There is a person who has been buying from your company for years. They found your brand before it was popular, or maybe right when it was hitting its stride, and they decided it was worth trusting. They told their sister about you. They defended your products in a comment thread when someone complained. They gave your product to someone they love because recommending it felt like an extension of their own good judgment.
These customers aren’t asking for much and they never were. They want you to keep making something good. They want you to be the same brand next year that you were last year. They want you to mean what you say.
We call them the New American Middle.
Our latest study surveyed them across every U.S. region, and what came back was less a demand for innovation, and more a quiet request from a consumer who has been waiting for brands to remember what matters in the first place.
You Already Know This Person
The New American Middle is not a demographic, and that distinction matters. They are not a segment defined by income bracket, zip code, age, race, gender, or political affiliation. You cannot find them by targeting a life stage or filtering by household size. What defines them is a shared psychology: a set of values they live by, a way of moving through the world, and a genuine desire to find brands that reflect who they actually are.
Their primary values are:
- family
- health and wellness
- quality
- respect
- transparency
Rounding out the picture are secondary values that include responsibility, spirituality, joy, authenticity, and creativity. What we know from studying these values is that these are people who are intentional about what they bring into their lives, and when they find something worth believing in, they hold onto it. They are pragmatic and loyal. They evaluate brands on whether values and quality align, and when a brand earns their trust, they become its most genuine advocates. They recommend with conviction and defend what they love fiercely. They bring the brands they believe in into their homes and share them with the people they care about most.
They are 60% of the U.S. population, and the reason our research keeps returning to them is that they are the consumer most brands are already serving without fully understanding. You have already seen them in your retention data. You have watched them write the kind of review that actually converts new customers. You have felt their loyalty in the channels where everything else was uncertain. You may not have had a name for them in the past, but you have known them.
Our research gives you the clearest picture we have drawn of who the New American Middle is nationally. How they show up for your brand specifically, what they value most in your category, and the gaps between what you are offering and what they are looking for.
They Are Asking for Something Simpler Than You Think
The data here is genuinely exciting, because what this consumer is asking for turns out to be simpler than most brands expect. 66% of our respondents named product quality as their top purchase factor (four times more than price). When we asked what they want when a brand communicates its values, 70% said the same two things: consistency over time, and proof that the product actually does what they say it will. No bigger story, no flashy campaign that signals cultural awareness, no presence on a platform they haven't asked you to be on. One respondent said it as plainly as it can be said: "Being well-made is more important than being cool or influencer-driven."
Therefore, the ask is straightforward: do the thing you promised, do it consistently, and do it well enough that the person who trusted you first feels proud for having done so. What our data keeps surfacing is not that this audience is hard to reach. It’s that brands are overcomplicating a relationship this consumer never asked them to complicate, spending their energy competing with other brands instead of simply serving the people in front of them. This overcomplication has led to an erosion of trust that needs to be addressed.
The research points in a clear direction. Where it gets genuinely interesting is when you apply that same lens to your own customer base, because the specific version of quality and consistency this audience expects from a home goods brand is not the same thing they expect from a food brand or a wellness brand. The details matter but the details are different for everyone.
The Highest Trust You Can Earn Isn't For Sale
Think about the last time you bought something because someone you trusted told you to. Not an ad, not a sponsored post, and not a carefully produced unboxing video. A real person, someone whose taste you respect and whose opinion you actually care about, looked at you and said, “you have to try this”. That moment is casual, unscripted, and completely genuine, and it is the most powerful marketing that exists. It always has been.
Our research confirms what most of us already know to be true. On our trust scale of 1 to 5, friends and family score 4.39 and customer reviews score 4.07. Influencer recommendations score 3.06, lower even than a brand's own marketing, and 52% of our respondents said they trust influencers less than they did two to three years ago. The New American Middle is not looking to be convinced by someone they don't know. They are looking for brands they can tell the people they love about.
That is the opportunity we see and do our best work around. The New American Middle is one of the most willing audiences in the country to become a brand's most credible voice, and they do it for free, because they genuinely mean it. The brands earning that kind of advocacy are not manufacturing it or paying for it. They are doing the slower, less glamorous work of being genuinely worth talking about, over and over, until their customers become the most powerful marketing team they have ever had.
They Are Still There
Here is the heart of what our research found: this audience is not in retreat from the marketplace.
- 75% of our respondents said they trust brands the same or more than they did five years ago
- 92% would pay more for a brand whose values align with their own
- 68% have recommended a brand specifically because of its values and have publicly defended a brand they believe in
The New American Middle isn't waiting for brands to figure them out. They are already telling you what they want. The question is whether you know specifically what they are saying about yours. We help brands get to that answer through research, strategy, and honest brand work that connects what you stand for, with what your customer is looking for. If that’s the conversation you’re ready to have, we would love to have it with you.
