RESPONSIBLE MEDIA AND COMMUNITIES

Belonging in Britain 2026 q&a

What our Behavioural Insights Director thinks about Belonging in Britain, the importance of identity to Modern British audiences, and why communities are an unlock for competitive advantage… 

Once upon a time, a marketer's biggest challenge was reach. How do you find the people you want to speak to? And once you find them, how do you make sure it's the right person, at the right moment, in the right place? 

Precision targeting answered that question, and answered it well. Campaigns now reach intended audiences more reliably than ever, waste is measurable, tools keep improving, and for marketers navigating tighter budgets and stricter privacy rules, that kind of efficiency has become essential.  

What it hasn't fully solved is the question of whether it resonates with the person on the receiving end. 

When planning optimises around demographic parameters, it tends to optimise around a version of people that they don't always recognise in themselves. Age and gender are useful signals, but they're proxies. They describe a population segment, not a person. 

And when a brand or message lacks that feeling of understanding, audiences can tell.  

Trust in advertising has been falling for years, and it keeps falling even as targeting sharpens, which suggests the gap isn't in the finding, it's in the understanding. 

Demographics tell you roughly where someone sits in a population, not what they care about, who they trust, or how they think of themselves. A 34-year-old in Manchester is a demographic. A member of a Sunday running club who's training for their first marathon, who takes kit recommendations seriously and who counts two other members among their closest friends, is a person. Those two descriptions can refer to the same individual, but only one of them is useful if you want to actually ‘reach’ them. 

In short, the most effective campaigns combine intelligent targeting with a genuine understanding of what actually matters to the people being reached. 

Communities sit at the intersection of identity and scale. People choose them with intention, and that choice is a signal: of values, of passions, of who they trust and what they'll pay attention to.  

For brands, that's a huge opportunity for competitive advantage. 

Belonging in Britain is MG OMD's ongoing study into how people in the UK define themselves and where they find connection. This year, in partnership with Global, we returned with a new wave of research and some findings that push the conversation further than the first report. Last week we released the 2026 Key Insights, a preview of nine headline findings from the full report. 

We sat down with Samantha Redmond, Behavioural Insight Business Director at MG OMD and the driving force behind this research, to hear what the data revealed, what has shifted since last year, and the opportunities for brands... 

The research takes a pretty different approach to understanding identity than most audience studies. What makes it distinctive, and what stood out to you this year? 

The thing I'm proud of is how carefully we approach identity. A lot of research tends to flatten it. We try to honour how genuinely complex it is, and this year that complexity showed up in an interesting way: identity is both stable and alive at the same time. 

In terms of something that stood out to me, despite everything going on in the world, the top five traits that matter most to people haven't changed at all. Family, personality, passions, friends, where you grew up. These are the anchors. They speak to something fundamental about what it means to be human: our need for connection, for place, for pleasure, to be seen as individuals. And yet most demographic profiles still miss them . 

But beyond those anchors, you start to see Britain’s fingerprints. Nationality rose up the rankings this year, and I don't think that's purely about tension or anxiety. It also reflects moments of genuine cultural pride. The Lionesses, a Britpop revival, British fashion and film having a moment. Nationality today transcends geography or politics , into heritage and pride.  

Meanwhile, professional identity has grown too. As people react toshifts in the job market , the acceleration of AI and the return-to-office debate takes place, it's perhaps not surprising that work has become more central to how people see themselves. John Lewis reported a spike in suiting sales. The most watched TV shows are set in offices and boardrooms...culture is reflecting it. 

The headline number is that the average person's identity now spans eight traits, up from seven last year. Identities are becoming more considered, more consciously curated. Brands that are still planning around one or two static demographics are, frankly, not seeing the person at all. 

The report is called Belonging in Britain. Is there still belonging in Britain? 

More than the headlines would have you believe! ‘Belonging’ in Britain actually grew. The share of people who feel a genuine emotional connection to their communities rose from 30% to 35%, and the average person now belongs to four community groups, up from three. In a year that felt pretty heavy, people sought each other out. They found connection around the things that bring them joy. 

What's also fascinating is how the cultural calendar shows up in the data. Sports supporter groups have overtaken hobbies and interests to become Britain's number one form of community, with music fandoms close behind. After the Lionesses' summer, the Rugby World Cup, Oasis and Glastonbury, that's not surprising, but significant nonetheless.  

I’d also point out that these aren't niche communities. They're mainstream, passion-driven spaces where millions of people are already highly engaged. The opportunity for brands to show up meaningfully in those spaces is enormous. 

What's the biggest myth you'd like to see the industry let go of around community engagement? 

That community means niche. It gets conflated with small-scale grassroots activity, or focused on reaching specific ethnic or faith-based groups. And while community engagement absolutely can mean those things, a quick look at the top community types shows that it spans a vast range. Sport, music, food, fitness, pets. These are mainstream passions that cut across demographics and offer hooks for brands in virtually any sector. 

And people shouldn't underestimate the influence these communities carry, even the ones that feel lighthearted. One of the people we met in our ethnographic research was David, a man in his late sixties and an active member of several communities including his local golf group. When David was buying a new car, he asked his golfing friends what they'd recommend. Those conversations directly shaped the car he bought. That's the point! Trust travels in communities, even ones built around a shared love of something totally different. 

The full report is coming soon. In the meantime, discover the Key Insights here: