Issue Brands must re-earn choice in a fragmented and mediated decision landscape

Summary

McKinsey argues that brands can no longer count on the position they built in the past to keep winning customers. Two forces are behind this: fast technological change and cost consciousness that persists across income groups. Consumers' paths to purchase have become more complicated, and brand influence is spread across many more touchpoints, from social media and AI tools to marketplaces and third-party reviews. In this setting, where decisions are split across channels and often shaped by intermediaries, a brand has to demonstrate its value again and again to be picked. The report adds that scale within established channels carries less weight than before, so the right to be chosen must be continually earned.