Alcohol consumption in the United States continues to evolve, shaped by health concerns, economic pressure, and changing social norms. ThinkNow’s 2025 Alcohol Consumption Report, based on a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults age 21+, offers a clear picture of how, where, and why people are drinking today—and how those behaviors vary sharply by generation and cultural background.

Download the full report here.

Millennials Remain the Most Engaged Drinkers

Across generations, Millennials stand out as the most active alcohol consumers. They are the most likely to drink weekly or more often and show the highest participation across nearly every beverage category, including beer, wine, cocktails, hard liquor, and hard seltzers. Unlike older cohorts, Millennials’ drinking occasions span both everyday relaxation and special celebrations, reinforcing their role as the industry’s most versatile consumer segment.

Gen X follows closely behind in frequency, while Boomers show steadier, less variable habits. Gen Z, in contrast, is notably less likely to drink frequently and more likely to report cutting back altogether.

Drinking Has Shifted Home

Regardless of age or ethnicity, alcohol consumption is now primarily an at-home activity. Nearly three-quarters of drinkers say they most often consume alcohol at home, far exceeding restaurants, bars, or social gatherings. This shift reflects lasting changes from recent years, including cost control, convenience, and lifestyle reprioritization.

While Millennials remain the most likely to associate drinking with celebrations, Gen Z is the least likely to drink at home, suggesting a looser attachment to alcohol as a routine behavior rather than a default social accompaniment.

More Consumers Are Drinking Less Than More

A critical takeaway from the report is that moderation is rising. More adults report decreasing their alcohol consumption over the past year than increasing it. Health and financial considerations dominate the reasons for cutting back, with improvements in physical health and saving money cited most often.

These motivations vary by age. Younger adults, especially Gen Z, are more likely to consciously reduce consumption, while Boomers largely report no change, indicating that habits stabilize with age.

Among Millennials specifically, avoiding hangovers is a disproportionately strong driver of reduced drinking, highlighting growing awareness of alcohol’s short-term physical costs even among heavy participants.

Stress Still Drives Increases

For those who are drinking more, stress is the dominant factor. Roughly half of adults who increased their alcohol consumption cite stress or anxiety as the primary reason, followed closely by discovering new beverages they enjoy. Socializing more often and having greater disposable income also contributes to a lesser extent.

This contrast, health-driven reduction versus stress-driven increases, underscores the polarized role alcohol continues to play: both a potentially unhealthy choice and a coping mechanism.

Preferences Are Changing, Especially Among Younger Drinkers

About half of alcohol consumers say their preferences have changed in the past year, whether in brands, flavors, or beverage types. These shifts are most pronounced among younger consumers, particularly Gen Z and Millennials, who are far more likely than older adults to experiment.

Two-thirds of drinkers overall say they are open to trying new brands or flavors, but openness declines sharply with age. Boomers overwhelmingly prefer familiar options, while Millennials and Gen X occupy a middle ground between exploration and brand loyalty.

What Drives Purchase Decisions

When buying alcohol, trusted brands and social enjoyment matter most across the board. Affordability, alcohol content, and perceived quality also rank highly. However, Millennials consistently evaluate more factors than any other generation, placing greater emphasis on brand prestige, recommendations, packaging, and trend relevance.

This suggests a more complex decision-making process, where functional attributes and social signaling intersect, especially for younger and mid-aged consumers.

Global Events Matter More Than Expected

Just over one-third of alcohol consumers say global events, including economic shifts or trade changes, have a moderate or significant impact on their access to or preference for imported alcohol. Sensitivity to global influence is highest among Asians, Gen Z, and Millennials, indicating that international supply chains and pricing dynamics increasingly shape consumer choice.

The Bottom Line

Alcohol consumption in 2025 is defined by moderation, experimentation, and context. Consumers are not abandoning alcohol, but they are thinking more carefully about when, why, and what they drink. Health concerns are pushing behavior in one direction, while stress and discovery pull in another. For brands and retailers, understanding generational and cultural nuance is central to staying relevant in a market that is becoming more selective, more intentional, and more fragmented.

Download the full report here.

Innovation doesn’t happen in isolation. It starts with people who build intentional systems to understand human behavior. Data and technology may power today’s marketplace, but empathy is the true differentiator that sets brands apart. Knowing what consumers buy and why, how they use it, what challenges they face, and what makes their experience better lays the foundation for strong product development and messaging that resonates.

