Today’s consumers are overwhelmed, skeptical, and searching for meaning in the spaces where they spend their time.
These trends for 2026 reveal what audiences are craving now: refuge, creativity, honesty, and community.
In the year ahead, brands won’t win by being everywhere; they’ll win by being brave, intentional, and unmistakably human.
1. Refuge Is the New Reach
Not to be a downer, but we all know it’s rough out there. People are burned out, so they’re naturally turning to entertainment as a salve. McCann calls it the $13.9 trillion Escape Economy. But empty distraction isn’t cutting it anymore; people crave renewal.
That need connects three major shifts we expect in 2026:
- Affection over attention: Mintel projects that loyalty will build slower, through immersive, emotional brand moments like Hermes’ “Mystery at the Grooms,” a collection of playful, luxury-coded escape room installations.
- A “livable web”: Backlash against overcomplicated online spaces; people will seek lighter, friendlier, low-stakes connections through more privately curated communities facilitated by Instagram’s Close Friends lists and Discord’s private servers. (Collective Measures)
- Offline experiences: A resurgence in real-world activations as screens lose luster (Forrester). Even Gen Z, the “digital generation,” is leading a quiet retail renaissance, returning to malls for shared moments (not stuff) just to feel “real” again.
▶︎ Brave brands in 2026 won’t chase attention; they’ll offer refuge.
They’ll design escape as empathy with experiences that calm, surprise, or transport, creating emotional anchors that last longer than any click.
2. Connected TV’s Coming of Age Story
It’s been a long time coming, but in 2026 Connected TV finally lives up to its hype. CTV has grown into a serious channel for reliable reach, delivering the scale of television with the precision of digital. It’s a serious contender for the most effective advertising channel, tying with social media and pulling well ahead of search.
This momentum reflects streaming behavior and ad tech maturing together. According to tvScientific, CTV accounted for about a quarter of total media spend in 2025 and approximately 77% of small and midsize businesses are already running CTV campaigns. Roku has even projected the “extinction of the ad-free viewer,” noting that 2025 marked the first year U.S. adults spent more time with CTV than traditional television.
▶︎ Viewers are on board too, as many find targeted CTV ads more engaging and distinctive, especially when paired with interactive or shoppable elements.
In 2026, the brave will treat CTV as an always-on performance channel. SMB brands, in particular, stand to benefit by shifting more budget into CTV early and experimenting with cross-platform experiences and interactivity tailored to their audience.
3. Human Creative Magic, Now with AI
Everywhere you look, AI is there: thinking, compiling, suggesting, writing. It even helped with this article! But as these tools improve, the value of creative work that is visibly, imperfectly “real” perseveres, and people’s sensitivities to what is “not” are sharpened.
Mintel describes this shift as the “Anti-Algorithm” effect. The name suggests a rejection of AI, but really it’s a desire for boundaries, and it has already shaped some brand behavior. Aerie’s 100% Real campaign stands against AI-altered bodies. Polaroid celebrates human imperfection with Analogue Life. Heineken’s Real Friends champions IRL connections. Even TikTok now lets users dial down AI in their feeds. But Dove’s Keep Beauty Real campaign is more nuanced: they refuse to use AI-altered people in ads while offering a prompt playbook to help others create images representative of real beauty. All of it points to the same truth: trust erodes when brands hide behind the machine.
As we settle into 2026, AI in marketing is becoming more acceptable (as long as it’s not absolute “slop”), but its acceptance relies on an important caveat: disclosure. Audiences want clear confirmation that a human was in the mix, or that what they’re seeing is indeed “AI.”
As tools like Sora and NanoBanana continue to push the limits of synthetic creativity almost weekly, the marketing world is doubling down on something reassuring: the human element. While AI brings speed and scale, people still bring something more valuable: intention, care, and creative judgment.
▶︎ In 2026, brave brands won’t fear the tension between AI and humanity, they’ll own it.
They’ll harness the power of AI for acceleration, personalization and automation without losing human, creative magic. They’ll win with transparency; letting people see the seams, understand what’s generated, and in some cases, proudly claiming, “a human made this.”
4. Creator Collabs Carry Clout
A creator (née influencer)partnership isn’t a side-channel anymore. It’s the channel where people discover, learn about, and talk about brands. The right creator can act as a cultural translator, community manager, and brand loyalty builder all rolled into one. For audiences, creators are trusted humans and vital noise filters who bring credibility and a point of view that brands simply cannot manufacture.
▶︎ Creators have become so trusted that creator-led communities now outperform impression-based tactics;
Nielsen and Raptive report that ad recall is 70% higher on creator-owned sites and content than on social platforms.
In 2026, brave brands will move from creator placements to creator partnerships, sharing authorship to build something worth staying for and engaging the community that forms around it. The boldest thing a brand can do now is invite the right creator into the room, hand over part of the story, and trust that the community will follow.
But for some SMBs and B2B brands, the most powerful creators are already on the payroll …
5. Creators Coming From Inside the House
Internal creators, née thought leaders (see what I did there?), will become a mainstay for smaller, expertise-led brands—optimized for insight rather than impressions.
As more audiences groan at polished brand messaging, they’ll gravitate toward people who actually know what they’re talking about. In B2B especially, trust is built through clarity, competence, and usefulness, not reach. That’s why we’ll see expert-as-brand content grow this year, with operators and subject-matter experts joining founders as the faces and voices of the business.
This shift is also generational.
▶︎ According to Deloitte, millennial and Gen Z leaders now sit in 73% of decision-making roles and many are already fluent in creating and consuming creator-style content.
The move isn’t to create influencers, but to repackage traditional thought leadership into smarter, easy-to-consume formats like short-form video, social takeovers, mini podcasts, and AMAs, delivered by real experts in their own voice.
In 2026, brave SMB and B2B brands will invest in internal creators. In doing so, they’ll become more accessible, interactive, and human, with expertise leading the way.
6. Your Audience Is Gaming
And finally, for Gen Z and Gen Alpha, gaming is more than a hobby. It’s where they build identity, deepen friendships, follow creators, and increasingly, where they shop. For audiences under 35, gaming lives in the same breath as Instagram and TikTok.
What was once a novelty is now mainstream. eMarketer projects that U.S. game advertising will surpass $10B by the end of 2026. Gaming companies are investing in ads, too. Roblox (a $65B gaming giant) is partnering with the likes of Kantar, Nielsen, and IAS to build serious brand measurement and verification tools for its virtual worlds. Epic Games (the $32B developer of Fortnite) has also been working with brands for years, building brand-supported worlds, quests, and artist collabs at an incredible pace.
▶︎ In 2026, brave brands will show up in worlds they don’t control. They’ll join Discord ecosystems, support creator “let’s plays,” and maybe create in-game experiences.
But brands must follow one rule: don’t interrupt gameplay; add to it and join the conversation. The brands that win will bring fun and value to a virtual world players already care about, and earn clout by respecting the culture.
If there’s one thing to take from these trends, it’s that bravery is a brand advantage.
The brands that show up with empathy, transparency, and cultural fluency will be the ones people choose.
If you want to explore these trends with us, reach out. Let’s build something brave together in 2026.
