New Research Explains Why It’s Costing Brands to Undervalue Consumer Differences

LAS VEGAS, NV, April 2026 — CPG and food and beverage brands are a quarter into their 2026 media plans and finding that they are wrong in three different ways all at once: overspending on linear TV where their audience is leaving, underspending on streaming where their audience has already arrived, and measuring social advertising on click-to-purchase metrics when the actual conversion is a store trip that happens days later.

Today, Schaefer — a paid media agency working exclusively in food and beverage — released three simultaneous research reports profiling the social-first, TV-first, and streaming-first food and beverage buyers. The reports were released together because their interaction is the story: read any one in isolation and you get a useful buyer profile. Read all three and the pricing argument becomes visible.

“These three categories of buyers are not a spectrum. They are three structurally different advertising problems, each one requiring a different channel strategy, a different creative approach, and a different measurement framework,” said Sidnee Schaefer, CEO at Schaefer. “Most 2026 F&B media plans treat them like one.”

THE REPORTS

Report 01: The Social-First F&B Shopper

The social-first F&B shopper discovers products through feeds, follows, and viral moments. They are impulse-driven, highly receptive to UGC-style creative, and have the shortest path from discovery to purchase of any segment. The problem most brands get wrong: measuring this buyer on ROAS instead of in-store lift, which systematically understates the channel’s value and leads to chronic underspending.

Report 02: The Traditional TV-First F&B Shopper

The TV-first F&B shopper is shaped by decades of broadcast advertising. They respond to brand familiarity, consistent messaging, and the authority signals that come from mass-market presence. This is the audience most big brands are still over-indexed on, even as the segment shrinks and ages out of peak grocery spend.

Report 03: The Streaming-First F&B Shopper

The streaming-first F&B shopper sits between social and linear. They have opted out of broadcast television but have not fully shifted to social-driven discovery. They are increasingly reachable through connected TV and streaming ads, and represent a growing share of premium F&B buyers that most media plans are systematically underfunding.

“The streaming-first shopper represents the most underfunded opportunity in F&B media right now. Brands know CTV is growing. Most still haven’t moved budget to match.” — Seth Waite, Chief Strategist, at Schaefer.

WHY NOW

F&B brands are making channel allocation decisions based on a mental model of the “average” grocery buyer that does not hold up under scrutiny. The three reports were released simultaneously as a deliberate editorial choice. The argument only becomes visible when all three buyer profiles are read together.

ABOUT THE RESEARCH

The reports were produced by Schaefer’s in-house research team — the same team that runs buyer interviews and surveys for every client engagement. They cover U.S. F&B shoppers and are published free with no email gate. The reports are interactive and self-guided, available at schaefer.co/reports.

ABOUT SCHAEFER

Schaefer is a paid media agency working exclusively in food and beverage. Every engagement starts with consumer research using the same methodology behind these public reports, applied to a brand’s specific category and customer. Schaefer works with CPG brands, restaurant groups, and DTC food and beverage companies on campaign strategy, paid media execution, and research-led creative.