How clear value stories can position health tech companies to earn greater trust and premium valuation.
Healthcare technology companies face a paradox: the market has never been more bullish on the sector — recent research showed that AI-enabled companies now capture 55% of all health tech funding and command a 19% premium on deal size — yet public health tech companies still trade at a meaningful discount to cloud peers, despite roughly 2x the revenue growth and free cash flow margin.
Strong businesses still lose value when the story is unclear: The gap isn’t just a business problem; it’s a narrative problem. Most health-tech companies have a brand platform in one deck, a product story in another, an investor narrative from the CFO’s team, and a sales pitch from field marketing. Individually, each is internally logical, but collectively incoherent and hard for teams to articulate. Too often, companies speak in higher-order benefits without ever making clear what they actually do, where they play, or why they should win an organization’s business.
We recently sat in a room where a health-tech company pitched its full suite of services. After they finished, our client simply asked at the vendor: “So what is it that you actually do?”
A Story of Value connects the story across audiences: What closes this gap for clients is a Story of Value: a coherent narrative spine that captures who the company is, the tension it resolves, how it creates value, and why that story justifies premium valuation. When the narrative is properly modulated for priority audience groups, it retains its core value while ensuring resonance for each audience.
Five Moves That Make a Value Story Credible
Health-tech companies that get this right will:
Define a clear frame of reference first. Before reaching for elevated positioning, companies need to answer a basic question: what do they actually do? Name the competitive set, the outcomes, and where they play. In our work with a major healthcare financial services company, the challenge was moving beyond its best-known role in facilitating payments transactions toward a broader frame: bridging gaps in the healthcare financial system, improving the financial experience of healthcare, and aligning the interests of payers, providers, and members. That shift created a stronger platform for growth.
Name where AI creates defensible economic value. Being AI-enabled may now be table stakes; it cannot be the whole story. The real question is where AI creates advantage that compounds over time and is difficult to copy. In our work with a major virtual care platform, we saw how quickly AI language can flatten into sameness: personalization, insights, integration. What created credibility was not broader AI rhetoric, but specificity — which data, improving which workflow, producing which measurable result.
Ensure the human touch is inextricably linked to AI. In healthcare, meticulous care around data is paramount, especially when it comes to AI use. In helping shape the story for that same virtual care platform, one important choice was to frame AI as an enabler of people, not a replacement for them, with clinician oversight built into the moments that matter most. The important move was not just having that governance mindset internally but making visible to the market where automation stops and expert judgment begins.
Thread a single narrative across every audience. Investors, buyers, clinicians, and patients should all recognize themselves in the same core story, with the emphasis adjusted for each audience. We saw this in our previously mentioned work for a healthcare financial services company: by anchoring the company in bridging gaps across the healthcare financial system, the story could resonate across payers, providers, and members without splintering into disconnected messages. One framework, many expressions.
Build a system of proof — and earn your claims over time. Sophisticated healthcare buyers are not rewarding ambition alone; they are asking for evidence. Large employers and health systems want proof before integrating new tools and systems, especially when AI claims are involved. In our work with a patient financial engagement platform, the strongest story was not AI for AI’s sake, but AI tied to operating outcomes: higher collections, lower cost-to-collect, faster cash flow, and fewer billing calls through intelligent support. That kind of results-backed proof makes innovation more credible because it connects technology directly to measurable value.
In the age of AI, the margin for narrative incoherence is zero. The companies that answer the market’s implicit question, “why this company?”, with one credible, evidence-grounded Story of Value will earn the multiples, the deals, and the trust, outpacing competitors without a clear articulation of what they do and why it matters.
Healthcare leaders are operating in an environment where innovation alone is not enough. To earn trust — and the premium that comes with it — companies need a narrative that is as disciplined as their strategy: clear in its frame of reference, specific in how value is created and grounded in evidence. The strongest stories do more than describe a business; they help the market understand why they should care.
Interested in pressure-testing your current story? Let’s discuss how a Story of Value can strengthen your organization’s positioning, market confidence and growth.
In Health Tech, AI Doesn’t Win Deals – Outcomes Do
How clear value stories can position health tech companies to earn greater trust and premium valuation.
Every healthcare service and technology company now claims to be AI-powered. What once signaled innovation now reads as category shorthand. According to a recent McKinsey survey, 85 percent of healthcare leaders are now exploring or have adopted generative AI capabilities—making “AI-powered” closer to table stakes than a point of distinction. Meanwhile, buyer skepticism is rising in parallel: a national survey from Ohio State University and SSRS found that public openness to AI in care dropped from 52 percent to 42 percent in just two years. The presence of AI alone no longer earns attention. Buyers want to know what it actually does, where it matters, and why they should believe it will work in the environments in which they operate.
The market is saturated with undifferentiated AI claims. That shift has created a new messaging challenge. In many health-tech companies, AI is described at one of two unhelpful extremes: either as a broad aspiration that could apply to almost anyone, or as a technical capability that only product teams can decode. The result is a value gap. Companies may be making real investments in data, models, and intelligent workflows, but their market story still fails to answer the most important buyer question: why should this matter to me?
The Three Places Companies Tend to Tell Their AI Story
From our work across healthcare, data and technology businesses, we see a consistent pattern. AI messaging tends to land in three places, but only one of them creates real differentiation.
First, there is AI in the product: copilots, smart features, clinical suggestions, intelligent routing. These capabilities are increasingly expected, but rarely distinctive. Nearly every competitor either has them or claims to. Framed this way, AI becomes a feature label, not a market advantage.
Second, there is AI in the business: internal efficiency, lower cost-to-serve, faster processing, better staffing. This can be an important part of the investor story. But it is usually the wrong lead message for customers. Buyers care about whether those gains translate into better service, better economics, or better outcomes for them.
Third, there is AI as a driver of customer value. This is where differentiation begins. The message shifts from what the technology is to what it changes: which workflow improves, which decision gets smarter, which friction point is removed. In this mode, AI is not the headline. The headline is the benefit it generates.
The hardest claims to copy are not capability claims. They are claims rooted in proprietary data, embedded workflows, measurable results, and a trust model that holds up in practice.
A Simple Test for Whether Your Message is Working
We saw this clearly in a recent messaging engagement with a major virtual care platform. Like many companies in the category, it faced a familiar risk: its AI language sounded too broad to be credible and too similar to what others were already saying. Terms such as personalization, insights and integration were directionally right, but too generic to carry the story. What sharpened the narrative was greater specificity — which data made the system smarter, which moments in the care journey improved, how the technology helped care teams act sooner and engage the right people. Just as important, the company needed to show where clinician oversight remained essential and where governance was built into the system. In healthcare, trust is not supporting detail. It is part of the value proposition.
This points to a simple pressure test: if you remove the phrase “AI” from your message and it no longer says anything meaningful, you are describing the technology, not the advantage. If the story remains compelling without the term — because it communicates workflow impact, outcomes, proof, and trust — then the message is doing real strategic work.
In Healthcare, Credibility is the Differentiator
The companies standing out today follow the same discipline. They name the user and the workflow. They quantify the effect. They make clear why their data or delivery model gives them an edge. And they treat governance and responsible use as visible parts of the story, not footnotes for legal review. In healthcare, where the standard for credibility is structurally higher, vague AI rhetoric does more than blur differentiation. It can actively weaken trust.
In health tech, AI may be necessary, but it is no longer enough. The companies that stand out will not be the ones that talk about intelligence most loudly. They will be the ones who explain most clearly how intelligence creates better care experiences, stronger engagement, greater efficiency, and more credible outcomes.
If your organization is investing in AI but struggling to turn that into a story customers trust, it may be time to pressure-test the narrative. We work with healthcare services and technology companies to clarify where AI creates real value, how that value should be
AI Is Transforming Marketing in Healthcare–Is Your Team Ready?
How leading healthcare and technology brands are piloting AI to transform their marketing—and what it takes to do it right.
AI isn’t just another tool in the marketer’s toolkit. It’s fundamentally changing how brands understand audiences, create content, and drive growth. Across our recent working sessions with healthcare and health-tech organizations, one truth surfaced consistently: the brands that win with AI won’t be the ones that move fastest, but the ones that move most thoughtfully.
Today, most marketing leaders are already experimenting. Generative AI is in active use across content, analytics, and enablement, and investment is accelerating as CMOs see early ROI. But speed without strategy creates noise, not growth—especially in healthcare, where trust, accuracy, and consistency matter as much as efficiency.
The real shift isn’t just technological. It’s organizational. Marketers are evolving from storytellers to systems architects, responsible for building infrastructures that balance real-time responsiveness with long-term brand equity. AI can accelerate that evolution—but only if human judgment remains firmly in the loop.
The Shared Reality: What Healthcare Marketers Are Wrestling With
We hosted work sessions with four healthcare organizations’ marketing teams. Despite playing different roles in the healthcare ecosystem across organizations, a common set of tensions is emerging as AI moves from experimentation to scale.
