirational, but grounded. It reflects real lives, and the best versions of those lives.
Over the years we’ve observed something consistent: brands become super-charged when they first understand their own brand DNA and the competitive space they truly own. Real momentum happens when that identity aligns with the values of the consumers they serve. Where those connections are made visible through thoughtful marketing and brand strategies, something powerful happens.
Trust grows.
Relationships deepen.
And brand love follows.
As the agency that lives and works at the heart of this audience, we hope to inspire you, and other leaders, to reexamine whether your brand is truly connecting with your consumers' values.
Because at Britton Marketing, we don’t just understand this consumer—we are this consumer. And for twenty years, that perspective has guided the work we’re proud to do every day.
Happy Marketing!
