Solo Consumers Are Exposing Brand Design Assumptions

The Research Agency (TRA) released its Solo study on October 15, finding that 36% of people across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand are not currently in a relationship. Based on quantitative and qualitative research with 2,006 adults, the study says many products, prices and communications still assume a couple or nuclear family.

The marketing gap is larger than representation. For CMOs, the decision is whether Solo consumers remain an audience segment or become a test of how the business designs value.

What TRA Found About Solo Consumers

TRA found that Solo status spans age and circumstance. It applies to 43% of people aged 18 to 34, 35% of those aged 35 to 54 and 31% of people aged 55 and over. Only 6% of Solos are actively seeking a partner, while just over one-third choose to be single and want to remain that way.

The study also documents a perception gap. Some 61% of Solos believe society sees single people as lonely, although only 44% of partnered respondents associate being single with loneliness. Solos were more likely to describe the experience through independence, freedom and flexibility.

“Solos are a substantial, diverse consumer group, not a niche audience waiting to become a household of two or more,” said Daniel Talbot, TRA Group Business Director and Innovation Lead. A young adult living with parents, a single parent and an older person living independently face different constraints.

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Representation Cannot Fix A Two-Person Offer

TRA identifies what it calls the cumulative cost of a marketplace designed for more than one. Family packs can create waste. Hotel rooms and tours can carry single supplements. Loyalty benefits, mortgage communications and entertainment plans can make the couple or family the default unit of value.

That changes the CMO brief. Communications teams can remove stereotypes, but marketing leaders also need product, pricing, digital, operations and risk teams to remove structural friction. A Solo customer shown buying a home is not being served if eligibility language or advice journeys still presume a second applicant.

“Representation matters, but the bigger opportunity for brands is to examine the assumptions built into the whole customer experience,” said Laura Mulcahy, TRA Head of Cultural Practice. The task is to connect what the brand depicts with what the customer can buy, qualify for and use.

Some Categories Are Redesigning The Economics

Travel provides a visible adjacent example. Vantage Explorations advertises dedicated solo cabins across its 2026 and 2027 small-ship seasons, with no single supplement on selected voyages. In September, solo operator Just You promoted 100 itineraries with guaranteed rooms and no single supplement. These offers compete on the underlying commercial penalty, not only on imagery.

The demographic context suggests this is broader than travel. Australian Bureau of Statistics projections put lone-person households at 2.64 million in 2021 and between 3.44 million and 3.96 million by 2046. Stats NZ reported that one-person households represented 22.8% of New Zealand households in the 2023 Census. Living alone is not the same as being unpartnered, but both measures show why household assumptions deserve scrutiny.

The competitive question is where a rival makes independence easier, through pack size, individual pricing, underwriting or loyalty.

What CMOs Should Audit Next

TRA reported life satisfaction of 44% among Solos, compared with 66% among partnered people, alongside lower satisfaction across finances, living arrangements, social life, work-life balance, mental wellbeing and connection. That does not make Solo life a problem for brands to solve. It shows where products and systems may add avoidable pressure.

CMOs should start with a cross-functional audit of the customer journey. Segment Solo customers by life stage and circumstance, then examine pack architecture, price per user, eligibility, loyalty thresholds, service scripts, default imagery and milestone language. The useful measure is not how many single people appear in a campaign, but whether conversion, retention, satisfaction and complaints improve when two-person assumptions are removed.

TRA's announcement suggests a wider standard for inclusive marketing. Senior marketers may need to treat representation as the promise and product design as the proof. Brands that align both could earn relevance with a large, varied consumer group without reducing it to a relationship label.