From guesswork to confidence: what will define marketing and communications in 2026

By: Jemma Reast, Grace McLean

2025 reminded us that complexity (and the unexpected) shows up everywhere - whether it’s a Coldplay Kiss Cam, Katy Perry heading to space, or a jewellery heist at the Louvre.

Across our client surveys, one theme emerged consistently: the need for confidence next year. Confidence in decision making, in outcomes, and in where to invest. These pressures are not easing. They will intensify in 2026.

At Madano, we’ve seen our digital and insights capabilities move closer together, ensuring organisations can both measure what they set out to do and reach the right audiences with impact. In response, these teams will formally combine in the year ahead, helping clients move faster and act with greater confidence.

We believe four themes will define marketing and communications in 2026: measuring and monitoring impact, strategic thinking and planning, campaign delivery and channels, and reputation management.

1. Measuring and monitoring the right data with intent

Expectations around accountability and impact have increased, and traditional metrics, often perfunctory, fall short. Outputs alone provide limited insight, leaving teams uncertain about what is working, where to optimise, and how to demonstrate value with confidence. We’re supporting several companies already with this, to ensure that tactical activities are aligned and likely to achieve impact aligned with strategic goals and objectives.

IRIS, our proprietary measurement and analytics tool combines advanced analytics with a unique, continually updated dataset of scientific and medical communications - spanning publications, congresses, specialist media, policy and online discussion.

We’ve put this tool into action supporting numerous teams across Novo Nordisk with a bespoke version, that not only tracks real-time impact metrics, but also predicts impact. This coming year, teams can explore the landscape, plan with intent, and measure impact against objectives that matter.

By focusing on tailored metrics, leading and lagging indicators, and real-time insight, IRIS helps teams move from retrospective reporting to proactive decision-making. In 2026, effective measurement will be defined by the ability to understand impact early, and act on it with confidence.

2. Strategic thinking and planning as LLMs evolve and agents automate tasks

As digital complexity grows, strategic planning is no longer about choosing more channels or producing more content. It’s about making better-informed decisions.

This year, the scale of the online environment continued to grow at pace. An estimated 5.42 billion people worldwide now use social media, and the average user engages with nearly seven different platforms each month. Audiences are everywhere, yet attention is increasingly fragmented.

The challenge is not access, but precision. Reaching the right audiences, in the right places, with the right message has become a strategic imperative. Ensuring strategy is grounded in evidence and designed for delivery from the outset will be very much in for 2026. This is something embodied in Kite, another of our in-house developed tools.

Kite combines deep sector expertise with AI-powered analysis to answer key strategic and tactical questions. It’s all about more confident strategic planning: identifying priority audiences, understanding how they engage online, and shaping strategies that are realistic, focused and measurable. Kite helps strip away guesswork, allowing organisations to plan with clarity and invest with confidence.

3. Campaign delivery and channel selection as brands seek efficiencies but want to maintain authenticity 

In 2026, campaign delivery will be shaped by a clear shift towards in-channel engagement. Social channels increasingly reward content that keeps users in-feed, while deprioritising posts that drive audiences elsewhere. As a result, social is no longer just a traffic driver, it’s where awareness, engagement and conversion increasingly happen.

For B2B, B2C or even B2HCP, this means rethinking how campaigns are designed. Native, channel-specific content performs better than retrofitted assets, and calls to action that encourage conversation or participation often outperform “click through” prompts. In-channel tools, from lead forms to newsletters and events also reduce friction and help audiences engage without leaving the channel.

An example of this is our recent work with BeOne. Struggling to drive meaningful engagement from healthcare professionals to their medical platform, we worked with the team at BeOne to deliver a full rebrand, complete with channel audits and mapping, a new tailored channel strategy and targeted content creation throughout the year.

The winning brands and creators in 2026 will depend on testing what works in-platform, not assuming the website is always the end destination.

4. Reputation management as GEO takes centre stage

Reputation is already being shaped not only by social conversation, but by how organisations are represented and interpreted by AI-driven systems.

As generative AI tools and overviews increasingly surface and summarise information for users, brand perception is no longer formed solely through owned channels or media coverage. Instead, it is influenced by how accurately, consistently and credibly an organisation appears across the wider digital ecosystem. Social media remains central to this landscape, a primary space where stakeholders express sentiment, test trust and respond in real time. But reputation management now extends beyond listening and response.

For companies, this elevates the importance of proactive, insight-led reputation management: monitoring sentiment, identifying emerging issues early, and ensuring content and narratives are clear, consistent and authoritative across channels.

We supported Peabody to understand how trust, performance and social value are perceived across different stakeholder groups after the housing association merged with Family Mosaic. Using our holistic Rep360 approach, Peabody have gained a clear view of their reputational strengths and identified possible emerging risks – both of which has been crucial in planning their new communications strategy.

And, with most things nowadays AI isn’t a dormant party. Increasingly AI mediates what audiences see and trust (hello CoPilot Search), which means reputation in 2026 will depend on being discoverable, credible and aligned, both to people and the systems interpreting information on their behalf.

Read more about AI Search.

These four themes will anchor what you see from Madano in the year ahead, and we look forward to working with clients in 2026 to start shaping strategies that deliver clarity, confidence and impact in an increasingly complex digital landscape.

If you want to explore working together, email [email protected] and one of our team will respond as soon as possible.