How brand analysts can track and support CPG brand health in a skeptical market

In September, U.S. inflation hit 3% for the first time since January. To deal with rising costs, consumers are cutting their spending across CPG categories and trading their branded products for low-cost private labels and alternatives. Beyond price, sustainability is also one of the main driving factors in consumers’ purchasing decisions, but many remain skeptical of green washing from CPG brands. 

To protect market share and stay responsive to market and consumer shifts, brand analysts must continually track brand perceptions — monitoring consumer sentiment across key variables like price sensitivity, brand engagement and brand trust. In this article, I cover how analysts can do that effectively in the current climate. 

TL;DR

• Increasing inflation and rising economic pressures mean consumers are trading branded CPGs for independent and alternative products. 53% of global consumers say they're buying more private label products. 

• While CPG brands are raising prices to protect their margins, consumers are cutting their spending across CPG categories. They're spending 30% less on alcoholic beverages, 29% less on beauty products and 14% less on personal care and household supplies. 

• Price isn't the only influencing factor on buying behavior. 64% of shoppers rank sustainability as one of their top three purchasing criteria. 

• However, consumers remain skeptical about greenwashing. To protect brand health, brand analysts must measure the gap between messaging and consumer belief early and often. 

• 73% of CPG insights teams now use AI. AI helps support analysts with real-time sentiment tracking, faster diagnostics, trend detection and brand equity reporting. 

Since December 2025, inflation-adjusted consumption has remained flat due to economic uncertainty, changes in tariff policies, an unstable job market and higher inflation. In the first half of the year, consumer spending grew by just 1.6% on an annualized basis — compared to a 3.6% increase during the second half of 2024. Economic anxieties mean that consumers are looking to spend less across CPG categories including: 

• 19% less for fitness and wellness services

• 14% less on personal care products and household supplies

• 17% less on vitamins, supplements and OTC medications 

• 29% less on beauty products 

• 19% less on nonalcoholic beverages 

• 30% less on alcoholic beverages 

To help mitigate declining profits due to inflation, many established CPG brands are raising prices to protect their margins. But price increases have led to a shift in consumer loyalty when it comes to established CPG brands. Consumers are trading down to private labels and alternatives to cut their costs. 53% of global consumers say they’re buying more private label products than before. While 68% of consumers say that private label alternatives are just as good as name-brand products. In the wider market, private label annual sales are currently increasing by 4.3% YoY. 

Consumer perceptions and behaviors change quickly, especially under rising economic pressures and increasing inflation. It's essential to continually track shifts in consumer sentiment and behavior to make sure perceptions of brand health stay up-to-date and accurate.

Despite financial pressures, consumers aren’t motivated by price point alone. Another main driver of buying behaviors is sustainability. Many consumers are driven by climate anxiety and they’re prioritizing buying from ethical and sustainable brands that share their values. 

64% of shoppers rank sustainability as one of their top three purchasing criteria. Gen Z are one of the greenest demographics with 65% saying they'd pay more for sustainable products. Eco-labeled CPGs are growing 2.3 times faster than other CPG brands, while sustainable goods helped contribute to 41% of CPG growth in the last ten years. 

Green brands typically benefit from positive brand images and ongoing customer loyalty. But in the words of Aquent’s VP of Sustainability Development Jody Mousseau and Sustainability, Climate, and Tech Content Strategist Julie Yanamoto: 

"Proof is the new trust currency."

Consumers want transparency, honesty and data-backed claims in exchange for their brand and product loyalty. Many consumers remain skeptical about brands’ sustainability claims and show concerns about greenwashing. 

Only 20% of consumers say they believe brands’ sustainability claims and 30% say the biggest barrier to buying is insufficient information on product sustainability. To strengthen consumer favorability, brand analysts must measure perception gaps between message and belief.

Perception gaps between messaging and belief are key indications of brand trust. Larger gaps can immediately highlight issues with credibility and believability. To protect your brand health, you need to test consumers’ perceptions of your messaging early and often and assess how your messaging decisions impact purchase consideration, brand perception and brand loyalty with consumers.

73% of CPG insights teams now use AI to speed up and improve the efficiency of their diagnostics, trend detection and brand equity reporting. AI can typically deliver more speed, accuracy and scalability than traditional research methods.  

58% of firms use AI to analyze data. AI excels at processing huge amounts of consumer insights data, including both quantitative and qualitative consumer research and insights across digital channels. As a result, AI can quickly identify shifts and wider trends in the market, consumer perceptions and behavior. 

Many brand analysts are also leaning on AI for data centralization and analysis. 54% of firms use AI to create real-time reports that can export these trends and highlight the most important and actionable insights in their data — using AI to share essential takeaways, create executive summaries and turn raw data insights into visual insights.

Zappi’s Brand Tracking platform provides always-on insight into brand performance. Supported by AI diagnostics, Zappi demonstrates 60% more predictive accuracy than traditional trackers, allowing you to forecast how shifts in consumer perception will impact your business metrics, from sales to market share. With real-time sentiment analysis, brand analysts can instantly detect when awareness, trust or preference begins to change — helping CPG leaders pivot creative and product strategies in time to protect market share.

Zappi was built to deliver immediate, real-time insights into brand performance, in comparison to traditional methods that can only deliver point-in-time research that fails to account for seasonality. We designed our Brand Health KPI tracker to make brand health tracking faster, more affordable and more accurate. 

You can use Zappi to test how price-sensitive, value-driven consumers think and feel about your TV and digital creative, from early concepts to late-stage executions. Test concepts, creative and pricing against benchmarks across CPG subcategories including grocery, personal care, beverage and household goods. Plus, Zappi’s AI Quick Reports instantly summarize key themes and brand drivers, turning these insights into actionable reports that can guide strategy.

High inflation and consumer skepticism are putting pressure on CPG brands to deliver competitive products that speak to consumers' price sensitivity and sustainable values. In a price sensitive and skeptical market, CPG brands need to be more strategic when it comes to balancing consumer appeal with protecting their margins. 

To retain market share, brand analysts must make proactively tracking and monitoring brand health a key priority. While traditional tracking systems are limited by rigidity, lack of predictive accuracy and point-in-time research, modern consumer insights platforms like Zappi can deliver real-time continuous consumer insights with up to 60% more predictive accuracy.