Products fly off the shelves before you know it, and suddenly you’re left wondering how to keep up with what customers want next. Sound familiar? Retail has always moved quickly, but lately it feels like trends are running a marathon while we’re still tying our sneakers. Blink and you might miss the next viral moment.
The challenge is no longer whether brands are listening, but whether they’re equipped to understand how consumer demand is forming today and act on it in time.
The Visibility Gap Brands and Retailers Can’t Afford
Understanding consumer interest or dissatisfaction online was once relatively straightforward. Feedback was structured, searchable and concentrated within a few channels: product reviews were posted on ecommerce sites or covered in news media, and discussions were held in online forums. Since most of it was text-based, it was relatively easy to surface those insights using social listening, the right keywords, and tracking #tags and @-mentions.
Consumers are no longer just writing about what they like or dislike. The evolution of modern social platforms focused on video, audio and imagery has made tracking true brand sentiment and mentions a challenge. Product discovery has evolved with it and is now primarily driven by creator-led content on TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, as well as audio in podcasts and voiceovers.
Now, a beverage gains traction through a “get ready with me” series, or a snack goes viral from taste test reaction videos. These products are often embedded naturally into everyday content and are posted without clear brand mentions or searchable tags. As the content spreads organically, the signal builds in plain sight but remains difficult to track.
In fact, Pendulum’s January 2026 analysis of major beverage brands revealed a significant share of engagement occurred outside of traditional mentions. When comparing total social mentions across PepsiCo (97.1K), Coca-Cola (278.4K) and Anheuser-Busch (180.9K), roughly 60% of Anheuser-Busch’s content appeared in audio or video, highlighting just how much consumer attention can go uncaptured without visibility into untyped brand mentions.
High engagement and sentiment now drive demand weeks ahead of search or sales signals, often leaving brands and retailers scrambling to respond. Or worse, brands are left wondering how competitors managed to jump on the momentum before they even knew about it.
This is the gap between brands that are just reacting and those that are leading the pack. Without a clear view of how people are really experiencing and sharing your products, it’s easy to chase the wrong signals and miss what’s actually happening out there.
Why Social Intelligence Helps Define What Goes Viral
Social intelligence goes a step further than old-school listening. It looks at videos, audio and images to show not just what people are saying, but what they’re watching, sharing and loving.
That distinction becomes important when marketers start to leverage social intelligence as a tool to spot trends and an opportunity to catch them early enough to strengthen customer relationships. Brands that shape viral moments are the ones that respond while the window is open.
In practice, that means recognizing the growing influence of creators, understanding how they embed products into everyday content and identifying those early signals. More importantly, it’s knowing when and how to respond.
This requires alignment beyond marketing. For example, when social intelligence identifies a rising trend for a particular product, marketing can ramp up targeted campaigns and tailor content to highlight the features customers are responding to most. Customer experience teams can prepare for increased engagement or common questions, while supply chain teams accelerate planning to ensure availability. At the same time, brands can monitor how competitors respond to the same trend, allowing them to differentiate before demand peaks.
Ultimately, winning a viral moment is about mobilizing the entire organization to act on that moment in sync, turning early signals into sustained impact.
When Timing Can Make or Break a Brand
With social platforms now leading the way for product discovery, it’s a good time to ask: Is your current approach ready for this social-first world?
It may be time to reevaluate your social listening strategy if:
- Post-campaign reports lead strategy decisions
- Competitors seem to capitalize on trends before your team has identified them
- Demand spikes catch supply chains off guard
- Marketing and sales efforts feel reactive
- Customer feedback surfaces after issues are escalated
- There’s a frequent sense of “we should have seen this coming.”
Trends can come and go in a flash. If you wait too long, you might miss your moment. Acting on early signals helps you catch demand at its peak, while waiting around can lead to lost sales and playing catch-up.
Seeing What Others Miss
As creators continue to be the voice of what’s hot and what’s not, the gap between what brands notice and what’s really driving demand will only widen.
The consumer signals are already in the creator content that starts to gain traction, in how they react, share and talk about products. The challenge is understanding where to find it, how it spreads, what it signals about demand before it fully takes shape and, ideally, recognizing when current social listening strategies fail to capture that.
Daniella Sampson is Head of Marketing at Pendulum. With over 15 years of brand marketing experience, she has transformed global brands through bold storytelling and even bolder execution. As head of marketing at Pendulum, she provides critical insight into today’s PR and Marketing professionals. Her strategic approach to branding has landed her brands on The Today Show, showcased in SXSW, and shortlisted for industry marketing awards.