Like engineers observing how contractors interact with building materials, product marketers must immerse themselves in the customer experience. Real insight doesn’t come from dashboards alone. It comes from listening without assumptions, observing real behavior, and engaging not just to gather feedback but to build empathy deep enough to understand what customers may never say outright.

Equally important is recognizing the cultural and demographic shifts shaping modern consumers. Hispanic representation is on the rise, more women are driving key decisions, and diverse communities are redefining what influence looks like. For product marketers, this is a call to move past stereotypes and build authentic connections with the people who use, recommend, and ultimately champion your products.

In this episode of The New Mainstream podcast, Agustin Hernandez, R&D Leader at Owens Corning, explores how empathy and cultural intelligence drive innovation and shape products that more effectively reflect consumer needs and solve real-world problems.

Foresight is more than predicting what’s next. It’s identifying early signals and linking them to the human behaviors driving change. By studying how people adapt, create, and respond to their environments, organizations can design strategies and solutions that fulfill future needs while staying grounded in reality.

This approach relies on both traditional and unconventional methods, such as interviews with experts and visionaries, observations from industry events, and secondary research, paired with digital ethnography that surfaces new conversations and cultural shifts. The goal isn’t just to identify trends, but also to understand the motivations behind them and what they reveal about evolving needs.

A key learning from this work is that foresight succeeds when organizations are willing to challenge their assumptions. When data and cultural context point in a new direction, the ability to pivot toward what people are already doing or valuing can uncover growth opportunities. Being flexible and responsive ensures that innovation remains human-centered rather than hypothesis-driven.

Equally important is a multifaceted research approach. Diverse qualitative insights capture nuance, while quantitative data scales understanding. Returning to qualitative validation closes the loop, ensuring that what emerges reflects both the “what” and the “why.” This cycle helps teams distinguish between patterns that are local and those that can be applied globally. Artificial intelligence now plays a growing role in this process, accelerating the discovery of patterns across vast data sources.

On this episode of The New Mainstream podcast, Jay Hasbrouck, Senior Staff Researcher at Google and author of Ethnographic Thinking: From Method to Mindset, explores how foresight, research, and AI can transform the way organizations approach innovation.

Walk through any major city in the U.S. and you’ll see it. Consumer demographics are shifting. From local shops to national brands, multicultural communities are driving commerce and key economic trends. Yet, while consumers are evolving, many marketing strategies are not. Too often, multicultural audiences remain an afterthought rather than the center of business growth.

Brands that succeed in multicultural marketing start by recognizing that inclusion is a business imperative, not optional. Data shows that in many regions, net population growth and the dollars that come with it are driven by Hispanic, Black, and Asian consumers. Failing to engage these audiences is a missed opportunity, putting brands at a competitive disadvantage.

For brands that are investing in multicultural marketing, authenticity is foundational. Campaigns that perform best are rooted in local insight and cultural nuance, often brought to life through relatable storytelling and community-driven engagement. For example, influencer partnerships that reflect real family dynamics, humor, and everyday experiences resonate far more deeply than ads simply translated from English. When creative control is shared with culturally fluent voices, brands earn credibility and build relationships.

Technology powers these relationships, offering new ways to reach, engage, and measure audiences. Artificial intelligence, for instance, can help brands understand consumers, but without culturally diverse data, it misses the nuances that define communities. Human insight is critical to ensuring inclusion and minimizing bias.

On this episode of The New Mainstream podcast, Liz Pedraza, Director of Hispanic Marketing at Pinnacle Advertising and President of CIMA Advertising, explores how multicultural insight, data, and authentic storytelling create measurable business impact for brands.

Meet Our Guest:

As a 300%er, Liz’s Mexican, Puerto Rican, and American roots run deep. Growing up proud of her vibrant heritage gave Liz the courage to dream big and find new ways to reach and speak to the Latino consumer. A career spanning over 20+ years of media and strategy experience, including Univision Communications, Telemundo, NBC Universal, iHeart Media and NPR. Liz infuses boldness, drive, and a love for her culture into her work, inspiring others to embrace the beauty, relevance, and opportunity of these key audiences. A thought leader in the industry, Liz continues to weave tales of tradition and forward-thinking into the ever-changing tapestry of Multicultural marketing in the U.S.

