The Modern Marketer’s Growth Playbook
Fundamentals still matter. But developing new opportunities requires a brand-new game plan, blending best practices with new ones.
Chapters
Chapter 1: Winning with Brand Energy
Your brand matters more than ever. It’s harder for brands to win. These seven rules are the keys to connection – and uncommon growth.
Chapter 2: The Marketer’s Growth Mandate
With the dawn of AI driving the most significant shift of the century, modern marketing is more capable than ever before. Yet amid the sheer possibility, the discipline has never been more confused about what it stands for.
Marketing is in the middle of its most consequential reset in decades. Brands that seemed unstoppable a few years ago are melting down. Funnels have collapsed. Algorithms rule discovery. And trust – one of the core tenants of brand marketing – is at an all-time low.
In this rapidly evolving landscape, marketing done right looks different from how it has in the past. It’s not that AI has changed everything. (We don’t buy into that kind of hyperbole, and you shouldn’t either.) Marketing fundamentals still matter, and much of the language is the same. But because fewer of those older assumptions hold, the terrain is full of heightened tensions. Questions like “brand vs. demand” or “human vs. machine” can’t be resolved, because there are seldom either/or answers. These tensions require constant recalibration, as CMOs try to find the most precise fulcrum point for their brands at any given time.
That judgment means marketing leadership is more essential. This is the moment to blend best practices with new ones. Marketing can become even more of a growth accelerator, cutting through to connect with customers in new ways.
To maximize those opportunities-and grow faster-marketers everywhere are being asked to do three hard things, all at once.
The Mandate: Three Hard Things, All at Once
Today’s marketer is being asked to deliver three imperatives simultaneously. Each comes with new opportunities, as well as risks.
Grow faster, with fewer resources: Growth is the defining expectation of leadership, yet while 76% of CMOs feel more pressure to drive it, only 34% of CEOs agree on how marketing supports that growth. Marketers need to step up, deliver against CEO expectations and re-establish growth as the unequivocal north star. Corporate C-suites are losing faith in marketing, both as a strategic discipline and as an investment: 60% of CEOs view marketing as a cost center, up from 35% last year.
Build brands in an era of compression: Brands are still your most powerful assets, but they are no longer built by stories alone. They are built by signals or what algorithms, and micro-communities decide to amplify. And while 81% of consumers require trust in a brand before purchasing,trust in brands and corporations (as well as experts, governments and the press) is eroding. Culture, technology, and consumer expectations shift simultaneously.
Move from AI Mastery to AI Fluency: AI is no longer a pilot. It is the operating layer of marketing, and 92% of marketers say AI has already impacted their role and 57% feel pressure to learn AI or risk irrelevance. And 72% of CEOs say they are the main decision maker on AI in their organization (2x last year) Marketers navigating this well aren’t the ones with the most tools-they’re the ones who have made deliberate choices about what AI accelerates, what it augments, and what it must never replace.
These forces are interconnected. Growth pressure accelerates AI adoption. AI accelerates content volume and decision speed. That volume and speed intensify brand compression, making coherence and trust harder to sustain.
All three require a faster pace. This is not a moment that rewards perfect plans. It rewards learning velocity, tangible outcomes, and a greater willingness to get it wrong sometimes. That requires marketers to have steelier nerves and stronger stomachs, at a time when the bar is being raised, internally with CEOs and externally with customers. And trust in brands and corporations (as well as experts, governments and the press) is eroding. Culture, technology, and consumer expectations shift simultaneously.
Strategy only matters if it translates into impact quickly. This playbook is designed to help you escape the doom loop by treating brand-building and performance as a single, integrated system.
This new reality needs a new marketing playbook.
Mandate 1: Grow faster, with fewer resources
The pressure is real. Marketers must deliver more with less: Average marketing spend has dropped from 11% to 7% of revenue post-pandemic, shrinking headcount and agency support. While marketing has been a measurable growth driver for decades, somewhere in the digital revolution, new measurement systems crowded out that central growth anchor. Clicks and visits became proxies, and marketing became a cost center. More than ever, they have to own the customer.
SHORT-TERM PERFORMANCE vs. LONG-TERM BRAND BUILDING
The Tension
Most marketing teams still divide the world into “brand” and “demand.” Both our own studies and work we have collaborated on with WARC – including The Multiplier Effect reports – show that outperformers don’t pick sides. The data shows that brand and demand are not in conflict- but multiply each other, driving 90% increase in ROI than performance marketing alone. Organizationally, winning teams are 3x more likely to be fully integrated (39% vs 12%).
Meanwhile,
64%
of marketers struggle to demonstrate impact, which forces a retreat into short-term metrics that erode brand strength and create a spiral of reduced effectiveness.
The Win
Our research also demonstrated that winning teams use measurement confidence to justify boldness. They work with their CEOs and CFOs to prove the business impact of brand work, ensuring sustained growth. Brand builds the pricing power and trust that make performance work. Performance drives the velocity that justifies brand investment. Treat them as one system, and the short-term pressure doesn’t disappear—it just stops eating your strategy alive.
STRATEGIC SPINE vs.
EXECUTION VELOCITY
The Tension
Some 73% of marketers say they’re expected to do more with less, and 64% cite proving impact as their #1 challenge.
42% of marketer’s
in a recent study expect budget cuts, there is also a radical increase in short-termism, cited as top concern by 55% of marketers, a 30-point jump from 2022.
Speed-to-market is now the mandate, but speed without a spine creates thrash—what we call “random acts of marketing.”
