INTO DEEPER WATERS: Encouraging marketing to stop playing safe and start fixing things

When I sat down to write my 2026 reflections on marketing and positive impact, I felt the weight of the moment. The industry and political climate are far from ideal, yet we are only five years from 2030 — the decade when the world was meant to build an economy more in balance with people and planet. Still, I hold onto one belief: marketing is a force for good.

After more than 20 years in this profession, I’ve seen how brands shape culture and behaviour. I’ve worked with brilliant marketers who combine rigour and creativity to build products, services and stories that genuinely influence how people live. That is power — and it’s time to channel it into deeper waters.

Instead, marketing keeps paddling in the shallow end: chasing efficiency, reach and AI‑optimised sameness while the world around us struggles with problems many brands helped create. In 2026, the real opportunity isn’t for the brands swimming fastest in 1.2‑metre‑deep water, but for the ones brave enough to dive into the deep — where responsibility, creativity and commercial growth finally meet.

Shallow waters are the most dangerous place for marketers to be

Anyone who has sailed knows this: shallow waters are where you get stuck. Marketing is stuck.

We keep optimising the same 4Ps, the same funnels, the same KPIs, the same “growth at all costs” playbook. AI has simply made the hamster wheel spin faster — but faster isn’t better if you’re going in circles.

The real opportunities sit in deeper water, where brands stop asking “How do we sell more?” and start asking “How do we create more value?”

Between 1935 and 2013, the American Marketing Association updated its definition of marketing five times, each time expanding the idea of value beyond profit. The latest definition states that marketing creates offerings that have value “for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

Value that reflects what people actually care about: relationships, time, nature, health, belonging, equality, joy, community, purpose.

These are emotional territories — and emotional territories are where creativity thrives.

Look at the rise of women’s sport and the Paralympics. Brands investing here aren’t just buying visibility; they’re buying cultural relevance, emotional connection and long‑term loyalty. That’s deep water. And it’s commercially smart.

Creativity becomes more powerful — not less — when brands tackle real problems

Marketing effectiveness depends on creative effectiveness. Every CMO at Cannes says it. Every System1‑type study proves it. Creativity works because it moves people emotionally — and nothing is more emotional than the things people truly value.

Yet marketers often believe “purpose” kills creativity. It doesn’t. Bad purpose kills creativity. Good purpose — rooted in desirability, humour, design, storytelling and product truth — unlocks it.

Some of the most exciting innovations today are also more sustainable and socially positive:

• Wamo taxis, shifting urban mobility away from private cars: safer personalised journeys, fewer accidents, only EVs.
• Virgin’s new high‑speed trains, finally challenging Eurostar and nudging people from flights to rail.
• Intermarché’s “Unloved Wolf” campaign, promoting healthier lifestyles because it’s good for people and good for basket value.

These aren’t CSR side projects. They’re commercially competitive moves that reshape categories.

Deep water forces marketers to ask bigger questions: What category are we really in? And how can we make the world better through it?

Spirits aren’t just in alcohol — they’re in social connection. Sunglasses aren’t just in vision — they’re in empowerment. Trains aren’t just in mobility — they’re in life memories. Food isn’t just in taste — it’s in wellbeing and culture.

Reframing the category unlocks meaningful creative and commercial space. It gives brands permission to go deeper and further.

Fixing the world is not someone else’s job — it’s marketing’s next competitive advantage

For years, marketers tried to “comms” their way out of climate change: first greenwashing, then greenhushing, then relief when sustainability supposedly “died” under inflation and political pressure.

But sustainability didn’t die. Long live sustainability.

It simply stopped being a compliance exercise and started becoming a growth strategy.

Consumers do buy better products — when they’re better on all fronts: performance, taste, design, convenience, price and impact.

Smaller challenger brands prove this faster because they must punch above their weight. Take Tony’s Chocolonely: they innovate across supply chain, partnerships, product and culture — not just comms — and grow with meaning and momentum.

The biggest cultural tailwinds of 2026 are all impact‑driven:

• the rise of women’s and Paralympic sport
• the future‑of‑food revolution
• the shift to cleaner mobility and cleaner energy
• the demand for emotional, human storytelling
• the opportunity to channel AI toward good outcomes rather than repetitive noise

Deep water is where deeper money is found.

Time to dive

Marketing has a choice in 2026: stay in the shallow end, optimising the same levers for the same outcomes, or swim into deeper water where creativity, responsibility and competitiveness finally align.

Three truths guide the way:

1. Shallow waters keep us stuck and repetitive. They don’t create stories worth telling the next generation.
2. Deep waters unlock creativity and purpose. They require adventure, resilience and partnerships — but the rewards are far greater.
3. Fixing real problems is the next frontier of brand growth. People care. People buy. And they often pay a premium for products that perform and make the world better.

If marketing doesn’t help shape what a “good life” looks like, who will? If brands don’t help fix the world, who will?

It’s time to make different, better marketing decisions that drive different, better outcomes. It’s time to dive deeper.