When we launched ThinkNow Audiences, our goal was simple: put multicultural data where media gets bought. We saw a gap between multicultural insights and how those insights were being activated in media buys, so we built a bridge.

Now, that bridge is getting wider, smarter, and faster.

ThinkNow Audiences 2.0 isn’t just a refresh. It’s a strategic evolution in multicultural research and programmatic media buying. We’ve doubled down on contextual relevance, expanded private marketplace (PMP) partnerships, and focused on what matters most to buyers – culturally relevant campaigns that drive top-line results.

From Demographics to Cultural Context

Traditional multicultural targeting has often been limited to high-level demographics, like age, ethnicity, and language. While still useful, those markers alone do not fully reflect how people engage with media or express their identities in 2025.

Today’s audiences are fluid. They move between languages, cultures, and platforms depending on their mood, the moment, and the medium. So, our audience strategy needed to evolve to capture the nuances of today’s consumers.

ThinkNow Audiences 2.0 introduces a new layer of cultural context built around behaviors, affinities, and signals that reflect this complexity, including:

• Spanglish fluency segments
• Cultural content affinity, such as regional music fans, Latin American sports loyalists, or bilingual comedy watchers
• Crossover consumers who blend multicultural identity with general market tastes in streaming, shopping, and social media

By mapping these signals, we’re creating segments that reach not only Latino, Black, and Asian consumers, but also those from other diverse backgrounds. They speak to who they are and what they care about in the moment they’re engaging.

Why Contextual Targeting Matters Now

The loss of cookies has made contextual data more valuable than ever. While much of the industry is still catching up, multicultural audiences have always been more effectively engaged through context, not just identity signals.

We’ve leaned into the shift to contextual by:

• Partnering with publishers that offer culturally-aligned content environments
• Layering survey-based insights into PMP strategies so inventory reflects not just who the user is, but how and where they consume content
• Building cultural contextual bundles around moments like Hispanic Heritage Month, Día de los Muertos, or Black Music Month

In short, we’re shifting from basic audience targeting to authentic audience connection.

PMP: The Quiet Power Play

A big part of our 2.0 rollout has been focused on private marketplace deals, where we’re seeing serious traction. The agencies and brands we work with are looking for:

• Efficiency with better performance per dollar spent
• Trust through inventory with verified cultural alignment
• Customization through the ability to match creative with context

PMPs allow us to deliver all three. They provide our partners with an easy entry point into multicultural activation, eliminating the need to overhaul their entire media strategy.

We’ve seen success working with Hispanic-focused agencies, Black-owned publishers, and general market programmatic buyers who want to reach growth audiences with more intention.

Built with Cultural Integrity

What makes ThinkNow Audiences different isn’t just the multicultural data. It’s how the data is created. Our segments are built on:

• Zero-party data from ThinkNow’s proprietary research panels, real people voluntarily sharing their perspectives
• Cultural nuance layered in by humans, not just algorithms that assign generic labels
• Validated behavioral signals that reflect lived experiences rather than broad modeled assumptions

ThinkNow Audiences is not repackaged, generic data with a multicultural label on it. It’s original and culturally grounded, the result of over a decade of working at the intersection of culture, data, and media.

Looking Ahead

As we move into 2026, we are committed to making it easier for brands to meet multicultural audiences where they are in ways that are important to them.

ThinkNow Audiences 2.0 is a step forward, but it’s also an invitation to the industry to make multicultural marketing, central, not secondary, to data strategy to drive relevance in marketing and media. The future of audience targeting is not just more diverse, it’s more human, and that’s what we’re building for.

Storytelling has long been recognized as a powerful way to bridge differences and build empathy across communities. To advance health equity, stories that transform complex medical terms and statistics into human experiences can break down barriers and even save lives. When people hear from survivors or caregivers who share their culture, language, or background, it fosters trust, a crucial step in opening access and promoting advocacy within historically marginalized communities.

Health equity means people have access to resources specific to their needs, not simply offering the same solution to all. Equality may give everyone a bike, but equity ensures each bike is suited to its rider. In breast cancer care, this distinction is life-saving. Black women in the U.S. are 40% more likely to die from breast cancer than White women, despite similar screening rates. Latina women are often diagnosed later, when treatment options are fewer. These disparities stem not from personal choice but systemic barriers such as language gaps, misdiagnoses, and limited access to culturally competent care.

