#marketing-trends

#marketing-trends

Fern Potter, the chief strategy and growth officer at Multilocal, explained that the rise of curation in the last 18 months is driven by deal management, automation, and algorithmic influence. She noted that AI is helping to 'tidy up our house' with data, significantly impacting discoverability.

If carefully channeled chaos and stunt marketing defined 2025, what will 2026 usher in? Inc. put that question to three of the most entrepreneurially minded chief marketing officers, whose work leading branding, product launches, partnerships, and collaborations for fast-growing companies landed them on our annual Best in Business list, and asked for their predictions about where marketing is headed in the new year. Here's what they said.

Direct mail marketing is experiencing a resurgence, driven by its effectiveness in reaching consumers, and integrating tactile experiences alongside digital strategies to enhance engagement.

The old model of behind-the-scenes tracking is running out of road. Consent-driven interaction is taking its place, with trust and transparency becoming brand assets.

The subscription economy has exploded in recent years, by one estimate growing by over 400% over the past decade. Companies love the idea of recurring revenue and sticky customer contracts that require some effort to escape.

The MSA Festival of Media 2025 is themed 'Bridging Progress' and aims to redefine meaningful engagement in a rapidly changing media landscape.

More than two-thirds of today's B2B buyers are Millennials or Gen Z professionals, who have fundamentally different expectations about how purchasing should work.

Over the past decade, marketers have become experts in identity resolution. We've mapped behaviors across devices, stitched together customer records, and built sprawling graphs that promise a 360-degree view of the customer.

Rising demand among marketers for AI search expertise drives agencies to create specialist units to assist clients in understanding technology's impact on consumer habits.

In the past two decades, there's been a steady uptick in brands and corporations embracing Pride, a trend sometimes criticized as being superficial, or 'pinkwashing.'

Experiential branding invites people to do more than notice a brand; it invites them to feel it, transforming distant concepts into lived experiences.

The eternal pull of B&W is illustrated in how Audi’s recent model for China uses a minimalist approach, illustrating a brand voice of 'the future, lived now.'

Purpose is no longer a campaign angle. It's the foundation. Brands are being rewarded not just for taking a stance, but for building that stance into how they operate.

Total Wine & More capitalized on an unexpected jingle success, launching a major advertising campaign around it, significantly increasing their ad budget amid industry challenges.

"Uncertainty creates a pensive and anxious consumer," noted Colgate-Palmolive CEO Noel Wallace during the company's recent first-quarter earnings call.