Human insight versus machine output.
AI can generate content, insights, and recommendations at a speed no team can match. But machines optimize for patterns, not meaning. Ensuring that AI-generated outputs resonate emotionally, reflect lived patient experiences, and align with brand purpose remains a core challenge.
Brand consistency at speed.
As content volume explodes across channels, teams are struggling to maintain a consistent voice, tone, and visual identity—particularly in decentralized environments. The risk isn’t just inefficiency; it’s brand dilution that erodes trust over time.
Data security and privacy.
Healthcare marketers sit on highly sensitive data. Feeding proprietary or patient-related information into public models without guardrails introduces unacceptable risk. Governance, enterprise-grade tools, and thoughtful data design are prerequisites—not downstream fixes.
Internal resistance and uncertainty.
Fear is real: concerns about job displacement, confusion about where to start, and fatigue from too many tools slow adoption. Successful AI transformation depends as much on change management as it does on technology.
Why These Challenges Matter More Than Ever
Digging deeper, these tensions reveal structural issues that AI is exposing—and can help solve if addressed deliberately.
Being data-rich but insight-poor.
Many marketing teams have access to enormous volumes of data but lack intuitive ways to query, connect, and act on it. AI creates the possibility of natural-language interfaces and real-time insight generation—but only if data is clean, connected, and governed.
Scaling content without diluting credibility.
Healthcare brands are under pressure to publish more, faster, across more channels. The opportunity is scale; the risk is losing clinical rigor, thought leadership, or emotional authenticity. AI raises the floor—but only if brand standards are embedded into workflows.
Decentralization versus coherence.
Large systems often operate across hundreds—or thousands—of digital properties and contributors. AI can be a force for standardization, reuse, and quality control, but without shared frameworks, it simply accelerates fragmentation.
Knowing where to start.
Nearly every organization asks the same question: Which use cases actually matter? Leaders are increasingly prioritizing opportunities based on desirability, viability, and feasibility—then piloting quickly with small, focused teams before scaling.
The most forward-looking teams aren’t asking how AI can replace work. They’re asking how it can elevate it.
AI is not replacing the marketer. It’s redefining what great marketing looks like.
Think of AI as a multiplier. Strong strategy becomes faster. Strong creative becomes more personal. Weak foundations simply fail faster. The healthcare brands that invest now—in the right use cases, the right guardrails, and the right human–AI collaboration models—will be the ones setting the standard over the next three years.
The question isn’t whether AI belongs in your marketing strategy.
It’s whether your marketing strategy is ready for AI.
Ready to explore what human-centered AI can do for your marketing team? Connect with us to discuss a kickstart workshop to help your team identify the pilots that will be most valuable to helping you reach your brand and business goals.
The Retail Store as a Platform: Designing for Commerce, Curation, Connection, and Culture
The most forward-thinking retailers are engineering immersive, multi-faceted platforms that curate commerce, foster human connection, and cultivate culture.
For decades, the narrative surrounding physical retail has been one of disruption and decline, a story pitting brick-and-mortar against the digital juggernaut of e-commerce. But this binary view is obsolete.
The future of retail isn’t about the store versus the website; it’s about the store acting like a website—or more precisely, like a platform.
The most forward-thinking retailers are no longer just designing places to transact; they are engineering immersive, multi-faceted platforms that curate commerce, foster human connection, and cultivate culture.
Why a Platform?
To understand this shift, we must first dissect what a platform business truly is. Unlike traditional linear businesses that create value in a straight line (make a product, sell it to a customer), platform businesses create value by facilitating interactions and transactions between distinct, interdependent groups. Think of Uber (connecting drivers and riders), Airbnb (connecting hosts and guests), or the Apple App Store (connecting developers and users).
Their core asset is not inventory, but the ecosystem and the data that flows through it.
They thrive on network effects: the more participants on one side, the more valuable the platform becomes to the other.
So, how does a physical retail store transform into this kind of dynamic platform?
It ceases to be a mere point-of-sale and becomes a curated, multi-faceted ecosystem where the retailer acts as the orchestrator, not just the owner.
Currently, only a handful of retailers operate stores with this mindset; some fashion brand houses and others like South Korea’s Gentle Monster, Nike’s House of Innovation, and Starbucks Reserve Roastery locations come close. So, how can other retailers turn physical stores into dynamic platforms?
Gentle Monster, Shanghai flagship; art and technology meet fashion and beauty (Source: Gentle Monster) Gentle Monster, Shanghai flagship; art and technology meet fashion and beauty (Source: Gentle Monster)
A full customization wing lives in The Arena, delivering on Nike’s pioneering DIY spirit. (Source: Nike)The latest selection is continually rotated throughout the store. (Source: Nike)With Shop The Look, customers can scan the code at the foot of a mannequin and shop the entire outfit, which can then be purchased immediately through Instant Checkout. (Source: Nike)The Nike Speed Shop uses local data to stock its shelves, and re-stock them based on what the community wants. (Source: Nike)
Starbucks Reserve, Tokyo Roastery (Source: Starbucks)
The Store as a Platform for Curated Commerce
In a traditional model, commerce is straightforward: the retailer stocks what it predicts will sell. The platform store, however, reimagines the floor as a dynamic marketplace.
This means inviting third-party brands, both digital natives and local artisans, to “plug in” to the physical space. These brands become the “producers” on the platform.
For example, a Target or a Nordstrom isn’t just selling its own inventory; it’s hosting a rotating cast of pop-ups and exclusive collaborations. The physical store can become a living, breathing showroom for DTC (Direct-to-Consumer) or new-to-market brands seeking tangible customer touchpoints, and for established brands to test new concepts, as well as the in-store media promoting store-brands and those of the partners or suppliers.
Target partnered with Museum of Ice Cream to launch a pop-up shop in NYC (Source: Yuliya Kim for Adweek)
Over the years, Target has launched dozens of shop-in-shop partnerships with brands and designers to expand its relevance, driving traffic and revenue in important categories.
The retailer’s role shifts from dictator of assortment to curator of experience. They provide the stage—the prime real estate, the logistics, the foot traffic—and take a fee or revenue share from sales.
This model can de-risk inventory, ensure a constantly refreshed and novel assortment, and turn the store into a destination for discovery, not just routine replenishment.
The commerce becomes a value-added service within a larger experience.
And this new curated commerce is supported by both digital tools allowing more seamless online-offline integration.
Collaborations Context:
The store becomes a vessel of collaboration with other culturally relevant brands or personalities, but in the context of the store’s brand experience. The immersive aspect blurs the line between the partner’s equities and the store’s brand, creating an exciting “equity flow” between the parties that can be felt by the customer, shaping brand memories that drive future visits.
Seasonal Sensations:
Shifts in visual merchandising are not just about decorating for the season but being relevant to the consumer mindset regarding everything else going on in their lives. The “platform” shifts its language, its visual effects, and particularly its in-store media content, messaging, creative, and promotions to align with consumer attention.
The Store as a Platform for Human Connection
This is where the physical platform truly outshines its digital counterparts. E-commerce can be transactional and solitary.
The store-as-platform is designed for social and educational interaction, creating a powerful network effect between customers, staff, and brands.
The “users” on this side of the platform are the customers seeking connection and knowledge.
The “providers” are the store’s staff, brand ambassadors, and even fellow shoppers.
Staff as APIs:
In a platform store, associates are not just cashiers or stockers; they are “Application Programming Interfaces” (APIs)—human endpoints of data and expertise. Armed with AI-enabled tablets that access real-time inventory, customer purchase history, and product information, they can offer hyper-personalized service. They are stylists, tech gurus, and guides who facilitate a deeper relationship between the customer and the brand ecosystem.
The “platform” also leverages digital tools to supplement the store staff, such as “endless aisles” providing vastly expanded assortments with minimal inventory carry, and visualization tools (magic mirrors and mobile-enabled AR applications) to streamline trial supported by the personal guidance of staff.
Nordstrom store associate with tablet (Source: Nordstrom)
The next generation of “clienteling” will be AI-enabled.
Community as Content:
The store itself becomes a venue for events—workshops, maker classes, fitness sessions, or panels. A REI store hosting outdoor survival classes or an Apple store holding Today at Apple creative sessions aren’t just selling products; they are selling proficiency, passion, and community.
These events create recurring reasons to visit, transforming the store from a shop into a clubhouse. The connections formed here—between customer and expert, and between customer and customer—create immense loyalty and a defensible moat that Amazon cannot easily replicate.
REI indoor photo of class or activity (Source: REI)
Building community programming around shared interest drives trips and loyalty.
The Store is the Clubhouse:
As loyalty programsevolve to be more about access to experiences and not just collecting points, the store environment can play a key role in evoking a sense of belonging.
