Revealed: Marketing leaders’ budgets, trends and investment priorities for year ahead

Industry barometers and trend predictions are a familiar feature in January and usually provide a predictable pulse-check on budgets, brand and behaviour. However, nothing about the year ahead seems predictable right now. 

Marketing feels like it’s at a tipping point as the rapid expansion of AI threatens to upend every part of what we do. Add to this an increasingly volatile global environment with potential conflict and tariffs dominating the first weeks of the year, and uncertainty reins. 

This makes the results of MAD//Fest’s Where’s Your Head At?, our survey of 150 marketing leaders, a fascinating read. We asked the industry how they feel about the year ahead, what trends they’re backing and where their big challenges lie. Here’s a taster.

Marketing budgets rise

Despite uncertainty in the market, businesses are not slashing marketing budgets for the year ahead. In fact, 70% of the leaders surveyed expect growth in their budget for 2026 compared to just 15% that predict a decline.

What's more, over a fifth (21%) of marketers say their budget will see significant growth this year.

Among consumer-facing brands, there’s been a notable shift away from relying on raising prices to drive growth with many big FMCG companies looking to drive volume increases.

Unilever CEO Fernando Fernandez has pledged to “significantly invest” in brand and marketing as it looks to build a “marketing and sales machine”.

The consumer products giant increased brand and marketing investment by 40 basis points to 15.5% of turnover in its last reported half year.

Nestlė has also been “stepping” up its growth investment, with its advertising and marketing budget up to 9% of sales by the end of 2025. The last time Nestlė spent this proportion of sales on marketing was pre-Covid in 2019.

One notable trend to pull out is the rise of GEO. Half of the marketers surveyed put the shift from SEO to GEO as one of their top three trends for the year ahead.

Apps like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and CoPilot, and Google’s AI overview - which is now featured on around 50% of searches - are growing in popularity. According to a McKinsey survey, half of consumers intentionally seek out AI-powered search engines, therefore it’s imperative that brands now stand out and reach customers through this new medium of search.

The marketing manager of a workplace tech platform says: “Marketing in 2026 will be defined by the growing challenge of visibility in an AI-driven search landscape. As algorithms increasingly curate results based on user intent and generative models, traditional SEO tactics will lose influence. 

“Success will depend on creating genuinely authoritative, human-centered content that earns trust and relevance across AI ecosystems, not just search engines.”

Read the full Where's Your Head At? report to find out:

• Where marketing leaders are making big investments
• Which trends are expected to blow up
• What AI investments they are prioritising
• Where the biggest challenges of 2026 lie