Consumer Confidence April 2024

Confidence edged forward in April to -19, an increase +2 score and welcome repeat of the previous month. Whilst the overall index score remains negative the underlying measures in April are significantly better than they were in April 2023.

What's happened?

While we have an improved consumer confidence index, the gap between essential spend, Vs. all other forms of spend has widened (see graph below).

Overall majority of categories have seen growth in intended spend, with essentials heavily focused around utility bills and housing. While Clothing & Footwear has the highest intended growth amongst discretionary spend, and Restaurant spend has the largest negative change of -6% as ‘eating in’ and bringing the restaurant experience home, continues to be a rising trend.

What does it mean?

We are working with multiple brands to support them against a challenging backdrop, by understanding how consumer decision journeys are changing and how we influence consumers across the funnel. Aligning to the work by Google on the Messy Middle , which highlights 3 key takeaways for brands:

1. Craft compelling propositions, informed by behavioural science
2. Close the gap between trigger and purchase – in more considered purchases consumers are spending longer than ever in the research phase
3. There are key implications for SEO, PPC & your website – we focus on ensuring clients review search holistically, and that creative and comms via all other channels aid the journey onto site/store

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Our team have created a condensed version of Google's research and we are continuing to support clients through bespoke projects to inform business opportunities and threats, through alignment to the ever-changing consumer needs, amongst a challenging backdrop.

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Get in touch at [email protected] to find out more and discover our condensed report of Google’s Messy Middle research.