For a century, marketers preached the gospel of brand loyalty. People bought Coca-Cola for the dream. Marlboro for the cowboy. Mercedes for the badge.
That religion is over.
Euromonitor’s Trending Topics 2026makes it plain: despite household incomes crawling upward at just 0.4% a year since 2021, consumers don’t judge by price alone. They demand health, convenience, sustainability, digital ease. If you can’t deliver, you’re irrelevant.
71% of consumers worry about the rising cost of everyday items. But they aren’t clinging to legacy labels. They are defecting to private label. Cooking ingredients, staple foods, dairy—once the strongholds of heritage brands—are now being stripped bare by discounters and warehouse clubs.
And then come the insurgents: Temu. TikTok. SHEIN. They don’t sell myths. They sell speed, affordability, and relevance. And they are winning.
The report names the shift: brand loyalty is weakening. Loyalty isn’t earned. It’s rented, renewed only as long as the offer makes sense.
Winners already know this. InterContinental Hotels sells NOMO solo-stay packages with wellness perks. SAIC’s MG4 EV became a European bestseller by combining affordability with advanced features. They didn’t trade on heritage. They traded on delivery.
So stop polishing your history. Nobody cares. In this economy of squeezed incomes and rising costs, the only question is: Do you deliver today?
The cult of the brand is dead. The cult of delivery has begun.
The battle for raw materials. Climate change. Digitalization. These things have rapidly changed the world. Who wins, who loses? What is yet to come? This film looks at how lives are shifting, in seven regions of the world.
Swindlers in the business world are notoriously difficult to catch. Their facade is often immaculate. Many are charismatic and persuasive, with a lot of social savvy and tenacity – and some have pulled off massive scams. White-collar criminals have even managed to deceive seasoned financial professionals. They conceal their tricks and crimes behind columns of numbers and mailbox addresses, behind corporate networks and shell companies. Take Sam Bankman-Fried, for example, once hailed as the “crypto kind.” His company, FTX, was one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges globally. Then everything collapsed, and he faced trial on charges of money laundering, fraud, and manipulation. Jan Marsalek was the mastermind behind the scandal involving the payment and financial services provider Wirecard. While his former executive colleagues have stood trial, Marsalek remains on the run and has yet to be found. It’s possible he stashed away millions early on to secure himself a comfortable life after the Wirecard downfall. The documentary “White-Collar Swindlers” explores these two cases – two of the most spectacular examples in recent years. Experts expose the strategies used by these fraudsters in expensive suits.
