Paul L Gunn Jr

expert panel

Increasingly strict data usage and privacy regulations have expanded protections for consumers. But for marketing teams and agencies, they’ve rewritten the digital advertising playbook. The ad industry has scrambled to adapt by reworking ad spend, retraining teams and investing in first-party datasets. However, a significant challenge still remains: “Show us the ROI” conversations with C-suites and clients are more difficult than ever.  Third-party cookies are fading, consent banners are everywhere, and platforms keep tightening what can be tracked. With limited access to consumer data, proving performance with concise, data-driven attribution reports is neither as easy nor as reliable as it used to be. When you can’t follow every user breadcrumb, you need a smarter way to connect marketing activity to business outcomes that clients actually care about. So what replaces the old playbook now that the days of detailed digital dashboards are over? In today’s marketplace, the strongest strategies blend tighter targeting, bottom-line proof points and carefully crafted conversations. Below, members of the Senior Executive CMO Think Tank share what’s working for them as they seek to pinpoint and prove the ROI of their digital marketing.

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Personalization was intended to be the “concierge” of digital marketing: a helpful nudge, a timely reminder or a suggested shortcut that made a customer feel understood. Somewhere along the way, however, personalized marketing started feeling more like a carnival barker with a confetti cannon—loud, distracting and relentless, as well as oddly confident about what you “must” want to see next. And all those sights and sounds aren’t just overwhelming; they’re often off-kilter and off-putting. In one survey, two-thirds of global consumers reported being targeted by inaccurate or invasive marketing. Now, Gartner’s November 2025 report, “Leadership Vision for 2026: Chief Marketing Officer,” adds a sharper warning: Overly aggressive, algorithm-driven personalization can actively weaken trust and leave consumers feeling overwhelmed with information and hesitant or regretful about making purchases. Even so, abandoning personalization altogether isn’t the answer; the majority of consumers still expect personalized interactions and are frustrated if they don’t receive them.  So what does “better personalization” look like in 2026, and how can CMOs make customers feel seen, not herded? Below, members of the Senior Executive CMO Think Tank share their takeaways from the Gartner report as well as practical strategies to help marketing teams produce personalized messaging that’s compelling rather than creepy. 

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If you’ve recently used Google to track down a quick answer, you may have read the summary at the top of the results page and moved on. When time is tight and the information is clear and straightforward, that instant snapshot can be enough to meet your immediate needs. Or perhaps you’ve taken the route increasingly favored by users and leveraged a generative AI tool like ChatGPT or Claude for research or shopping. Both those scenarios reflect a single truth: Competitiveness in the world of online search is becoming more and more about being the source an algorithm trusts enough to summarize, cite or synthesize.  Brands that have spent years tuning keyword strategies and chasing incremental ranking gains need to rethink their strategies. Recent findings underscore the stakes: A Pew Research Center analysis shows that when an AI summary appears at the top of a Google results page, users are less likely to click one of the links below. This means regularly winning a coveted spot on the first page of search results won’t necessarily drive steady traffic to your website. In this moment, the real question isn’t whether SEO is “dead”; it’s whether your brand messaging is accessible and understandable for AI algorithms without being bland and forgettable to humans. The members of the Senior Executive CMO Think Tank live at the intersection of brand storytelling and AI-driven marketing changes. Here, they discuss practical, future-focused search strategies for brands, including how to make content easier for AI to interpret, the authority signals that make it worth surfacing, and how to balance visibility with authenticity and impact.

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CMOs accustomed to a focus on crafting polished brand messages for their own websites and traditional search are waking up to a new digital marketplace. Increasingly, buyers aren’t clicking links on search pages—they’re going to AI assistants to do work-related research, get detailed answers to personal questions, find product recommendations and even manage shopping lists. Brands can no longer rely solely on Google rankings—they need to show up in the AI-generated summaries people read, quote and act on. While a November 2025 Semrush report noted that ChatGPT is citing Reddit and Wikipedia less frequently than it has in the past, they’re still among its top three sources—a signal that “useful” content in the GenAI era often looks less like a polished campaign page and more like a living knowledge base. Companies are responding in a shift that’s been framed as a move toward generative engine optimization (GEO), where visibility increasingly depends on whether your expertise is shared in such a way that it answers real questions and can be pulled, summarized and trusted in AI-driven results.  So what new strategies should marketing leaders pursue in the face of these changes? Here, members of the Senior Executive CMO Think Tank—experts in brand storytelling, digital advertising, customer engagement and the rise of AI in marketing—share what these citation patterns suggest about the content AI models treat as credible and offer practical ways to rethink content and engagement.

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Now that Google is indexing Instagram content, the borders between social and search have been redrawn, turning visually led, storytelling-driven posts into searchable assets. What once existed solely within a brand’s Instagram feed can now appear alongside its most curated web pages, turning an educational carousel or a simple Reel into a potential driver of search discovery. This shift arrives as search behavior continues to transform. A 2024 Statista survey found that 46% of Gen Z respondents prefer social media to search engines to find information, showing that social content increasingly informs which products and services younger consumers find, trust and eventually buy. When Instagram posts meet users at the exact moment of intent, they become more than engagement drivers; they become micro-landing pages capable of pulling new audiences into your ecosystem. Even so, opportunity comes with strategic challenges. Optimize too lightly, and you miss the visibility gains. Optimize too aggressively, and you risk watering down the creativity and authenticity that makes social content worth engaging with in the first place. Here, members of the Senior Executive CMO Think Tank explore how brands can navigate this new search-social convergence, sharing their insights to help marketing teams rethink their approach to Instagram content.

