For decades, Argentina was a country of brands. Not only in terms of consumption, but also in terms of identity: choosing certain brands was a way of saying who you were, what class you belonged to and what future you imagined. Today that symbolic contract is not broken, but it has been deeply renegotiated. The link between consumers and brands became more fragile, more tactical and, above all, more conditioned by the economic context..
The latest national data from our TRENDLAB on Youniversal, show that Argentine consumption is going through a stage of sustained adjustment, although not homogeneous. 82% of people reduced or eliminated expenses in at least one item, but cutting fewer categories than in previous measurements: five average items compared to six previously. The restriction persists, but becomes more selective. There is no consumption blackout, but rather a more conscious administration of each decision.
In that context, how you buy becomes as relevant as what you buy. On average, each person puts into play 3.4 active strategies to make money work: pay attention to promotions and discounts, reduce quantities, choose cheaper brands, change channels or buy more frequently but in smaller volume. 39% declare that they are systematically attentive to offers, while a “just in time” purchasing logic is growing: less stocking, more small and frequent purchases, often in nearby stores. At the medium and low levels, the testing of new brands in search of a better price and the purchase of smaller containers is also intensified, not as an aspirational preference but as a spending control mechanism.. Consumption is no longer linear and becomes a sequence of micro-decisions, where each act must be justified.
Taste as an exception: when you do pay more. The data show that the willingness to pay more appears when consumption is loaded with social or emotional meaning. Gifts, gatherings, celebrations, shared meals, when something is for a child, a friend or a pet, special dates or moments of self-indulgence function as thresholds that enable the choice of an A brand. You do not pay more to solve a need, but to make a symbolic difference, to give or give yourself a “plus.”
In particular, the C2 segment is the one that most activates this logic: it is there where the brand becomes a resource to “rise up” to an occasion, so as not to fail when consumption becomes visible to others. In young people and at high levels, this same mechanism operates when the brand provides originality, novelty or an aspirational nod —as in imported products—, more linked to identity construction than to functional use.
On the other hand, outside of these contexts, brand A loses economic legitimacy. In everyday, repetitive consumption with low social visibility, the premium that an A brand frequently implies is no longer justified. In fact, the group that directly not willing to pay more for any brand: passed from 13% in June to 21% at the end of 2025. It is not a minor fact: it is a cultural signal. As a trend, efficiency, predictability and spending control prevail on a day-to-day basis. The brand stops being a promise and becomes a cost.
For this reason, many leading brands no longer compete by frequency, but by moments: they are reserved for when it is “worth it”, when there is something to celebrate, compensate or mean. The rest of the time, consumption becomes more pragmatic, less emotional and more open to change and trying new alternatives that work and, at the same time, are economically profitable. Consumption is fragmented: brand A for the moment that matters, brand B to solve the day to day.
The Argentine consumer does not stop valuing brands, but learns to manage them as scarce resources. He uses them strategically, doses them, reserves them. In this new map, paying more for a brand A is not an act of loyalty, but rather a specific, almost curatorial decision, which answers the key question of the present: for which occasion it is worth spending a little more and for which it is not?
When the brand is no longer the first thing you look at. That logic becomes even clearer in everyday consumption. In high frequency categories, brand A loses centrality compared to variables such as price, format, promotion or channel. The data is conclusive: 58% of Argentines affirm that they no longer even look at the leading brands and directly look for second or third options. This is not an ideological rejection, but rather a cultural adaptation in a context where 75% had to go into debt or use savings to meet expenses in recent times.
The leading brands do not disappear, but they stop organizing the routine. They are activated when consumption is visible: in the gift, at the shared table, in the meeting. There they function as a symbolic insurance, as a guarantee of being at the height of the scene. Outside of these spaces, the price once again dictates the decision. The brand does not lose value, but that value is not always able to be activated or justified in the daily routine and there B brands and supermarket own brands gain space.
It is at this point where one of the most interesting movements in current Argentine consumption appears. B brands stop being mere replacements and begin to transform into something else. The frequency resignifies them. By being present every day—in small shopping, in neighborhood commerce, in “resolving today”—these brands build a different bond: they provide predictability, allow us to sustain habits and reduce the mental burden of deciding all the time. They do not promise status or aspiration, but they offer continuity. And in a country where the future is perceived as fragile, continuity becomes an enormous value.
That is why many B brands no longer compete to look like A brands, but rather for something more powerful in this context: complicity. “I am with you when you have to adjust,” seems to be the implicit message. It is no coincidence that 88% of Argentines expect brands to provide support in difficult times, whether with prices, promotions or specific gestures. Value is no longer measured only in product attributes, but in the ability to make everyday life easier.
Bridge to the future. As we see, the value no longer resides solely in the product, but in what it makes possible: sustaining a routine, marking an exception, preserving a minimum identity in the midst of adjustment. Brands A can no longer live on their history alone, and brands B have an unprecedented opportunity: to stop being “the cheapest option” to become the option that is increasingly emotionally close.
We are not facing unfaithful or volatile consumers. We are facing hyper-contextual consumers, crisis experts, who have learned to use brands as tools—not as permanent flags—in an economy where choosing well is, increasingly, a way to take care of oneself without completely giving up enjoyment.
In an increasingly intermittent consumption, the brands that manage to be relevant without demanding permanent loyalty—that know how to accompany without suffocating, to appear without imposing themselves—will be the ones that manage to sustain meaning. It is not about recovering the consumer’s old unconditional love, but about learning to live with a more episodic, more rational and demanding relationship, where value must be reactivated in each act of purchase.
*Ximena Diaz Alarcón is CEO and Co-Founder of Youniversal
by Ximena Díaz Alarcón
