Digital marketing trends food and beverage brands cannot ignore in 2026
The specific 2026 digital marketing trends most relevant to food and beverage brands, prioritised for visual discovery and retail media coordination.
5 min read
Voice commerce — purchasing through voice assistants — has grown more slowly and unevenly than early, enthusiastic predictions suggested, with genuine adoption concentrated in specific, narrower use cases rather than the comprehensive voice-shopping vision often described.
Where voice commerce has genuinely found traction
- Simple, repeat reordering of familiar, already-purchased products.
- Basic transactional actions (checking an order status, simple reordering) rather than open-ended product discovery.
- Smart speaker ecosystems where voice is already the primary, established interaction method.
Voice commerce did not fail to materialise — it simply turned out to be genuinely useful for 'reorder my usual' and considerably less useful for 'help me discover and compare products,' which is a narrower, more modest outcome than early predictions suggested.
Why complex product discovery has not worked well via voice
Voice interfaces struggle to present the visual comparison, browsing and detailed evaluation most complex purchase decisions genuinely require, making voice commerce naturally better suited to simple, already-decided transactions than open-ended shopping.
Practical marketing focus for voice commerce
- Optimise for genuine reorder convenience within voice-compatible ecosystems, where relevant to your product.
- Avoid over-investing in complex voice-based product discovery experiences unlikely to match current genuine usage patterns.
- Monitor actual voice commerce adoption data specific to your category rather than relying on general industry hype.
Frequently asked questions
Is voice commerce worth any marketing investment currently?
For categories with strong repeat-purchase patterns, yes, focused specifically on reorder convenience — for categories requiring extensive comparison, the current return is more limited.
How does voice commerce relate to broader voice search optimisation?
They are related but distinct — voice search optimisation for informational queries has broader current relevance than voice commerce transactions specifically, which remain more narrowly adopted.
Will voice commerce adoption grow significantly going forward?
This is genuinely uncertain — monitoring actual adoption trends specific to your category is more reliable than assuming either continued stagnation or a coming breakthrough.
If you want help evaluating whether voice commerce fits your marketing strategy, talk to our team.
The takeaway
Focus voice commerce marketing effort on genuine reorder and simple transaction use cases rather than complex product discovery — this remains where voice commerce actually performs well, distinct from the broader, still-overstated vision of comprehensive voice shopping.
Written by Fibvo — Bengaluru and Erode, India — working with clients in other time zones. Questions, or think we have it wrong? Tell us.
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