A new nationwide survey of Black, Hispanic, and Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) voters is offering brands a reality check: when it comes to choosing between two similar products, quality and price still beat everything else.
That’s a bit of a blow to the values-driven marketing companies have poured billions into over the past decade.
The survey, conducted by Embold Research on behalf of URL Media between June 16 and July 2, 2026, polled 1,226 multicultural adults nationwide, including 413 AAPI, 405 Black, and 408 Hispanic respondents.
“Surveying a population is an effective way to hear from a large, representative set of people at once and identify attitudes, beliefs, and experiences, rather than relying on a handful of unrepresentative individual stories or opinions,” said Trenton Marlar, senior analyst at Embold. “That’s notably important for this survey’s multicultural population, where a handful of individuals’ perspectives likely won’t capture its full diversity. This survey’s large, representative sample lets us hear from these populations with far more depth and confidence in the results.”
The findings suggest that while brand loyalty in these communities is often framed around identity and representation, the deciding factor at the register is a practical one.
The survey also found a surprising signal about who multicultural consumers trust to show up for their communities: the healthcare industry. Across all three groups, healthcare ranked as the industry seen as doing the most to support Black, Hispanic, and AAPI communities.
That trust wasn’t uniform, though. Younger respondents in each group leaned more heavily toward food and beverage as a close second, while older voters stayed firmly loyal to healthcare.
Among AAPI respondents, the survey found a gender split: women were more likely to point to food and beverage as supportive, while men pointed to technology. Young Black voters stood out for naming media and entertainment as the industry most invested in their community. That was a distinctly different answer than older Black respondents, who again pointed to healthcare.
That response from older Black respondents was counterintuitive. There is documented evidence of Black Americans often mistrusting the medical profession. In the modern era, that can sometimes be because of implicit bias. In the Jim Crow era, doctors sometimes chose not to treat Black people or, famously, tricked them into participating in studies without informed consent.
After all, “there could be no quality healthcare in a segregated nation,” wrote Nicole Carr, Morehouse College professor and author of “The Price of Exclusion.”
Hispanic voters under 65 were split evenly between food and beverage and healthcare, while those 65 and older favored healthcare by a wide margin.
But despite these gender and generational splits, marketers can still build trust with the demographics surveyed, if they do the work. For example, “Asian Americans take notice when brands support us and connect with us in authentic and genuine ways,” wrote Genny Hom-Franzen of 3AF, the Asian American Advertising Federation.
For companies chasing loyalty among these communities, the data cuts two ways. It confirms that flashy values campaigns won’t outweigh a better product at a better price. But it also shows real trust is being built by companies these communities feel are actually showing up for them, not just marketing to them.
As multicultural spending power grows, the message from this data is clear. Representation gets attention, but consistency earns trust.
And for now, quality and price still close the sale.
