What Brands Get Wrong About Small Town America​

There's a growing disconnect between where brands focus and where American consumers live. According to GWI, four in five advertisers sit in or near big cities strategizing for audiences who increasingly don’t. While campaigns are built in urban offices, a massive demographic and cultural reset is reshaping where Americans live, spend, and create.

Across the country, in towns with populations under 250,000, hundreds of thousands of people are arriving each year. They're not just visiting or temporarily relocating; they're putting down roots. And here's what most brand strategists are missing: these consumers are shaping the cultural moments that eventually dominate social feeds, drive purchasing decisions, and define what resonates with Americans broadly.

The oversight is costing brands billions in missed opportunity. More importantly, it's leaving money on the table with one of the most loyal, influential, and economically powerful demographics in the country.

The Migration Reshaping Consumer Markets

The data tells a story most brand strategists haven't fully absorbed. In 2023, over 290,000 Americans left big cities for small towns—the largest urban exodus since the 1970s. This isn't a blip. Small towns have grown for four straight years now, adding over 460,000 new residents between 2022 and 2024 alone.

But here's what makes this shift strategically significant: the permanence. According to the U.S. Census, only 8% of small-town residents work remotely. Just 6% are being asked to return to the office. And 91% say they have no intention of returning to city life. This is a fundamental population reset, not a temporary trend.

The result is a consumer base of more than 46 million representing $2.7 trillion in economic value. Yet when you look at how advertising budgets are allocated, the disconnect becomes stark. Brands invest over $400 more per person in the top five U.S. cities than in people everywhere else.

From a pure market opportunity perspective, brands are dramatically underinvesting in a demographic that rivals their urban audience in size and exceeds it in growth trajectory.

The Loyalty Metrics That Matter

In an era of rising customer acquisition costs and declining organic reach, small-town consumers offer something increasingly rare: genuine brand advocacy at scale.

Consider the behavioral data: 61% actively go out of their way to support brands they like, according to our research, with one in three willing to travel over 50 miles to visit their favorite brand. This isn't passive consumption; it's active engagement.

For brands struggling with CAC efficiency and lifetime value optimization, this level of organic advocacy represents a significant competitive advantage. These aren't consumers you need to re-acquire every quarter. They're building long-term relationships with brands that earn their trust.

The Representation Gap That's Costing Brands

The representation gap in advertising isn't just a creative problem—it's a business risk with measurable consequences.

An analysis of 100 ads depicting small-town life reveals how pervasive stereotyping has become. The impact shows up in the data: Less than 15% of small-town Americans feel represented in the advertising they see, according to GWI, and they're more likely than urban dwellers to say TV and movies don't accurately represent them.

But here's where this becomes a P&L issue: 60% say they'd stop buying from a brand that doesn't understand their lifestyle. At the same time, 80% say they’d switch to one that does. That's not just churn risk—it's available market share for brands willing to listen first.

Understanding the Complexity

The challenge for marketers isn't just avoiding stereotypes. It's understanding the nuance that makes one-size-fits-all approaches fail.

Small-town consumers defy simple segmentation: According to GWI, 56% identify as religious, yet 46% are passionate about science and technology. Nine in ten have no interest in buying an EV, but a third worry about climate change. They describe themselves as both traditional and open-minded. They think supporting American-made matters but don't prioritize it in purchasing decisions.

These aren't contradictions—they're signals that the market is more sophisticated than most brand strategies acknowledge. Treating this audience as a monolith doesn't just miss the mark creatively; it leaves strategic opportunities untapped.

The Cultural Influence Brands Are Missing

For years, the conventional wisdom held that culture flowed from urban areas to everywhere else. That assumption is increasingly outdated—and it's causing brands to miss early cultural signals that eventually define mainstream trends.

Social media has fundamentally changed where trends originate. Last summer, Chappell Roan drew the largest crowd in Lollapalooza's history and when she casually mentioned Saskatchewan in a track, it sparked over 50,000 social interactions in ten days. A place most Americans had never considered became a cultural reference point.

Beyoncé's "Cowboy Carter" won Album of the Year at the Grammys and drove a 40% increase in young Black listeners tuning into country music. Shaboozey's "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" held the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for 19 weeks. Mormon-originated "dirty soda" expanded from regional curiosity to Sonic adding it to 3,500 locations nationwide.

The business implication? Brands that identify and connect with these cultural movements early gain first-mover advantage in authenticity. Those that wait for trends to reach critical mass are late to market.

For marketers, this represents an opportunity to tap into trend formation before competitors recognize what's emerging.

Strategic Implications

The data points to a clear market opportunity. $2.7 trillion in economic value, according to McKinsey. Demonstrably higher loyalty metrics. Significant cultural influence. And dramatic underinvestment from competitors. Demonstrably higher loyalty metrics. Significant cultural influence. And dramatic underinvestment from competitors.

The brands positioned to win this market won't be those defaulting to stereotypes or treating small-town America as a check-the-box demographic. Success will come from brands that invest in truly understanding this audience—recognizing their complexity, respecting their cultural contributions, and building strategies that reflect who they genuinely are rather than outdated assumptions about who they might be.

This isn't about performative "heartland marketing." It's about recognizing a fundamental shift in where Americans live, how culture forms, and where significant purchasing power resides. The opportunity exists for brands willing to do the strategic work of truly understanding this market.

The question for marketing leaders isn't whether small-town America matters to their business. It's whether they're prepared to build the insights, creative approaches, and media strategies necessary to compete effectively for this audience before competitors do.