Addressing these inequities requires intentional, culturally relevant programs that provide wraparound support. Initiatives like patient navigation services, bilingual resources, and financial aid assistance help dismantle barriers and guide patients through overwhelming diagnoses, ensuring they are not left behind. Partnerships with faith communities, advocacy groups, healthcare providers, and media allies are also important in expanding the reach of resources while demonstrating a commitment that extends beyond awareness months.

The future of storytelling in multicultural marketing within healthcare requires authenticity and accountability. Communities expect organizations to listen, act, and show up consistently in ways that align with their values.

In this episode of The New Mainstream podcast, Nikki Hopewell, Director of Multicultural Marketing at Susan G. Komen, shares how storytelling, equity, and authentic partnerships intersect to advance breast cancer awareness and care.

Are AI tools inclusive? 

We're halfway through 2025 and one thing is undeniable: AI is no longer on the horizon, it is in the room. For the market research industry, this has come faster than most expected. What felt like an existential threat just a year ago is now transforming how researchers approach everything from segmentation to recruitment to data analysis.

But as AI becomes embedded in our workflows, a critical question arises. Are the datasets powering these models truly inclusive? Do they reflect the diverse populations researchers aim to understand, or are they building the next generation of tools on top of the same old blind spots?

Why traditional datasets pose risks 

Market research has long struggled with inclusivity. Reaching Spanish-dominant Latinos, Gen Z respondents and even male participants has always been difficult. Despite decades of effort, many of these groups continue to be underrepresented in online panels and large-scale studies.

Now, imagine deploying AI on top of these incomplete datasets. Instead of closing representation gaps, AI trained on biased data risks amplifying them at scale. Biases that were once isolated can now be baked into algorithms and amplified across the entire research ecosystem, undermining the potential of AI to drive more inclusive insights. 

AI’s pivot from threat to tool

When AI began gaining traction in the industry, initial skepticism emerged among some researchers, particularly regarding the use of synthetic data and AI-powered moderators. These tools seemed impersonal, disconnected from the human insights that drive understanding and trust among respondents.

Yet, over time, AI has proven itself capable of complementing, rather than replacing, researchers’ work. Instead of diluting what makes insights meaningful, AI can expand them by enabling researchers to finally address representation issues that more conventional methods have never been able to. This shift has prompted a more intentional approach to innovation. If synthetic data is going to shape the future of insights, it must be inclusive by design, representing the full diversity of the populations it aims to model.

How market research drives ethical AI

The market research industry is uniquely positioned to lead in this space. While many tech companies face lawsuits for training AI on copyrighted or illegally scraped data, researchers have operated under strict privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA for decades. Upholding consent, data stewardship and adherence to ethical standards has been the norm.

Our datasets are not only large, but they are also permission-based and carefully vetted. This makes them ideal for training AI models that need to mirror real-world diversity.

But it is not enough to have access to data. The same rigor applied when building representative samples must be applied to training AI models. This means proactively identifying gaps, asking who is missing from the data and taking measurable steps to responsibly include them.

Rethinking multicultural market segmentation

This brings us to the future of multicultural segmentation. Relying solely on broad demographic categories or historical internal datasets is no longer sufficient. Today’s consumers are multidimensional, and AI gives us the tools to see them more clearly. 

To generate synthetic data that accurately reflects multicultural audiences, it is essential to incorporate information from historically underrepresented communities. This requires collaboration between technologists and cultural experts, as well as a commitment to designing systems that accurately reflect the reality of diverse identities.

For researchers generating synthetic datasets, combining privacy-compliant methods with culturally rich data points, powered by AI, helps ensure that communities often left out of the conversation are fully represented moving forward. 

The road ahead

AI is not a passing trend. It is here to stay, and it is reshaping how we segment audiences, recruit respondents and activate insights. However, AI’s success depends on the quality and inclusiveness of the data behind it, and the researchers guiding its application.

For market research professionals, this is a challenge worth embracing. With deep expertise, ethical frameworks and a foundation in representative sampling, the industry is uniquely positioned to ensure that AI serves all communities, not just the most accessible ones.

The future of multicultural segmentation will belong to those who successfully integrate innovation and intention because the question is no longer whether to adopt AI, but how to use it in a way that advances representation. 

Those investing in synthetic data and inclusive segmentation strategies play a crucial role in achieving this, and those seeking better representation in data must continue to demand it.

This blog post was originally published on Quirk's Media.