The Visibility Gap: What brands miss about New Heartland consumers. Marketers have more consumer data than ever before. New Heartland Group know what people search. What they click. What they share. What they buy. What they say online. But here's the problem: What's easiest to see isn't always what matters most. That idea is at the center of a new report New Heartland Group developed with its longtime partners at Mintel: The Visibility Gap: What America's Missed Majority Reveals About Modern Marketing Blind Spots. And I believe it points to one of the biggest challenges facing brands today. Brands don't necessarily have a data problem. They have a visibility problem. What is the Visibility Gap? The Visibility Gap(TM) is the disconnect between the consumer behavior brands can easily see and measure and the less visible forces actually shaping purchasing decisions, loyalty and long-term brand growth. Think about how most modern marketing systems work. They naturally elevate the people who post, comment, share, complain and participate publicly. Those signals matter. But they're not the whole picture. Some of the most powerful forms of influence happen where marketers aren't looking: Recommendations between family and friends. Conversations at work. A product someone has bought for 15 years because their parents bought it. Trust built through consistency. A brand that simply feels like it "gets" the way someone lives. Or a customer who quietly decides they're done with you and never bothers to tell you why. Those behaviors don't always light up a dashboard. But they absolutely move business. America's Missed Majority. For nearly two decades, its work at New Heartland Group has focused on helping brands better understand the roughly 60% of Americans who call the New Heartland home. That includes the Midwest, South and Southeast. But let me say this clearly: The New Heartland is more than geography. It's a cultural mindset. It's shaped by values like faith - not religion - family, community, relationships, hard work, personal responsibility and the lifestyle passions that are part of everyday life. Those values influence what people trust, what they talk about, what they recommend and ultimately what they buy. And this is where brands can get themselves into trouble. When marketers rely too heavily on the loudest or most visible consumer signals, they can start confusing visibility with reality. The people generating the most online activity are not necessarily the people generating the most influence inside a family, workplace or community. That's a big distinction. Cultural bias is often hiding in the data. New Heartland Group talk a lot about cultural bias in its work. Not because marketers intentionally ignore people. Most don't. The problem is that every organization sees the marketplace through a particular lens. Who is sitting in the room? Where do they live? What do they experience every day? Which consumer voices are easiest for their research and technology platforms to capture? Over time, those perspectives can quietly become the definition of "mainstream." And that's where the Visibility Gap gets wider. New Heartland consumers are absolutely part of digital culture. But many of the forces driving their behavior still happen through relationships, routines, traditions, personal experience and word-of-mouth. In the New Heartland, word-of-mouth may be the most important media channel of all. You won't find all of that in a social listening report. Sometimes you have to understand how people actually live. Attention is not the same as relevance. This may be one of the most important lessons for marketers right now. A brand can get attention without building relevance. A campaign can generate millions of views, comments and shares and still do very little to create trust or loyalty. At the same time, someone who has never commented on one of your posts may have been buying your product for 20 years and recommending it to friends and family the entire time. Which consumer matters more? New Heartland Group has become very good at measuring attention. I'm not convinced New Heartland Group has become equally good at understanding relevance. For many New Heartland consumers, relevance is built over time through consistency, familiarity, shared values, positive experiences and recommendations from people they trust. Visibility gets you noticed. Relevance gives people a reason to stay. The danger of Quiet Avoidance(TM). There's another part of this research I think brands need to pay attention to. New Heartland Group call it Quiet Avoidance(TM). Marketers often assume unhappy customers will tell them. They'll complain. Leave a bad review. Post something online. Call customer service. But plenty of people never do any of those things. They simply start drifting away. They recommend you less. They become a little more open to competitors. The emotional connection weakens. And eventually, they stop buying. They're just gone. That should concern every marketer. Because the absence of visible criticism doesn't necessarily mean the brand relationship is healthy. Sometimes what consumers aren't saying is every bit as important as what they are. A better way to understand consumer behavior. Closing the Visibility Gap doesn't mean abandoning data. Far from it. It means putting data in context. Brands need behavioral information, quantitative research and digital signals. But they also need qualitative insight, cultural understanding and a real-world view of how people make decisions. In other words: Move from expressed behavior to lived behavior. From visible signals to cultural context. From simply asking what people say to understanding what people actually do. That's the opportunity behind its work with Mintel. New Heartland Group want marketers to see a more complete consumer. Because when brands better understand how people actually live, they make better decisions. Better positioning. Better innovation. More relevant creative. Stronger relationships. And ultimately, stronger businesses. The brands that lead tomorrow won't simply react faster to whatever is loudest today. They'll understand people better than their competitors do. And they'll recognize the enormous value of the consumers others continue to miss.

