How can brands navigate increasingly divisive consumer opinion?

We’ve entered a new era marked by increasingly divisive rhetoric, government policies being reversed, and longstanding cultural norms being challenged — an era we called Splintered Societies in our most recent Ipsos Global Trends study.

This makes for a very tricky landscape for brands, who need to stay abreast of all this while also tracking how other organisations are reacting, where decisions are being overturned, and how consumers are responding to all of this.

This is especially true in the United States, where one month into the new Trump administration’s “flood the zone” approach, proclamations are coming so quickly that people cannot keep up without the help of a real-time tracker. Regardless of your personal political leanings, this is a challenging territory for businesses to navigate — and it’s not unique to the United States in scope or impact.

Brands need to embrace both the worry and promise of technology to win over consumersThe biggest year for elections around the world saw incumbent governments being punished just about everywhere, including in Britain, France, India and Japan. Some companies are taking a wait and see approach, while others are pre-emptively changing policy to protect their business interests.

As all of this is unfolding, what’s been on my mind lately is simple: how do brands navigate a landscape where common ground seems hard to find?

Splintering societies

This division isn’t going away anytime soon. Differences in political ideologies are a big part of the picture, but the division is also symptomatic of the way we have re-organised ourselves into like-minded clusters of communities, both online and offline. It’s fuelled by differences in wealth, social inequities, and influenced by political actions as well.

And it’s being felt by nearly everyone:

• 74% of the global population in our study agreed that, “In my country, there is more and more conflict between people who don’t share the same values.”
• 77% of global citizens agreed, “Having large differences in income and wealth is bad for society overall.”
• 72% agreed, “The economy of my country is rigged to the advantage the rich and powerful.”

While not every country is at the level of polarisation that we see in the United States, there are worrying signs that it’s growing in other markets, for example, on topics like immigration and climate change.

In France, 73% consider that “France used to be a better a place than it now is”, the highest level in 10 years. Meanwhile in the UK, our joint study with the Policy Institute at King’s College London in November 2023 on the growing culture war divisions in politics, found that many UK citizens increasingly feel that politicians are stoking culture wars.

Bear in mind, however, that whilst this splintering of opinions may be accelerating, it is not a sudden change. We’ve seen long-term decline of trust in institutions over a decade, and individuals are stepping in to fill that gap. At the same time, technology and social media have enabled us to only see what we want to see, and there’s a very real problem with misinformation and disinformation.

Navigating changing winds

What’s grabbing headlines lately is how many companies appear to be changing policy to align with winds of change — such as recent content moderation policy changes made by Meta, or Google Maps changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico for users in the United States.

But the bigger picture is that since every business is potentially going to be affected by political policy and divisive rhetoric one way or another; every company should be paying attention to what’s going on in political and social realms.

Should brands make a public stand on these divisive issues? We have long heard that consumers expect brands to do so. Our recent trends study showed that 71% of global citizens agreed that, “Business leaders have a responsibility to speak out on social and political issues affecting my country.” But this varies widely from country to country, and it gets even more divided when you look across generations, genders and other demographic splits. And even when brands do take a stand on an issue, we’ve seen cases of that go awry.

What Nouveau Nihilism can teach brands about indulgence and consumer motivationsOpinions are also changing on what topics are appropriate for taking a stand on, depending on the country and current opinion. For example, what was expected of brands several years ago on diversity and inclusion is no longer the case as many companies roll back their DEI initiatives.

So whether to take a stand on an issue is not an easy answer: it depends on your brand, your position in the market, your target audience, and your category. It’s often a case of trying to find the right balance between meeting expectations to stand up for a brand’s values, versus the risk to business impact about doing so.

Costco, for example, recently defended its policies to shareholders by detailing how having diverse employees and suppliers has generated “creativity and innovation in the merchandise and services that we offer” and led to increased customer satisfaction.

Finding the areas where we agree

Language matters more than one might think. Chris Jackson, who leads Ipsos’ US political polling, notes that, “often it isn’t the core of an issue that we disagree on, but the way it is discussed and specific politicised terminology that riles people up. We actually share a lot of the same core values despite differing political opinions.”

And we can’t forget the groups who are in the middle. Often there is more consensus when not focusing on the two opposing extremes. Perhaps the key to navigating these changing waters lies in finding the values and language that are amenable to most, by avoiding divisive terminology.

DEI is a hot-button topic right now for brands, and a recent poll conducted by Ipsos revealed how polarising it is. When we asked, “In recent years, some companies have adopted diversity, equity and inclusion programs, or DEI programs. Do you think it’s a good thing or a bad thing for companies to adopt these programs?” Only 55% of Americans answered it’s a good thing, which is down considerably from 61% in April 2024 .

The future of marketing is inclusive, not because it’s current, but because it’s necessaryBut the answers changed when we removed certain terminology. When we rephrased the question to “in recent years, some companies have adopted programs to hire more employees from groups that are underrepresented in their workforce, such as racial and ethnic minorities and people with disabilities and to promote equity in the workplace” we found that 65% of Americans answered that it’s a good thing.

Language matters just as much as the topic, which is critical in finding a middle ground your customers can agree on.

(Source: Ipsos Poll on DEI, Political Activism, and Economic Experiences, February 14-15, 2025, American general population ages 18+)

Techniques for navigating uncertainty

So how should brands navigate all of this complexity and divisiveness? There are techniques we use with clients which can help you prepare to weather the storm, and make smart decisions that will serve your brand in the long term.

First, get aligned internally and break down silos.

Audit what’s currently being done across teams in terms of research, strategy and risk mitigation, and put your risk and corporate comms teams in touch with your insights team. One of our clients recently realised the benefit of this when the insights team was able to mine deep research that the strategic team was putting together for the board on risk management, and we used those as direct inputs into foresight scenarios and brand strategy.

Second, know your consumers and ask for more insights.

Knowing who your target consumers really are, and what they care about, is paramount in this environment. Audit what you know about them, be honest about whether it’s up to date, and strive to get more insight out of the data you already have by connecting those same teams across your organisation. One of our clients asked us to do a meta-analysis of several dozen studies from various business units and synthesise everything into a strategic point of view on their customers, which benefitted the whole company in guiding key business decisions.

Third, conduct ongoing scenario planning.

Use those same inputs and build out scenarios designed for your category and brand. Bring your stakeholders together to discuss the first, second, third-order implications. How might consumers respond to your brand taking a stance? How might your competitors respond to a government action? What are the triggers or signals that let us know when we’re heading toward that potential scenario? Then put those plans in place, continue to monitor, and update as necessary.

Bringing all these workflows and teams together will help prepare you for the challenges ahead, and set in motion the necessary tracking and alert systems. These systems, scenarios, and trackers will help you know when you’re headed to a specific future, and the connection and collaboration between teams will enable you to act on those plans when the time is right.

In doing all of this, we’ve seen organisations turn from operating on a reactionary and short-term basis, to a cohesive team who are primed for decisive action.