This month @Deloitte published “Five Trends Shaping Marketing in 2026”. Here’s the TL;DR ↓ 1. Budget pressure is rising: shorter horizons, tighter spend, more CFO scrutiny, and tougher ROI demands. 2. Consumers are more selective and cutting non-essentials, but will still pay more when the value feels clear. 3. Customer experience is becoming a bigger differentiator, and discovery is shifting beyond search to social, creators, communities, and recommendations. 4. AI can lower content costs, speed production, and improve personalisation – but trust is shaky. 5. Most firms are investing more in AI, yet big returns from agentic AI are still rare. Value often takes years and depends on systems, governance, and operating model – not tools alone. My reading: 2026 is probably the year when everything that used to work in marketing suddenly stopped working – attribution broke, and ROAS started falling across key acquisition channels. If I had to share my 5 marketing projections for 2027, they’d be: • More experimentation with AI optimisation; a race for recommendations and citations • A marketing-budget crisis – and increased demand for evidence-based marketing • A new rise of guerrilla and situational marketing • Trust/brand become economic assets • AI becomes part of marketing workflows; teams that ignore AI underperform and get fired What are yours?