CMOs to Prioritize Brand Marketing in 2026
Brand marketing will be the top priority for marketers in 2026, according to Digiday research. The focus comes after many brands fell short of revenue expectations in the previous year. This signals a strategic shift back to the fundamentals of brand building and storytelling, even as AI and automation tools become more widespread.
- The focus on brand marketing is a response to the fact that only about 5% of a target market is actively looking to purchase at any given time, making it crucial to build familiarity with the other 95% before they are ready to buy. - CMOs are facing increased pressure to justify marketing spend with clear ROI, leading to a focus on attribution models that connect brand-building activities to revenue growth. Budget and resource constraints are the top challenge for 63% of CMOs. - The rise of AI-driven search and "Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)" is forcing brands to build strong online credibility and topical authority to be recommended by AI assistants and search engines. This makes brand recognition a key factor in an increasingly AI-mediated environment. - While 87.4% of marketers report using AI in their work, a primary challenge for CMOs is the pressure to implement AI without a clear roadmap, leading to a gap between expectation and execution. Gartner predicts that by 2027, 80% of enterprise marketers will use generative AI daily. - Creative teams are adopting AI to accelerate workflows, with AI handling repetitive tasks like resizing assets and generating initial drafts, allowing designers to focus on strategy and concept development. This shift is compressing creative turnaround times from days to hours. - Agencies like Superside and Creaitive AI are increasingly using integrated human-AI workflows to scale creative production for clients, offering services from AI-led campaign visuals to automated content creation. Case studies from brands like Unilever and BMW show AI-driven ad variations leading to increased click-through rates and more efficient media spending. - The proliferation of AI-generated content has made brand authenticity a key differentiator. Consumers are rewarding authentic messaging and penalizing content that feels robotic, pushing brands to balance AI-driven efficiency with a human touch. - As AI takes over more routine tasks, the structure of marketing organizations is expected to flatten, reorganizing around more flexible, project-based models with marketers supervising intelligent systems rather than executing individual campaigns.