Location-based programming as described above is only the start, as technology unlocks better forms of recognition (opt-in facial recognition and geo-location using signals from mobile devices–or even using simple card swipes or RFID readers), more personalized attention can be brought to loyalty program participants, rewarding frequent visits with in-the-moment promotions, access to preferred store hours, and even the provision of food and beverage amenities…
Not by Bread Alone:
As noted above, in creating a platform orientation to the store, the execution should at a minimum deliver a “more reasons to go and more things to do when you are there” experience. Food and beverage offerings provide that always-appreciated and often-desired complement to a shopping trip.
Aligning the offer and assortment with the brand’s personality (think Ralph’s, the Ralph Lauren café attached to many of its stores globally), and should be tuned to be feasibly operated.
Ralph’s Coffee café at Shaw Centre, Singapore; Ralph Lauren setting up coffee shops adjacent to its stores. (Source: Grazia)
The Store as a Platform for Cultural Cultivation
The highest function of the retail platform is to move beyond utility and into identity. It becomes a stage for cultivating and broadcasting a specific culture. Platforms like Instagram or TikTok don’t just host content; they shape trends, language, and aesthetics.
Similarly, a retail store can act as a cultural touchpoint. It’s a three-dimensional manifestation of a brand’s worldview.
A Glossier store isn’t just a place to buy makeup; it’s an Instagram-ready shrine to millennial-pink aesthetics and community-driven beauty. A Patagonia store isn’t just for outdoor gear; it’s a hub for environmental activism, complete with repair workshops and advocacy materials.
In this model, the transaction is almost a byproduct of cultural participation.
Consumers, especially younger generations, don’t just buy products; they buy into beliefs. The retail platform allows them to physically immerse themselves in those beliefs.
The store curates not just products, but a vibe, a value system, and a tribe. This cultural capital is the most powerful form of branding, creating evangelists who wear their purchases as badges of affiliation.
Glossier Philadelphia (Source: Glossier) Glossier District of Columbia (Source: Glossier) Glossier store with customers taking Instagram photos (Source: BoF)
Being in the cultural conversation drives targeted relevance.
The Store as a Media Platform
In today’s retail environment, the store itself is being reimagined as a dynamic media channel, where digital screens transform passive aisles into immersive content experiences. Gone are the days of simple promotional loops; these networks now deliver curated, high-quality content ranging from brand storytelling and recipe tutorials to lifestyle documentaries and live social media feeds.
This content serves a dual purpose: it captivates customers, increasing dwell time and enhancing brand perception, while simultaneously functioning as a highly targeted, daypart-driven advertising platform.
Brands can purchase screen time much like a digital out-of-home network, delivering contextually relevant messages at the precise moment of purchase consideration, effectively turning the physical store into a broadcast studio for targeted, shopper-centric media.
This evolution into a media platform allows retailers to monetize their physical footprint and customer attention in new ways, generating high-margin revenue streams beyond product sales.
The data captured—such as dwell times, engagement metrics, and correlation with sales data—creates a powerful feedback loop, enabling both retailers and brands to refine messaging in real-time for maximum impact.
Ultimately, the store-as-media-platform model elevates the shopping journey from a mere transaction to an engaging, informative, and entertaining experience.
It represents a profound convergence of physical and digital worlds, where the environment not only sells products but also tells stories, builds community, and operates as a sophisticated, measurable media entity in its own right.
Store endcaps fitted with screens (Source: AdAge)
POS media can drive disproportionate selection opportunities for brands and a meaningful revenue stream for the retailer.
Designing the Platform: Data as the Foundation
Underpinning all four of these dimensions—Commerce, Curation, Connection, and Culture—is data. A platform is useless without a feedback loop. In-store sensors, Wi-Fi analytics, mobile app interactions, and transaction data provide a rich, nuanced understanding of how people move, dwell, and interact within the physical space.
This data informs everything: which pop-up brands drive the most footfall, which workshops lead to the highest basket size, which product placements create the most social media buzz, and even how loyalty can be manifested in the store.
This allows retailers to iterate and optimize the “user experience” of their physical platform with the same agility (but perhaps not the same speed) as a digital product team.
This closed-loop system ensures the store remains relevant, responsive, resilient…and productive.
Hema Market uses data to track freshness and food safety information, ensure in-stocks on popular items and manage 30-minute delivery windows for in-store purchases. (Source: Freshippo)
Hema Market leverages its fully integrated online-to-offline data ecosystem to deliver a seamless, hyper-personalized customer experience. It unifies digital and physical shopping, enabling real-time analysis of individual preferences, purchase history, and even dwell time.
This data powers dynamic in-store digital signage and an AI-driven replenishment system, ensuring popular SKUs are never out of stock. The result is a frictionless journey where customers receive relevant offers, enjoy accurate 30-minute delivery windows predicted from historical traffic and order data, and find stores curated to their neighborhood’s tastes—transforming raw data into intuitive, time-saving convenience.
The Transaction as an Outcome, Not the Goal
The store of the future is not a warehouse. It is a networked platform. Its success is measured not just in sales per square foot, but in engagement per visit, the strength of its partner ecosystem, and its cultural resonance.
By designing for commerce as a curated service, for connection as a core utility, and for culture as a key differentiator, retailers can build physical spaces that are not just surviving the digital age but thriving within it. The transaction is no longer the singular goal of the store visit; it is the natural outcome of a valuable and valued platform experience.
Retail’s next chapter will be written by stores that function as platforms — shaping commerce, curation, connection, and culture, with the transaction as the outcome rather than the aim.
Prophet helps retailers design these experiences to deepen relevance, loyalty, and drive uncommon growth.
Beyond the Hype: Why AI-enhanced brands still need human creativity
In a world of infinite AI content, human-driven distinction is the only remaining competitive advantage.
AI has quickly moved from the margins of creative work to being central to how brands develop content, communicate, and ultimately compete. AI models have evolved from little more than highly trained toys to equalizing tools that are deeply entrenched in business and leisure.
From the nearly $2 trillion AI bubble—echoing the pattern and amplifying the scale of the dot-com bubble of the 90s—to the more than 600 AI mergers and acquisitions in recent months, to social media feeds littered with AI images that are almost indistinguishable from the real thing: the hype is undeniable. But the hype has peaked. The conversation has shifted away from what AI can do to the results it can actually deliver. A shift that’s given way to agentic AI—systems that don’t just respond, but reason, plan, and act.
And adoption is widespread. So much that operationalizing agentic workflows at speed and scale is no longer a “nice to have” for brands, but the growing standard.
“Artificial intelligence is not a substitute for human intelligence; it is a tool to amplify human creativity and ingenuity.”
— Fei-fei Li, AI Innovator, Researcher, And Professor
The Verbal Branding team at Prophet has been both pioneering and living this new reality. Yes, adapting and streamlining workflows and wielding new tools that sharpen our skillsets, but more excitingly, seeing new ways that we can accelerate the creative cycle, and push brands forward.
And in this world of AI-enabled creative, there are a few principles we are currently living by to ensure creative expressions are just as meaningful, but relevant.
Content Homogenization Will Proliferate
Even as automation threatens various sectors, creative problem-solving roles, like brand strategist and writers, will survive and thrive with increased productivity from AI (according to a Forrester report on U.S. advertising agencies). In fact, freelance communication jobs have grown by 25% as more AI-adjacent positions in machine learning begin to decline.
Because, without humans to create and guide, the race to innovate with AI will become a “race to the middle.” If models are trained on AI-generated content or generally draw from the same pool of sources, it all blends, the lines blur, and the friction that brands need to be memorable is lost in a sea of sameness. It’s become so obvious and average that 82% of people can spot AI-generated content—overusing cliches, repeating sentence constructs, and using perfect grammar while lacking feeling entirely.
Even AI companies know that a human touch makes content compelling. OpenAI’s first brand campaign was shot, unironically, on 35mm film, creating an authentic and slightly unpolished atmosphere that avoids the sometimes too-sterile look of all-AI visuals.
As companies continue to leverage AI in bigger and bolder ways, one central theme is clear: AI-created content isn’t inherently strong. But AI-enhanced content can be.
Creative Rigor Will Lead in the Era of AI
Now more than ever, businesses must harness the power of brand building: their most visible and often most valuable business asset. Defining the foundations of a brand is too critical to be relegated to AI, but these tools can be used to scale branded content consistently and effectively.
Going forward, brand systems must be AI-native. Keeping the same rigor, insights, and creativity that ensure brands meet a given moment, while also staying easy to activate by people and augmented by AI. All without sacrificing originality and intent.
Prophet’s Perspective on AI in Creative
We’re developing AI products that support our clients’ ambitions—and embedding AI in the Prophet creative process itself. Not outsourcing our thinking by any stretch, but allowing us to stretch our creativity.
From consumer fashion brands to B2B institutional investors to iconic entertainment platforms, we’ve helped brands create and adopt agentic AI in several high-touch, high-effort marketing endeavors.
