Hollywood has just confirmed what many marketers have been slow to fully act on:Age is no longer a proxy for relevance — or restraint. New research from AARP shows that audiences 50 and over are not only watching more movies and streaming content — they are shaping how stories about aging, ambition, romance, and relevance […]
ANA’s CEO Discusses Trust, Brand Loyalty, and What Marketing Must Get Right in 2026 As marketers enter 2026, the tension between acceleration and trust has never been more visible. New technologies—especially AI—are unlocking extraordinary possibilities, yet recent consumer backlash to AI-generated advertising is reminding brands of a timeless truth: innovation without authenticity erodes trust. That […]
The CMO job market is no longer in recovery. It’s in overdrive. According to new data from executive search firm Taligence, global CMO appointments rose more than 60% in 2025, extending a multi-year surge in senior marketing leadership movement. On the surface, it looks like a vote of confidence in marketing’s strategic importance. Look closer, […]
What the return of the Most Interesting Man reveals about confidence, credibility, and why some brands age better than others. For a category under pressure—crowded shelves, shifting tastes, younger consumers drinking less—the instinct is often to chase novelty. New faces. New formats. New relevance cues. And yet, one of the most talked-about advertising moves this […]
For years, the marketing industry has spoken the language of partnership. Long-term relationships. Strategic collaboration. Shared ambition. New research from the European Association of Communications Agencies (EACA), however, suggests a growing disconnect between what marketers say they want from agencies—and the conditions they create for those relationships to succeed. Based on responses from nearly 150 […]
Nonprofits are often the first to feel cultural change—not because they’re different from brands, but because the stakes are higher. When people give their own money rather than spend it, their motivations are more revealing, their expectations more demanding, and their tolerance for misalignment far lower. That’s why the shifts happening in nonprofit marketing today—around […]
As formal multilateralism weakens, smaller alliances are holding—while polarization, consumer anxiety, and geopolitical risk rise beneath the surface. Opening: A Tense Davos Moment Davos has always been a mirror of the moment. In past years, that mirror reflected confidence in globalization, faith in multilateral institutions, and—at times—an optimism about the power of collective action. Davos […]
Signals by Deborah Malone — helping leaders make sense of what’s changing, and what endures. Artificial intelligence is no longer hovering at the edges of marketing and advertising. It is moving from tool to infrastructure — embedded in how campaigns are planned, media is optimized, content is produced, and customer interactions are managed. That shift […]
The authors of HONE explain how purposeful refinement—not constant reinvention—helps marketers sustain clarity, relevance, and organizational momentum amid exponential change. For years, business leaders—and marketers in particular—have been urged to disrupt, reinvent, and transform. But according to Geoff Tuff and Steven Goldbach, Principals at Deloitte and authors of HONE: How Purposeful Leaders Defy Drift, that […]
Five forces quietly reshaping the ad market, according to Madison & Wall. For decades, advertising growth has tracked closely with consumer spending. The logic is straightforward: marketers invest to influence demand, so ad budgets rise and fall with consumption. But over the past several years, that relationship has fractured. Advertising revenues have grown significantly faster […]