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Authenticity is a recognized cornerstone of effective marketing—especially in a high-information digital marketplace. Savvy consumers understand the ways advertisers seek to influence them and increasingly doubt highly polished messaging, seeking genuine signals that a brand’s actions align with its stated values.  Studies of consumer behavior have shown that emotions influence engagement and purchasing behavior. And when a brand is able to make a genuine connection with its audience, the impact goes beyond just making the sale: Salsify’s 2025 Consumer Research report found that 87% of shoppers are willing to pay more for a product from a brand they genuinely trust.  As experts in brand storytelling and customer engagement, the members of the Senior Executive CMO Think Tank understand that, in a saturated, noisy market, clarity and consistency are no longer just differentiators—they’re necessities. Consequently, understanding what “authentic” truly means has never been more vital. Here, five of them share their definitions of authenticity, identify the qualities that distinguish trustworthy brands, and share examples of companies that have successfully built lasting connections by staying true to themselves and their target audiences.

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In the brand marketing world, there’s always been a scramble to catch consumers’ attention. In a digital marketplace, jostling for position takes place moment by moment, and finding a hook that grabs the audience can make a game-changing difference for both new and established brands. In this spirit, unlikely brand pairings are having a moment. Cross-industry collaborations are gaining momentum as brands look for fresh ways to earn new audience attention in an oversaturated market. A quirky matchup can spark curiosity, intrigue or delight—maybe even a viral moment. From beauty lines teaming up with cookie makers to fast food giants joining forces with toothpaste brands, the collision of categories is becoming a bona fide strategy rather than a passing stunt.  But as any CMO will tell you, “novelty” campaigns that catch fire quickly can also burn out fast. The marketing leaders of Senior Executive CMO Think Tank spend their days navigating the intersections of brand storytelling and customer psychology. They know that the real magic happens only when the bold and unexpected is grounded in something meaningful—alignment, authenticity and a reason for customers to care long after the initial surprise wears off. Here, a group of them share what it really takes to turn a head-turning partnership into an enduring marketing advantage.

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As bot networks swell and AI tools pump out endless content, it can be hard to separate genuine human input from digital noise in the bustling online marketplace. From fake followers to bot-created faux outrage campaigns, gauging whether your brand is sparking real connection or just attracting automated cheers (or jeers) has become a high-stakes challenge. It’s estimated that bots account for more than 50% of internet traffic—and they’re skewing marketing metrics in their wake. For marketing leaders, this distortion can create dangerous illusions. Dashboards can look healthy—even impressive—but surface-level performance numbers can mask genuine audience behavior, and relying on them can send teams chasing the wrong strategies, the wrong channels and the wrong assumptions about what’s working. Members of the Senior Executive CMO Think Tank emphasize that in a landscape where metrics can be manufactured and noise can mimic relevance, the real competitive edge comes from learning to listen more carefully. Here, they share tips on how to pinpoint authentic human engagement and focus on the signals that cut through the static rather than amplify it. 

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In recent years, several prominent brands have learned that marketing can misfire when it collides with consumer sentiment. Bud Light, American Eagle and Cracker Barrel, among others, have drawn public attention not for their creativity or ambition, but for misreading how audiences would react to “clever” campaigns or evolving branding. Even well-intentioned marketing or modernization efforts can alienate longtime customers if they believe campaigns aren’t grounded in authenticity and respect. For marketing leaders, these examples underscore the need for disciplined “backfire filters”—structured ways to assess cultural sensitivity, audience alignment and brand equity before campaigns reach the public. Here, senior marketing experts from the Senior Executive CMO Think Tank share how they would have approached the internal conversations surrounding recent “marketing misfires.”

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The marketing agency landscape faces its most significant transformation in decades. With global AI spending for sales and marketing reaching $57.99 billion in 2025 and 88% of marketers now using AI tools daily, the dynamics between brands and their external partners have fundamentally shifted. The era when agencies could command premium fees for producing content, managing campaigns or generating creative assets is rapidly closing. AI is automating repetitive workflows and enabling real-time personalization and campaign optimization, fundamentally changing what clients can do for themselves—and what they can’t—as well as what they value and are willing to pay for.  Success in this new landscape requires a fundamental recalibration of what marketing consultants and agencies sell—and how they prove their worth. Here, members of the Senior Executive CMO Think Tank—specializing in brand strategy, digital transformation and the integration of emerging technologies—offer critical insights into how consultants and agencies must reposition themselves to remain indispensable.

expert panel

expert panel

Advertising on streaming platforms is no longer at the margins—it’s squarely in the mainstream. As of March 2025, streaming accounted for 43.8% of overall TV time in the U.S.—an increase of 10 points over two years. Meanwhile, linear TV’s primetime ad sales continue a gradual decline—2025-26 primetime ad sales were down 2.5% from the previous upfront, dropping by $1.2 billion since 2023-24 upfronts. For brands, this shift is driving a full-scale reevaluation of media strategy: where to reallocate budgets, how to measure results and how to avoid wasted spend in new formats. Members of the Senior Executive CMO Think Tank—a curated group of marketing leaders with deep expertise in brand storytelling, digital advertising and more—discuss how the shift to streaming media should influence advertising investment decisions, where the biggest opportunities lie in connected TV, and how to spot and manage risks.

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With Meta reportedly planning to fully automate ad creation by 2026—from copywriting and creative to targeting and placement—CMOs face a pivotal question: What’s left for human marketers? Members of the Senior Executive CMO Think Tank share their insights on the risks, rewards and redefinition of creative work in the age of AI.