Automating how users submit requests for, evaluate, and even generate new descriptive names for products and features
Developing and training AI agents with fully developed brand voice and brand messaging guidelines
Pulling multiple agents together into custom interfaces for multi-modal content creation and governance (e.g., defining briefs, writing content, and scoring drafts against brand inputs)
Whether building custom agents on their preferred platforms or on Prophet’s own, we ensure brand communicators not only have the ability to execute content at scale but have an operationalized means of ongoing brand education. Meaning, that as the brand evolves, so will the people that make it and the AI that scales it.
With an orchestrated network of specialized agents working across an entire content workflow, human minds can continue to focus on what only they can do. The thinking, the instinct, and the creativity it takes to make a brand feel genuine. Drawing on our own uniquely human experiences, exploring nuance and shades of gray, and regularly straying from convention with unexpected words and turns of phrase that make people smile. This leaves the channel adaptation, consistency checks, and stress-testing to AI and the ambition, nuance, and originality to people.
Even amid the new reality of a breakneck pace of change, human imagination steadies brands with what makes them distinct. As AI capabilities get smarter, faster, and stronger, they can help us push the bounds of what we’re able to create and do.
Staying relentlessly relevant means staying at the helm, leading with strong, expertly developed verbal identities and using AI to inspire rather than imitate—or replace—creativity. The brands that win the next decade will have compelling voices and AI-powered content operations built to express them at scale—with precision and without creative compromise.
Prophet, and the many creative humans who comprise it, builds to win.
Despite growth being the primary rationale behind most M&A deals, too often, transactions close without creating a stronger business. Harvard Business Review estimates that 70–90% of deals fail to realize their intended value.
Recent Prophet research offers a useful lens on why. We analyzed the S&P Composite 1500 and identified 179 companies that outperformed their industries by delivering exceptional, sustained growth between 2019 and 2024.
On average, these companies delivered 27% annual revenue growth, compared with 6% for others. We then looked more closely at the Uncommon Growth companies that were active in M&A, alongside major transactions in the past five years, to identify the choices that distinguish stronger performers.
The differentiator is rarely the deal itself, but what companies do after the strategy is set. Top performers move beyond treating M&A as a financial event, using it instead to build a business that is more relevant, more capable, and better positioned than either company alone.
1. They Articulate the Story of Value Early – and Create Immediate Narrative Clarity for Investors, Employees and Customers
M&A winners give the market a clear reason to care, articulating early a concise story of value that explains why the deal happened, what it unlocks, and how it will make the combined business more compelling. The strongest stories are not abstract or purely financial; they specify the core capability, adjacency, or platform advantage the transaction is meant to create.
This clarity provides investors with a basis for belief, helps employees understand what is being built, and equips commercial teams to talk about additive value that the deal creates with prospects and customers. When the value story is vague or overly technical, attention quickly shifts to back-end mechanics while the growth case remains unclear.
In some of the strongest cases, M&A did more than add capabilities or revenue. It helped shift the company’s frame of reference in the market. For example, Xylem used the Evoqua acquisition to move from being seen more narrowly as an equipment and infrastructure player toward a broader water technology, treatment and services platform with stronger recurring-revenue characteristics. Nasdaq used Adenza to reinforce its shift from market operator toward a higher growth, more software and solutions-led financial technology and infrastructure business. In both cases, the deal supported a stronger investor narrative around quality of growth, business mix and margin potential.
2. They Define and Actively Manage Brand Portfolio and Architecture Logic
Ambiguous brand portfolios create friction by confusing customers, diluting commercial focus, duplicating investment, and slowing execution.
M&A winners are deliberate from the outset about brand portfolio and architecture: which brands to integrate, which to keep distinct, and the role each should play in supporting growth. They do not leave these questions unresolved or assume they can be addressed later. When managed well, brand architecture clarifies the offer, helps leadership prioritize investment, and gives the organization a disciplined path for building, combining, or retiring brands over time. Importantly, they also treat brand architecture as a living system, to be actively managed as the business evolves and priorities shift.
Our research shows that top performers made these choices explicit and followed through. Home Depot preserved the SRS brand and operating model, which delivered $6.4B in fiscal 2024 sales. Extra Space, by contrast, consolidated under one brand after concluding dual brands lacked payoff. UBS made the clearest call, retiring Credit Suisse entirely. The common thread is not one brand versus many, but early, deliberate choice and sustained execution.
3. They Treat Brand as an Operating System, not Just a Communications Asset
The best M&As do not treat brand as a late-stage communications wrapper. Rather, brand functions as an operating system: the organizing idea that connects business ambition, market confidence, and internal alignment. It defines what the combined company stands for, how it creates value, and how decisions should be made—across client engagement, sales, talent, partnerships, and leadership behavior.
Used this way, brand shapes integration rather than decorating it. It guides how the business is integrated, how the new company is perceived, investment decisions, and can inspire confidence. Done well; it turns a transaction into more than a legal or financial event, providing a unifying logic that supports execution and growth.
Our research shows that top performers used brand to drive growth. Carrier positioned Viessmann as a premier brand and platform in sustainable climate solutions. UBS applied the same principle at far greater complexity when migrating Credit Suisse, using a clear brand narrative, “Banking is our Craft” to reinforce reputation, retain and grow client assets.
4. They Strategically Align Culture and Performance
Culture is one of the clearest differentiators between deals that build momentum and those that stall. While hard to measure in a short financial window, its effects surface quickly. When leadership is unclear or behaviors misaligned, value creation slows. When leadership creates a post‑deal environment that is coherent, purposeful, and well led, the organization can forge ahead.
Culture should not be treated as a soft topic or parallel workstream, rather a catalyst for success. Leaders define the values, behaviors, and ways of working that guide the combined company, shaping collaboration, decisions, and change. Further, in industries experiencing talent scarcity or where there’s heightened competition to attract in-demand talent pools, culture becomes a critical source of advantage.
Our research shows that this discipline translates into execution. Companies such as Xylem, Emerson, and Globus Medical made culture visible through integration outcomes, achieving early synergies and strong post‑close performance. This reinforces broader evidence that effective cultural management materially increases the likelihood of value realization.
M&A does not create uncommon growth by default. Even well-conceived deals fall short when leadership treats them as financial events followed by cleanup.
The success of M&A transactions hinge on deliberate choices by leadership: what the combined business stands for, how it operates, and what customers and employees should experience. When those decisions are made early and executed consistently, M&A becomes more than a transaction. It becomes a platform for uncommon growth.
Chinese Brands Going Global: Five Strategic Shifts to Unleash Growth
As Chinese brands expand into the global market, they must move from exporting products to building brands and shaping consumer trends to drive uncommon growth with lasting competitiveness.
With the global talent dividend, fast-evolving AI technologies, and reshaping of consumer journeys, Chinese brands have entered a period of accelerated growth on the global stage. Companies are moving beyond simply “going out” in geographic terms and into a phase of “going in”—deep local embedding—where China’s manufacturing strengths are integrated with the ambition to build world-class brands.
As a result of our experience helping Chinese brands develop overseas growth strategies, we’ve identified five strategic shifts critical for success.
1. From “Channel Push” to “Brand Pull”
Chinese companies excel at pushing products efficiently into channels through their mature supply chains and precise e-commerce operations. However, over-reliance on channel push can turn the brand into an “invisible supplier,” weakening its identity and meaning that would resonate with end consumers.
In the next phase of global growth, Chinese brands are adopting a dual-engine model—protecting channel advantages while building brand strength. Consumers not only can buy the products that are accessible or affordable, but also want to buy, enabling more sustainable, long-term growth.
For instance, DJI established a clear, innovation-led brand identity early, standing for reliable, creator-friendly aerial imaging while operating a comprehensive distribution network. This helped it earn trust, mindshare, and premium positioning across major international markets.
2. From Product Function to “Differentiated Value
Chinese companies are strong at solving problems, but often less so at creating meaning. Many brands communicate primarily through functional narratives—features, specifications, and prices, pushing them into price-based, homogeneous competition. As a result, they fail to make a distinctive impression on local consumers’ minds.
To create meaningful values, brands must move beyond functional performance to define differentiated benefits by understanding different consumer segments and consumption scenarios. The goal is to shift from being seen as a substitute option or commodity to becoming a preferred or premium choice in the category.
As BYD expands into Europe, it complements channel execution with a clear sustainability-led brand promise, reinforced through brand campaigns and initiatives such as sustainability festivals and participation in major climate-focused events. These efforts help the brand build meaning and trust beyond functional vehicle attributes.
3. From Hero Product to Product Portfolio
A single successful product can ignite growth, but it can also limit expansion if the company gets ‘locked’ into one item. Brands should take a future-back approach early—designing hero products with a value proposition that supports long-term, sustainable growth. In this way, the hero product is not only a sales driver but also sets expectations for what the brand stands for.
From that center point, the brand can build a cross-category product matrix that offers solutions for diverse consumer needs. Only by building a tiered product portfolio can brands create a clear path to scale in global markets.