The Win
High performers hard code a carefully plotted direction. Just because Speed and efficiency do not render rigor and strategy optional. Making, data and customer insight driven, choices about where to play and how to win, make every marketing activity work harder. This is where AI becomes one of the most important tools that we have helping marketers to ingest and analyze data more quickly enabling stronger decision making and supporting a connected operating system that both thinks and acts at pace- without compromising either
Mandate 2: Build brands in an era of compression
In this fragmented media environment, coherence is the mechanism of resilience. Brands that know exactly what they stand for – and hold that identity consistently across channels, controversies, and cultural pressures – are the ones that survive.
FRAGMENTATION & CHANGE vs.
COHERENCE & CONSISTENCY
The Tension
Brands that are consistent over time, with coherent expression across touchpoints, are stronger and more memorable. Yet we now live in a world of “lots of littles.”
Digital represents
60-90%
of marketers spend, and
50% of ad budgets go to assets that are “not fit for platform.”
At the same time, 66% of consumers expect brands to understand their individual needs.
The Win
Volume isn’t the goal—coherent volume is. Scaling junk is expensive. You need a brand system built for these “littles” modular assets, clear rules, and smart data so personalization feels on-brand, not off-script. This is where common language and operating standards unlock the power of AI.
CONTROLLED ADVERTISING vs.
CREATOR-LED CULTURE
The Tension
Traditional media is losing its grip. Creators and micro-communities now hold the cultural distribution power once reserved for publishers. Short-form video has become the default language.
And while,
80%
of organizations are increasing creator spending by more than150%
many brands still try to “manage” creators many brands have yet to get the impact they need.
The Win
Culture cannot be bought: Growth requires shifting from “planning media” to “choreographing algorithms.” But that doesn’t mean abandoning branded story telling or driving reach. We have all seen the rise of creators and native social as the dominant way to scale attention in the current world- but data has shown that brand recognition in these formats still lags traditional advertising. Brands need modern- algorithm and AI ready systems that scale—cohesive brand ideas and guardrails and repeatable formats without losing community credibility
BOLD CREATIVITY vs.
THE RISK OF CONFLICT
The Tension
As media has become more fragmented and technology more sophisticated, customer attention becomes the currency of success. Impact is only possible if people (and algorithms) notice what brands say and do. Yet, a recent study showed that around half of the advertising was considered neutral, i.e. barely noticeable. It seems, as an industry, we have become better at measuring advertising than making it!
Meanwhile, algorithms reward rage, amplifying negative content at least 2x.
This has meant that there is higher risk for brands to get caught in the crosswires of culture wars: the kind of attention that is every marketer’s worst nightmare
The Win
Creativity is not a nice have, but a critical business driver. With > 60% of advertising ROI coming from creative quality, attention winning becomes one of the most important tools in the marketing mix. So, while the feed pushes toward bland or inflammatory, winning brands prioritize being bold without being reckless. This takes a careful balance of research, craft and confidence, while leveraging distinctive brand assets with discipline—and building an operating model that enables creative courage—tight measurement, fast feedback loops, scenario planning and leadership buy-in.
Mandate 3: Move from AI Mastery to AI Fluency
Fluency means evolving from “test and learn” to “sense and move.” AI is a new layer of consumer behavior, too, revolutionizing how people discover, interact, and purchase brands. Tens of millions of people are already relying on LLMs for shopping advice and finding those suggestions more trustworthy. These are no longer bots that follow rules, but agents that help people achieve their goals.
HUMAN MEANING vs.
MACHINE MEDIATION
The Tension
AI is the new filter between you and the customer, with almost all marketers saying AI has already impacted their role, and that applying AI internally can lift the productivity of marketing spend by anywhere from 5 to 15%.
And externally,
45% of consumer
now use GenAI in their shopping journey, which means your audience isn’t just human—it includes LLMs, recommendation engines, and bots that can amplify false narratives.
The Win
When everyone has the same tools, insight stops being the edge. The edge is judgment—what you choose to stand for, what you ignore, and where you put firm human checkpoints, so AI doesn’t optimize you into sameness. Brands must win both machine visibility (what AI can find and summarize) and human conviction (what people will trust and buy).
PERSONALIZATION vs. THE TRUST RECESSION
The Tension
While 66%
of consumers expect brands to understand their individual needs, trust in those brands is in freefall.
The Edelman Trust Barometer shows 63% of global consumers believe media is contaminated with biased information. Add in bots amplifying false narratives and AI-generated content flooding feeds, and you’ve got a trust recession. Every interaction feels like a test.
The Win
This is the “head vs. heart” tension. You must use data for precision (the head) but maintain a human promise (the heart) to avoid crossing into “creepy” or “fake.” Trust isn’t earned through what you say in a 30-second spot; it’s earned through living proof-promises kept in product, customer experience, and measurable business behavior.
Modern marketers are already feeling these underlying tensions. Our playbook will walk you through the most essential changes, showing fast and effective ways to blend emerging new practices with what’s already working. We’ll start with growth, the most important mandate, and then cover brand relevance, customer centricity, and achieving 90-day impact. The playbook is open – let’s get to work.
The goal is simple: help marketers lead through the most compressed, algorithmic, AI-accelerated era we’ve seen-by building a connected system that delivers growth, protects and strengthens brand, and produces measurable impact at pace.
Modern marketing demands a connected system that delivers growth, protects brand, and drives measurable impact at pace. Talk with our experts about how to navigate this AI-accelerated era and build the playbook that works for your organization.
Authors
Kate Price
Partner & CMO Practice Lead
Scott Davis
Chief Growth Officer
Adam Tremblay
Partner, Brand Practice Lead
Alex Whittaker
Partner, London
Bernhard Schaar
Partner, Berlin