Chicken industry needs to adapt quickly to younger shoppers' habits. Date posted July 29, 2026 Lynn Dornblaser Source: Paul Ward Chicken remains America's dominant protein choice, but producers and retailers need to adapt quickly to shifting habits among younger consumers, from smaller and more frequent meals to a growing appetite for global flavors. Lynn Dornblaser, client adviser at Mintel Solutions, who spoke July 29 at the 2026 Chicken Marketing Summit in Palm Harbor, Florida, said 97% of consumers eat poultry and 87% eat chicken specifically. She added that chicken has been claiming a growing share of new product introductions across the protein category compared with red meat, pork, fish, eggs and meat substitutes. That growth, however, comes even as younger generations increasingly identify as flexitarian rather than committed meat eaters - a trend Dornblaser framed as a challenge and an opportunity, as Gen Z consumers "haven't totally given up on animal protein. They're just making a lot of different choices." Private label gains ground. Dornblaser said value remains a major factor in purchasing decisions, particularly for fresh meat, where many consumers report no brand preference at all. About 40% of new chicken product introductions are private label, she said - notably higher than the roughly 30% private-label share across food and beverage as a whole. She pointed to examples such as a Kroger "protein bites" product and a Trader Joe's seasoned chicken breast item as evidence that store brands are increasingly matching name brands on quality and convenience while undercutting them on price. With more consumers cooking at home to avoid the cost of eating out, she said value-added chicken products are positioned to compete directly with restaurants, particularly for cash-strapped shoppers looking to "recreate restaurant-inspired dishes" at home. Meals blur into snacks. Citing trended survey data going back to December 2020, Dornblaser said fewer consumers report eating dinner every day, while morning, afternoon and evening snacking has climbed steadily - a shift she said predates and is separate from the rise of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs. Gen Z snacks most heavily, with roughly one-quarter saying they snack three or more times a day, compared with just 9% of baby boomers. She said older consumers tend to snack to satisfy cravings, while Gen Z snacks for functional reasons such as an energy boost or relief from boredom - a distinction reflected in the rise of protein-forward, chicken-based snacks such as chicken jerky, chicken skin chips and chicken-and-fruit sticks. She also pointed to frozen snacks as an underappreciated growth category that consumers increasingly use for full meals, not just snacking. GLP-1's modest but real impact. Addressing what she called the "elephant in the room," Dornblaser said Mintel data show about 10% of the adult population uses GLP-1 medications for weight loss, a figure she expects to rise only to about 14% within five years. She said the number is likely to plateau because many consumers who are actively managing their weight remain skeptical of the drugs - 75% call GLP-1 "a good tool, but not a magic cure;" two-thirds say it should be a last resort; and half say "it feels like cheating." Even so, she said the broader dietary pattern associated with GLP-1 use - smaller meals and a stronger focus on protein - is spreading to consumers who are not taking the medication at all, creating an opening for products that support that eating style regardless of whether shoppers explicitly reference the drugs on packaging. Convenience and global flavors. Dornblaser said consumer interest in ready-to-eat, pre-seasoned and air fryer-ready chicken formats continues to climb, driven by shoppers who lack the time or inclination to cook from scratch. She also cited a rising appetite for global flavors particularly among millennials and Gen Z, alongside strong demand for customizable, pre-seasoned proteins that let shoppers "make it their own" with added sauces and sides. She closed by urging the industry to lean into trend-driven, limited-time products, while cautioning that companies need to move quickly, because such trends can fade within months. "It's about helping consumers see the versatility of the products that you have," she said.