A good example is Xiaomi, which built global awareness through cost-effective smartphones but anchored its expansion in a consistent “tech enthusiast” identity—using that credibility to grow into a broad, tiered ecosystem spanning everyday smart-home appliances and devices as well as more advanced innovation bets such as robotics and electric vehicles.
4. From Platform Traffic to Omnichannel Experience
Many Chinese companies have become e-commerce experts that master the algorithms of platforms such as Amazon or Shopee. But this growth model contains a major risk: consumers may only remember buying something “on Amazon” while having no connection to the brand itself. These brands struggle to build meaningful brand equity, thus losing the ability to re-engage and retain customers throughout the full customer journey.
In the next phase of growth, brands must think beyond driving sales on e-commerce platforms and reimagine their digital storefront as a core brand-building base, and from there, create true omnichannel experiences. The strategic shift is from short-term acquisition to long-term customer engagement—building repeat purchase, advocacy, and a more defensible competitive position.
5. From Fragmented Voice to Consistent Messaging and Execution
As AI plays a larger role in discovery and evaluation, consistency across all touchpoints becomes crucial. AI and large language models scan internet-wide data to model brand perception: when official messaging, user reviews, and real experiences are highly consistent, the brand is given higher weighting and is more likely to be recommended; when messaging is fragmented or contradictory, it is treated as ‘noise.’
Brands today must be consistent inside and out, extending what they stand for across every touchpoint. Consistency over time builds credibility and improves conversion, retention, and reputation in the age of AI-driven recommendations.
The new era of globalization is not only about entering more markets; it is about elevating brand strength for uncommon growth. In more competitive environments, a brand’s staying power depends on whether it has real clarity, consistency, and customer preference—not only operational strength.
That staying power is built through:
Brand pull to complement channel strength
Differentiated value beyond product function
A future-back product portfolio rather than a single hero product
An omnichannel customer experience to reduce platform dependence
Consistent messaging and execution to build credibility in an AI-driven buying process
When Chinese enterprises extend their manufacturing capabilities into these five areas, they can move from exporting products to building brands—and shape global consumer trends with lasting competitiveness.
Beyond the Big Name: How to Choose a Strategy Partner for Uncommon Growth
The shift from optimization to transformation.
The consulting landscape is undergoing a fundamental shift. Historically, many of the relationships between an enterprise and a management consulting firm were anchored in efficiency. It was about “optimization”—squeezing more value out of existing assets, cutting costs, and refining legacy processes. However, in an era defined by volatility, shifting consumer expectations, and the rapid rise of generative AI, incrementalism is no longer a viable strategy.
Today’s market demands transformation, not just optimization. At Prophet, we were built specifically to bridge the gap between traditional management consulting and creative agencies—a gap that has only grown more significant as growth, digital, and brand strategies have become inseparable. As we have evolved our own capabilities, we have observed that while many firms are capable, few are “fit for purpose” in a world where the speed of change outpaces the speed of traditional strategy. This guide is designed to help leaders across functions identify the characteristics of a partner who doesn’t just solve immediate problems but unlocks long-term opportunities.
Shift 1: The Growth Mindset — Moving from Common to Uncommon
The most significant trap in modern strategy is “Common Growth.” Most firms rely heavily on historical data to predict future performance. This results in linear, mostly predictable outcomes that are easily replicated by your competitors. If everyone is looking at the same data through the same lens, everyone arrives at the same conclusion.
To break away from the pack, businesses must seek “Uncommon Growth.” This is growth that is:
Sustainable: Focused on building internal capabilities to ensure that it is a rolling thunder of moves rather than chasing one-off tactical wins.
Faster: Compressing the time between a raw insight and market execution, with strong strategy still in between.
Smarter: Utilizing advanced data and AI, combined with expertise, to identify hidden patterns that competitors miss.
More Human: Ensuring the strategy resonates emotionally with both employees and customers, especially in an increasingly AI-driven world.
More Actionable: Actively eliminating the “strategy-to-execution” gap.
The Litmus Test: Ask your prospective consulting partner: “How will this firm’s vision for our strategy make us fundamentally different and uniquely positioned, rather than just slightly better versions of our current selves?”
Shift 2: Proven Experience — The Intersection of Category and Corollary
A frequent question in the RFP process is: “Have you done this in my specific industry?” While industry depth is a baseline requirement, relying solely on industry experts often leads to “groupthink.”
True innovation usually happens at the intersection of category and corollary. Over our 30 years of global experience across industry categories, we’ve found that the solution to a retail challenge often resides in a healthcare model, or a CPG breakthrough that might be inspired by a tech platform’s user experience. Whether working within highly regulated sectors like financial services or navigating the complexities of companies grown through M&A or private equity, the best partners bring a “cross-category, cross-use case” perspective. They’ve seen how different industries solve similar problems and can adapt those lessons to your unique context.
The Litmus Test: Look for a firm that both understands your industry and can explain how a successful solution from a completely different sector might be adapted to solve your specific challenge (i.e., how does your hospitality experience influence my healthcare challenges I am trying to solve?).
Shift 3: Fluency in Business Strategy and Economics
A strategy that doesn’t move the P&L is just a dream. A partner must demonstrate a profound understanding of your business model’s unit economics from day one. There must be a balance between the “art” of brand building and the “science” of financial impact.
Consider our work with T-Mobile. The “Un-carrier” movement wasn’t just a marketing pivot or a clever slogan; it was a fundamental business model shift with a financial outcome. It changed the way customer lifetime value (CLV) and churn were calculated in the telecom industry. By building a rigorous business case for the C-suite and the Board, the strategy didn’t just win attention—it changed the EBITDA trajectory of the entire company, and in this case, the industry.
The Litmus Test: Evaluate whether the firm brings both creativity and data-driven economic rigor. Do they speak the language of the CFO as fluently as they speak the language of the CMO?
Shift 4: Speed to Impact — The Agile Strategy
The days of the six-month discovery phase are over. In today’s world, a half-year study is a death sentence for innovation. Clients now require “Speed to Impact” but with a strong strategic foundation.
Modern partners should work in sprints, delivering “Minimum Viable Product” (MVP) strategies that can be tested, measured, and iterated in real-time. This requires a robust ecosystem of capabilities and also a willingness to test, learn, modify, and scale quickly. For example, our AI Accelerator Network is a curated group of partnerships designed to help clients move from concept to market at breakneck speed and high quality.
The Litmus Test: Ask, “What is the shortest path to a ‘win’ that proves this strategy is working?” Check if they have the executional chops alongside the strategic chops to provide hands-on support in getting that idea to market.
Shift 5: Internal Socialization and Leadership Alignment
Even the most brilliant strategies fail due to internal friction. A consulting firm must be as skilled at managing stakeholders and organizational politics as it is at analyzing spreadsheets.
A true partner doesn’t just hand over a deck; they help you “sell” the strategy internally. They build it with you and key stakeholders. They create a narrative that the C-suite can rally behind, and that the frontline can actually execute. This requires a deep commitment to change management, at all levels, providing the tools and the storytelling necessary for the program’s long-term success.
The Litmus Test: Does the firm have a concrete plan for aligning your leadership team, or do they expect you to do that heavy lifting alone?
Shift 6: Cultural Fit — Working “With” You, Not “At” You
Finally, there is the “vibe” test. Some firms work “at” you—they deliver a finished product from a “black box” and disappear. Others work “with” you, becoming a seamless extension of your team and your organization.
Look for humility and pragmatism. Choose a firm that spends more time listening to your frontline employees and your customers than they do presenting its proprietary methodologies. A human-centered approach to consulting means respecting your company’s unique culture and values while pushing you to evolve.
The Litmus Test: During the pitch, do they ask curious, probing questions about your culture and past project successes and failures, or is the entire session a one-way presentation of their credentials?
Choosing a strategy partner is one of the most consequential decisions a leader can make. The “safest” choice — the biggest brand name — can be one that delivers “common” results. The best partner is the one that combines the rigor of business strategy with the imagination of a creative studio, all in service of delivering uncommon results.
Prophet’s 2025 Corporate Earnings summary with 2026 implications
Each year, we review corporate earnings reports from across regions, sectors, and sizes, distilling the learnings, strategies, guidance, and big bets into key themes for industry leaders. Giving a sense of what the last year might shape for the landscape ahead.
Which, with 331 S&P 500 companies citing “AI” during earnings calls conducted between December 15 and March 11, 2026—up from 241 in the same period last year—it’s no surprise that AI is taking up a lot of visible horizon.
Let’s get into it.
1. AI: From Building Block to Growth Engine
2025 saw unprecedented investments from those leading the AI charge. $400B+ of total AI-related capex spending from the “Magnificent 7” alone. But with major investment comes the need to prove ROI. Questions continue to circulate across industries: How long will this take? What will make the payoff worth it? Are we doing enough?
At Davos, Uber’s CEO Dara Khosrowshahi claimed many companies are “play-acting” with AI, saying the right words without fundamentally changing how their operations function. The difference is visible between companies that added AI to existing systems versus those that rebuilt their processes around it.
