WARC's Marketer's Toolkit 2026 — now in its 15th year, built on a survey of over 1,000 marketing executives plus one-to-one interviews with global marketing leaders — found that 73% of marketers agree the term "middle-class" is becoming meaningless, with wide variance across wealth, income, and attitudes toward spending.
The reason: the middle market — long the source of both scale and margin for entire categories — is disappearing, as spending bifurcates toward the high and low end. WARC attributes this to sluggish incomes, surging lifestyle costs, and plunging job security. In the US specifically, the top 10% of wealthy households now drive 50% of all consumer spending. That concentration of wealth isn't new — the scale of it is.
WARC's own recommendations:
- Help customers navigate "affordability tension" — the gap between what people still want and what they can still afford.
- Build emotional connections that sustain demand even in challenging categories, by tapping into cultural memory, pride, and shared identity.
- Audit your pricing and tiering — ensure you have accessible entry points as well as high-margin flagships, with nothing stranded in the uncomfortable middle.
For Canadian brands and agencies operating in an economy shaped by household debt, mortgage renewals, and shifting immigration patterns, the lesson is stark: the default "average Canadian consumer" is a statistical ghost. Brands that win in 2026 will be those that pick a lane — either delivering high-conviction luxury and premium utility, or uncompromising everyday value.
Image courtesy of Pexels, photo by Bryan