After years of chasing clicks and endless optimisation, something's shifting. 2025 gave us the first real signals that marketers are tired of being simply short term, conversion machines. 2026? That's when we do something about it, believes Jonathan Stark, Managing Partner, Stick and Twist.

1. Brand reclaims its strategic seat

Rising platform costs, diminishing returns and the uncomfortable truth that we've been chasing volume over value are forcing a reckoning. Marketing has painted itself into a corner - becoming obsessed with lower funnel over all else and creating a conversion engine at the expense of sustainable growth.

But the pendulum's swinging back, hard. After a decade dominated by last-click attribution (which is still stubbornly clinging on by its fingernails) and endless dashboards, 2026 will see brand return to the centre of marketing strategy - as a genuine strategic asset that creates pricing power, resilience and long-term value.

2026 will see marketers building integrated growth strategies where clear positioning, smarter segmentation and full-funnel investment actually drive better conversions.

Short-term pressure will remain intense. However, those organisations that reorient towards long-term brand building will create competitive advantages that pure performance plays simply won't match. In crowded, noisy markets under sustained financial pressure, the strongest brands will be the ones that thrive.

2. AI shifts from efficiency theatre to genuine productivity

AI has been everywhere in 2025, mostly promising to make everything faster and cheaper. Fine. But 2026 is when we move beyond the automation narrative and start talking about what actually matters: productivity and impact.

The conversation is already evolving from 'AI vs. humans' to 'AI x humans' and that momentum will accelerate next year. Applied thoughtfully, AI absorbs operational grunt work, generates insights faster and supports creative development, providing space for strategic thinking and wider impact. The most effective teams won't just bolt AI onto existing processes - they'll redesign roles, skills and ways of working around this new reality.

TLDR: AI doesn't replace human judgment, creativity or strategic thinking - it amplifies it. The marketers winning in 2026 will be the ones who've figured out how to use it as a multiplier, not a replacement.

3. Measurement gets rebuilt for a messier, signal-poor world

The dream of 'perfect' attribution is dying and good riddance. Continued signal loss, evolving privacy regulations and black-box platform models mean we can no longer pretend we have complete visibility into customer journeys (if we ever truly did). First-party data on its own doesn't cut it either for most businesses, giving them such a narrow view.

2026 will see more blended measurement approaches: combining intent data, econometrics, experimentation and brand metrics alongside customer data to create a more rounded view of impact. These approaches are more directional but allow businesses to shape growth strategies and put more weight on understanding customer value, not chasing vanity metrics.

The year ahead

2026 is a story of rebirth for brand, smarter integration across businesses and a refusal to let marketing be defined by the next shiny tool or platform update. It requires maturity and strong leadership: equal parts vision and execution, mixing intuition with insights and data points. It means acknowledging what we can't measure perfectly, investing in outcomes and trusting that building genuine brand equity still matters in a world obsessed with instant results.

It's going to be a fascinating year to be part of.