First came the infrastructure. The AI data center buildout created a rising tide for anyone positioned to supply it—right place, right time, mixed with speed to market and operational efficiency. Corning’s optical segment surged 35% to $6.3B. Celestica’s Connectivity & Cloud Solutions segment grew by 64%. Caterpillar’s power generation sales jumped 44% in Q4. Vertiv surpassed $10B, a 26% increase from 2024.
Other companies have been weaving AI into the core of how they work. Duolingo used AI to launch 148 new courses in under a year. Walmart’s “Trend-to-Product” engine tracks social trends and feeds concepts directly into sourcing, while its self-healing inventory system reroutes supply before shortages appear, saving $55M+. JPMorgan Chase and Mastercard embedded AI across trading, fraud detection, and transaction scoring to transform operational tools into revenue-driving capabilities. Uber rebuilt its customer-service systems from scratch, replacing rigid rules with clear goals for AI agents.
The fatigue of talking about AI for the sake of talking about it is real. But when you look at what companies are building? The advancements are remarkable—and company leaders expect those to compound with each passing year. The challenge is extracting value and turning towards AI as a growth driver versus an efficiency play.
2. The AI Talent Restructure
As for taking a stance on the role of AI in the workforce, some have gone all in: Duolingo’s CEO Luis von Ahn boldly declared the company “AI-first,” signaling a fundamental shift in how it hires and operates. Others have moved forward similarly, only without public statements. PepsiCo promised a “record year of productivity savings” in 2026 to fund growth without once mentioning AI in their Q4 earnings, even while Coca-Cola’s incoming CEO Henrique Braun made AI and digital a defining strategic priority.
To deliver these promises, companies have led colossal workforce restructurings. Intel, UPS, Amazon, and Verizon have all made cuts in the tens of thousands. Jack Dorsey’s Block laid off nearly half its staff, framing it as becoming a “smaller, faster, intelligence-native company,” an operating model reset.
But for the AI powerhouses, these major talent shifts aren’t merely downsizing. Companies are paying a premium for the talent that can push them ahead. Meta, OpenAI, Google, and xAI reportedly offered $20M+ equity awards—and in some cases $100M packages—to recruit elite AI researchers. Capability-building now means smaller teams, higher talent density, and a few highly leveraged technical leaders.
Culture has proven to be a driver of uncommon growth across all industries. As AI implementation continues, organizations that communicate clearly and tie AI to employee impact and values are seeing faster, more sustainable adoption.
3. Reinventing Toward Relevance
The ripple effects of AI and last year’s ‘Proceed with Caution’ economy pushed companies to reinvent. We noticed a few distinct flavors of reinvention in 2025: the pivot, the shed, and the path to platform.
The Pivot
Tesla halted Model S/X production to build Optimus robots. Lemonade is reinventing insurance offerings to incorporate new AI realities. Southwest made a massive bet by introducing bag fees, assigning seating, and removing its “never expire” flight credits.
The Shed
Some companies are aiming to get smaller and stronger in specific areas. Comcast spun off its cable networks and leaned on theme parks and Peacock deals for revenue. Meta officially shifted its narrative from “Metaverse” to “Superintelligence,” no longer promoting Reality Labs for VR. Siemens is spinning off their Healthineers business. Medtronic announced the spin-off of its $2.7B Diabetes business to simplify operations and double down on procedural medtech, where its cardiac ablation solutions surged nearly 30%.
The Path to Platform
The companies that chose to keep adding were betting on becoming something else entirely. Robinhood evolved from meme-stock brokerage to financial super app—prediction markets, retirement, credit cards, banking, managed portfolios—with revenue up 52% to $4.5B and platform assets up 68% to $324B. The New York Times hit nearly 13 million subscribers by bundling news, games, cooking, and sports into a contained ecosystem. JPMorgan Chase continued rewiring itself as an integrated platform, backed by an $18B technology budget and the operational deployment of agentic AI.
For others, reinvention meant short-term loss for long-term potential. UnitedHealth absorbed a $1.6B restructuring charge against a backdrop of genuine turbulence and still grew full-year revenues 12% to $447.6B. The restructuring wasn’t a retreat, but a bet on what comes next.
Whether getting lean or integrating more capabilities, the underlying question remains the same: where and when will our investments pay off? We’ll see if that question drives continued reinvention in 2026.
4. M&A Outlook / The R&D Arms Race
From a muted M&A environment in 2024, deal volume and deal value were both up in 2025. There were notable acquisitions—Alphabet acquired Wiz to enhance AI-powered cybersecurity across multi-cloud environments, Verizon added fiber infrastructure through its Frontier deal, Paramount won the long battle for the premium-priced Warner Bros. Discovery, Dick’s Sporting Goods acquired Foot Locker, and Pfizer’s acquisition of Metsara brought it into the GLP conversation.
But there’s more to the story. Only about 7% of total corporate cash spending went to M&A; the rest? R&D and capex. Companies that try to buy growth are still waiting for the payoff. PE firms like Carlyle and BlackRock had successful fundraising and financial performance, yet the market still struggled to deploy capital in an environment where ROI is difficult, and AI makes future earnings less predictable.
The companies that drove growth in 2025 built it themselves. Meta is moving to own the entire AI stack, reducing reliance on NVIDIA and investing heavily in AI commerce. Palantir’s U.S. commercial revenue grew 137% year-over-year, with AIP becoming a repeatable growth engine. CrowdStrike pushed R&D spending up 38% to launch Falcon AIDR, a full AI-native security platform.
In healthcare, Eli Lilly invested $55B in manufacturing to scale GLP-1 production far beyond current demand, partnering with NVIDIA on AI-driven drug discovery to compress R&D timelines. Hims & Hers invested in proprietary telehealth infrastructure to build direct-to-consumer health at scale, and AbbVie is building a neuroscience franchise intended to rival the scale of its immunology business. The M&A window may reopen as clarity returns, but 2025 made a strong case that in an AI-driven economy, growth can be driven organically.
5. Customer Obsession: Know who You’re Serving
Despite a resilient (but wobbly) economy in 2025, some consumers acted as if nothing stood in their way. Moody’s Analytics reported that the top 10% of households were responsible for nearly half of all consumer spending, validating Powell’s characterization of a “bifurcated economy.” The companies winning at the top are commanding premiums by delivering differentiated experiences, and those winning at the bottom are using AI to deliver more for less. The companies in the middle—the ones doing neither—are getting hollowed out.
Winning at a Higher Premium
Netflix closed 2025 with over 325 million paid subscribers, and with another premium price hike on the way, it’s proving that relentless investment in IP consumers care about makes for inelastic demand. Crocs’ Jibbitz charm revenue hit $271 million in 2024, with 3/4 buyers purchasing charms to personalize their Crocs, turning a one-time shoe sale into an ongoing relationship. Colgate is pushing into premium with its Optic White Pro Series, positioning at-home whitening as a credible alternative to professional treatments.
Winning the Value
Costco raised membership fees for the first time in years, and, with a 92% renewal rate, no one flinched. Its private-label, value-driven Kirkland Signature brand continued to grow faster than the total business. DoorDash expanded well beyond food delivery into grocery, retail, and convenience, only adding value to its household name.
Stuck in the Middle
Target’s stock fell 34%. The company is investing in store remodels and trying to compete, though still not affordable enough to win the price-conscious shopper and not differentiated enough to command loyalty at the top.
Being ‘stuck’ doesn’t mean it’s over. Starbucks pivoted back to its beginnings, putting customer experience first with a $1B investment in its ‘Coffeehouse Uplift’ initiative to shift perceptions of a once dreaded destination to again being the token ‘third place.’ Even as they constantly evolve, focusing on core customers will likely be a key theme in 2026.
A special thank you to: Editors: Hannah Anderson, Moira Allen; Research: Harry Ball, Fabienne Haase, Caitlin Shin, Gibson Campbell, Zoey Gendler, Sophie Kang
The AI conversations, reinventions, and innovations show no signs of stopping. And in this rapidly growing area of an already ever-evolving market, there’s never been more risk or opportunity for growth. Last year’s winners harnessed their own capabilities and reinvigorated their approach to drive uncommon growth—how companies respond in 2026 and beyond will determine whether they become an Uncommon Growth Company.
Experience Intelligence Redefined: Simulation for Faster, Richer CX Insights
Using predictive intelligence to bridge the gap between strategy and frontline reality to drive uncommon growth.
This article was co-authored by Cameron Fink, Co-Founder and CEO of Aaru, as part of a strategic partnership with Prophet to redefine experience intelligence through AI simulation.Read more about Aaru and their story in their recent Wall Street Journal profile.
What if you could understand your customer’s experience across a journey that spans thousands of touchpoints in just 48 hours?
That’s no longer a hypothetical. With AI simulation, Prophet and Aaru are helping brands model and action on customer journeys, particularly among hard to reach audiences.
This isn’t “synthetic research.” It’s a new form of predictive intelligence: Aaru’s simulations are built on proprietary behavioral and outcomes-based data that mirrors real-world patterns with remarkable accuracy. The result? A clearer, faster, and more granular path to understanding what customers experience, feel, and do —and how to act on it to drive loyalty and growth.
Success Story: From Impossible to Possible
Prophet and Aaru partnered with a leading healthcare company specializing in emergency care to tackle the daunting challenge of understanding the patient experience during unplanned care events. The team simulated 12,500 survey respondents, “agents,” across patients, providers, caregivers, and health system leaders — giving us a comprehensive, 360-degree view of what truly happens in these critical moments.
A simulated patient described their journey this way:
“Treatment was the strongest part of my emergency department visit. The care team was attentive even under pressure, and I felt genuinely listened to. In contrast, discharge was confusing; I left with a sense that key details were missing, which made managing at home more stressful. The journey back to routine life was neither easy nor especially difficult, but I wish the transition out of the hospital matched the quality of care I received inside.”
This engagement surfaced breakthrough insights that would have been nearly impossible to capture using traditional research methods, especially in a comparable window of time and with the same depth and granularity of insights.
Most notably, it exposed a significant disconnect within the organization: While 78% of C-suite leaders believed they had a formal patient experience strategy in place, only 19% of frontline doctors and nurses were even aware such a strategy existed. Additionally, priorities for improving the patient experience varied widely across these groups, showing a lack of consensus and alignment.
The AI-driven simulation revealed four core pillars essential to delivering an outstanding patient experience, each accompanied by actionable tactics to enhance the patient experience.
This research closed long-standing knowledge gaps and equipped the organization with tangible, cross-functional focus areas to drive patient-centered transformation at scale.
Three Game-Changing Benefits: Why AI Simulation Leads to Uncommon Growth
1. Acceleration Without Sacrifice
In a world where customer expectations and market conditions evolve at lightning speed, waiting weeks for static insights is no longer good enough. Simulation can help collapse months of work into 24-48 hours. These accelerated insights empower companies to respond to market signals, emerging risks, or new opportunities in near real-time, fueling not just quick wins but sustainable growth.
2. Access to Insights you Couldn’t get Before
The old approach relied on your ability to recruit a qualified research panel or persuade someone to take a survey. With simulation, you break free of those limits. You can now reach and analyze audiences that were once inaccessible. Whether they are emergency care patients, users of third-party risk management software, or clinical engineers, to name a few examples of engagements Aaru and Prophet have collaborated on. More importantly, audience simulation and predictive modeling unlock a new layer: understanding not just what your customers say, but modeling what they actually do across an expanding set of complex, real-world touchpoints.
3. Anticipation That Drives Action
Simulations don’t just report on the past; they illuminate the path forward. Through advanced modeling, you gain predictive insight into customer behavior — forecasting outcomes, quantifying risk, and testing “what if” scenarios before making big bets. This elevates decision-making from reflective to proactive, enabling organizations to enhance customer journeys, mitigate churn, or unlock new innovation ideas in a way traditional analytics simply cannot match.
You can now answer questions such as:
How will customers’ experience expectations evolve in 3 years?
How will changes in pricing or a new feature rollout impact different high-value customer segments?
Where are the breakpoints in a cross-channel journey that drive churn?
The Future: Growth Through Unlocked Intelligence
AI simulations are not merely efficiency tools. They are growth engines — providing leaders with accelerated insights, predictive models, and access to customer truths that were once off-limits. Through the Prophet / Aaru partnership, the horizon for customer experience has expanded: growth is no longer gated by the limitations of legacy research.
As these technologies evolve, the best organizations won’t just move faster — they’ll see further, know their customers more deeply, and act with precision on opportunities hidden from their competitors. Don’t settle for yesterday’s answers. The future of growth starts with intelligence that was previously out of reach. Contact us for a Rapid CX Assessment using AI Simulation.
Why investing in the next level of leadership unlocks organizational growth.
As corporate leaders assess company performance, raises and bonus distribution, it’s imperative that they prioritise middle managers. Middle managers are the linchpins of organizational health, translating strategy into execution, culture into action and performance into results. It defies reason why these dogged workhorses climbing corporate ladders don’t get the investments they need to help them soar before they lose their footing.
In a 2024 survey, 75% of millennial middle managers reported feeling overwhelmed, stressed, or burned out — and nearly half said they were considering leaving their roles. These managers are feeling pressure from all sides: 39% cited increased pressure from senior leadership, while 37% pointed to greater demands from their teams.
Same holds true for middle managers. It’s senior leaders who get the shiny new toys. They get up to bat first when there are exclusive training programs and executive coaching sessions to be had. First to get rewarded when performance metrics are met. Front-line workers are also nurtured and groomed, given access to tools and training while they settle in and grow. Not so much for those in the middle. They’re expected to translate, deliver and execute sans the tailored support they so often need.
What a miss.
According to Gallup, 70% of the variance in employee engagement is directly attributed to the manager. McKinsey reports that companies with strong managerial capabilities deliver returns to shareholders that are 21 times greater than those with weaker managers.
So what do middle managers really need — and how can organizations better support and unleash their potential?
1. Make Their Lives Easier
Middle managers are drowning in complexity. Simplify wherever possible: streamline workflows, reduce administrative burdens and equip them with intuitive tools.
And communicate with them. It’s one of their biggest pain points. Establish dedicated manager forums or communities to serve as both peer support and direct communication channels. Make information easy to access, tailored to their needs and rooted in shared experience — not buried in intranets or lost in long email threads.
2. Give Them a Seat at the Table
Managers are uniquely positioned. They have proximity to the front line, insights into customer pain points and an intimate view of what’s working — and what’s not — on the ground. Treat them as strategic partners and reward them as such. Create intentional touchpoints between middle managers and senior leadership to foster transparency, trust and dialogue. Share how decisions are made, invite their input and — critically — close the loop by acknowledging when their feedback influences change. Visibility into impact fuels engagement and retention. And it just feels good.
3. Support Them as People Leaders
Many middle managers were promoted for being strong individual contributors but haven’t received the support to evolve into effective people leaders. They’re expected to motivate, coach and lead — but may not have the tools to do so. Invest in them and the dividends will flow.
When a healthcare client was introducing a new, simplified purpose, leadership made the strategic decision to create manager-specific summits that made the content and experience accessible to this critical level of leadership. The content and training were tailored to this audience, focused on equipping managers to bring the new organizational mantra to life through day-to-day coaching and recognition, compared to more strategically for senior leaders. Participants voiced appreciation that middle managers were trusted and engaged to lead the rollout which fuel-injected its success.
4. Empower Their Decision-Making
Managers want to lead — not just follow orders. Give them autonomy, backed by the right guardrails. Allstate introduced a decision-making model where senior leaders took on the role of “navigators,” while middle managers were cast as the “drivers.” This metaphor wasn’t just symbolic — it represented a tangible shift in accountability and empowerment.
With senior leaders as coaches, not bottlenecks, middle managers gained confidence and clarity in their decision-making.
5. Recognise and Develop Them
Middle managers carry immense weight — yet their efforts often go unacknowledged. Recognition doesn’t have to be flashy. Career development opportunities, visible appreciation and meaningful decision-making authority all go a long way.
In fact, McKinsey found that middle managers value empowerment — such as being trusted to make decisions — just as much as financial rewards. So as the year winds down, consider both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators when designing recognition strategies.
Unilever’s FLEX Experiences, for instance, gave talent the chance to raise their hand for new internal projects across the organization. Expanding the pool for talent beyond typical structures, the AI-powered program helped align individuals on passion projects.
Middle managers serve as the vital heartbeat of any organization, and they deserve a starring role rather than a seat in the wings. By clearing away the administrative cobwebs, elevating their strategic voices and fueling their growth as people leaders, companies unlock a treasure trove of untapped potential.
If you’re curious to explore how mastering middle manager management can become your secret competitive weapon, I’d be delighted to swap ideas over coffee. Let’s turn everyday chaos into triumph together.
The good. The bad. The chaotic. Our writers break down the tape.
Advertising’s biggest day has come and gone, and we’ve been all abuzz with what went on between game action last night (because let’s face it, anything was more exciting than that snoozefest of a game). Super Bowl LX blessed us with all types of ads, such as ads for AI, ads making fun of AI, and even ads for AI that made fun of AI. But despite the AI excess, there was still a wide range of advertising approaches — from absurdist humor and celebrity cameos that capture the cultural zeitgeist, to cinematic restraint and concept-driven storytelling.
We asked three of our writers to share their standouts — exploring how today’s brands are balancing big entertainment with uncommon brand impact.
Spencer Roth-Rose Senior Copywriter, Campaigns
Spencer is a senior copywriter for campaigns at Prophet. As a New England native, he really misses Tom Brady right about now.
Big Stage, Bigger Pivots
The spotlight of the Super Bowl is a perfect excuse to double down on your brand identity. And whether it’s the annual Budweiser Clydesdale show or the latest chapter in Dove’s campaign for body confidence, this year’s edition definitely played some of the hits we’ve come to expect. But I couldn’t help but notice that it seemed like more brands than usual were pushing something new: new markets, new products, new category pivots. Is using the biggest night in advertising as a brand transformation milestone a smart play, or is it a gamble that might be regretted a year or five down the line? The following brands have a lot riding on the answer.
Fanatics
Video Source: YouTube / Fanatics
What better way to grab eyeballs for your sports betting product than during the biggest sports betting event of the year? Fanatics, better known for its sports merchandise and collectibles, showed up big on Sunday with 90 seconds of a self-aware Kendall Jenner poking fun at the “Kardashian Kurse” meme and reinforcing Fanatics as a shiny, new-ish face on the sportsbook block. It’s a bold splash, and a major bet that it can successfully leverage its existing sports fan relationships to continue making a dent in a very crowded category. Luckily, the spot itself hits, with laughs, glitz, and a single, high-concept idea (a Big Game rarity these days) that effortlessly speaks the language of the target audience — and made the less sports-inclined at the Super Bowl party sit up and take notice.
With a $100 million spend between the Super Bowl and World Cup this year, Luxembourg-based confectioner Ferrero is making no mistake: it wants to become a household name on this side of the pond. The 30-second buy at the Super Bowl was Kinder’s biggest U.S. cultural investment to date as the company seeks to compete with Hershey and Mars in the long-entrenched American candy landscape. But did the spot itself, for the Kinder Bueno chocolate bar, pay off? Starring media personality Paige DeSorbo and Guy-Who’s-In-Stuff William Fichtner in a chaotic sci-fi disaster, it was a bit of a mess — but at least the campaign tagline “Yes Bueno” (a play on “no bueno”) nods nicely, if not accidentally, to the multicultural origins of the brand. Chocolate does, after all, taste the same in any language.
Liquid Death participated in its second straight Super Bowl — just in time for its largest category expansion ever. The beverage disruptor is betting that its “better-for-you” energy drinks, which hit the market last month, can capture energy drinkers who are already loyal to the brand. But how did its irreverent brand voice translate into the hype-fueled and crowded energy drink market? Pretty well, actually. By calling out how its Sparkling Energy drinks have, well, a normal amount of caffeine versus the overloaded competitors via a fun exploding-head metaphor, Liquid Death is showing that its brand voice is deft enough to flex to a more mainstream audience — while still retaining its edge.
Hannah Anderson Senior Associate, Verbal Branding
Hannah is a senior copywriter that’s been cheering on Advertising’s biggest night for years, but shamelessly flipping back to the Puppy Bowl between the “football” breaks.
Celebrity Voice, Meet Brand Voice
Much of Sunday’s ad lineup was a celebration of silliness, slapstick, and shtick, as absurdist escapism and social media-esque “brain rot” continue to infiltrate corporate strategy. And the vehicle of choice? Celebrities. Lots of celebrities.
Listening closely, I’ve noticed that the most effective shenanigans share a common thread: scripts built around the distinct personas of the celebrity(s) in the spot. When the humor aligns with their reputation, it helps justify why they’re in the ad to begin with. These spots also land best when the punchline connects back to the brand or product strategy cleverly and clearly.
Hellmann’s
Video Source: YouTube / Hellmann’s
Choosing a known-for-nonsense comedian for a full-fledged parody makes total sense, so I see where Hellman’s was going with this one. However, as I listened to Andy Samberg, AKA “Meal Diamond,” belting out punny lines like “sweet sandwich time” and “ham touching ham,” I felt the spot begin to drown in its own chaos. The product itself got lost somewhere between the joke lyrics and the escalating spectacle. By the time I reached the endline, “it’s sandwich time,” it felt as ancillary as the two-second Elle Fanning cameo. Looking back, I couldn’t help but think last year’s “When Harry Met Sally” reference depicting a mayo-fueled foodgasm “hit the spot” a little more clearly.
The teaser introduced its celebrity trio and established the campaign’s voice. In a wedding guest carpool, Peyton Manning, Post Malone, and Shane Gillis fall into an easy, conversational rhythm that feels more like a podcast than a commercial. It’s loose, unfiltered, and uncensored, creating humor that’s driven by personality — not plot. Post brings a breezy goofiness — “tapping the keg” — that sets the playful baseline. Shane adds comedic riffs like “a little tippy tappy,” giving the dialogue a scrappy, improvisational feel. And Peyton’s earnest, dad-next-door delivery (“my favorite part right here”) grounds the trio with a tone that’s warm rather than polished.
In the prime-time spot, “Keg,” the brand trades in bro-down banter for situational absurdity, as the entire wedding party hurls itself down a steep hill after their light beer supply. And while dialogue is minimal, personalities stay sharp: from Peyton’s sincere “First beer of the wedding” toast to Shane’s dry “I give it a week” close. The spot grounds slapstick chaos in an established chemistry that not only pays off the escalating absurdity, but makes the tone feel cohesive and unmistakably Bud Light.
Where Bud Light’s ad felt tailor-made for its cast, Instacart’s “Half Brothers” approach to voice felt only half-natural. On one end, Ben Stiller’s character plays something like an ‘80’s-era cocktail of his Dodgeball and Zoolander personas — bold, clueless, and self-absorbed. Meanwhile, Benson Boone’s presence, though loosely tied to his sense of showmanship, feels more like a generational nod to younger viewers than a true match with Stiller’s unbridled energy. Add the accents and stage-trick flip-off, and the connection to the brand drifts even further. The message of “Choose your bananas” gets swallowed by slapstick spectacle and unrelated chaos — no matter how impressive the gymnastics might be.
Bella Courtenay-Morris Director, Verbal Branding
Bella is a verbal branding expert at Prophet and ex-agency writer — she grew up watching rugby and only watches the Super Bowl for the halftime show and the ads.
When Less is More (Memorable)
As Hannah and Spencer noted, we saw a lot of celebrity cameos, musical performances, stunts, and shock value — often, all at once. Many brands took a maximalist approach to attention-grabbing, one that I worry prioritizes the “wow factor” over a winning message. Despite star power, color, and chaos, when you blur your eyes, it’s easy for one ad to bleed into the next. The tradeoff of this nonsensical maximalism is “attribution loss.” Viewers remember the joke or the celeb, but not the brand.
Amid the sensory overload, emotional storytelling with cinematic restraint became radical. Those who stripped away the spectacle to focus on a singular, driving concept may have a higher chance of brand recall in the days to come. Or better yet, audiences might even be compelled to make a purchase. From talking toilet lids to heartfelt intergenerational moments, a few players caught my eye — not by doing the most, but by doing less with more conviction.
Anthropic – Claude
Video Source: YouTube / Anthropic
I had high hopes for the OpenAI spot this year, but instead, its rival’s Super Bowl debut caught my attention. Anthropic chose the biggest advertising stage to poke fun at how annoying advertising can be. No celebrity or showmanship, just a clearly scripted competitive dig. The spot hinges on the simple insight that ads in AI conversations aren’t fun. In fact, they’re pretty dang disruptive. By parodying a typical chat conversation interrupted by unrelated marketing schemes, Anthropic positions Claude as the anti-ad chat service. I do wish they kept the spot to the single defiant promise from the pre-released versions, “Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude,” rather than adding the slightly longer explanation, “There is a time and a place for ads — and AI conversations aren’t one of them.” Regardless, this spot is a great reminder that sometimes it’s just as effective to highlight what you don’t do to position your brand favorably.
I’m not suggesting that cameos and cinematic restraint are a tradeoff. Especially when casting makes sense for the brand. In its teaser, TurboTax led with (and repeated) a singular message: “I can handle that for you.” And in the aired spot, Academy Award-winning actor Adrien Brody brings the drama, preparing for his new role as a tax expert. But to Brody’s confusion, it’s revealed that TurboTax takes the drama out of doing your taxes. The juxtaposition of a serious drama actor trying to make sense of drama-free taxes resonated. And this core idea, central to its brand identity, is repeated in various ways (à la, “We take the pain out of taxes, remember?” or “Sorry Adrien Brody, now taxes are drama-free.”), making it stick. Will more people turn to TurboTax this tax season? I’m curious to see.
In my mind, Clydesdales = Budweiser. And the brand returned again to its go-to symbol in this year’s spot. While it may be expected, the brand isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel. Instead, Budweiser continues to cement its reputation for heritage, quality, and tradition as an “American Icon,” tying its own iconography to the bald eagle. Using the musical backdrop of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” and a cinematic Americana aesthetic, the spot shares an emotional story of two “buds” growing up together. This unlikely friendship makes sense for the brand. And despite no copy or voiceover until 50 seconds in, the simplicity, emotional resonance, and brand fit made the “Made of America” message memorable.
