Why 2026 will reward brands that put people before process

This new year presents an opportunity to reset expectations, reclaim creativity and build brands that are genuinely fit for human connection.

I’ve sat and scanned trend reports from the likes of Collective Measures, Mediacharge, Forrester and TargetNXT, and a single theme emerges. B2B buyers, audiences, customers, users, clients and employees are all real people. They are emotional, impatient and increasingly intolerant of anything that feels inauthentic. The brands that are succeeding are communicating to those people, rather than to the abstract categories and personas that organisations have come to rely on, and these are the ones that will succeed in 2026.

Here’s some of the best insights, contradictions and blind spots, offering a candid perspective on what needs to change in 2026 and why B2P (Business to People) thinking is no longer a nice-to-have.

1. Brands are still built for Boards, not buyers

If you look closely at most brand identities, you can sometimes see where the compromises were made. The creativity reined in until the result is neither brave nor memorable, but simply palatable enough to pass internal scrutiny.

The problem is that internal scrutiny is rarely aligned with real-world expectations.

According to Collective Measures and Forrester, B2B buyers increasingly behave as individuals with consumer-grade expectations. 71% prefer remote or digital interactions, and 59% of B2B tech buyers are millennials who place emotional resonance above rational argument every time. Yet brands continue to operate as if authority is communicated through restraint and uniformity.

Boards and leaders prioritise consensus over originality. Teams prioritise risk avoidance over distinctiveness. In the process, brands are shaped around the politics of acceptance rather than the reality of connection. B2P reframes this entirely.

If you want to influence people, start by acknowledging they are human beings. They do not respond to static systems; they respond to connection, clarity and creative impact. This is why storytelling has been used for generations.

In this day and age, brands built for internal comfort will rarely earn external trust.

2. AI has made lying effortless – and audiences know it

Just as the Industrial Revolution transformed production of its time, AI has transformed production today. In many instances, what once required skill, time and expertise can now be generated in moments – and over 60% of top marketers already rely on generative AI for content creation TargetNXT highlights in their report. But while AI has democratised creation, it’s also democratised deception.

Suddenly, everyone can produce superficially impressive assets without possessing any underlying insight or truth. The volume of content has exploded, yet very little of it carries meaning and we are now surrounded by articulate falsehoods.

I believe that audiences recognise when something has been produced by a machine and not informed and controlled by a human creative mind. The term “AI slop” springs to mind. They sense when brands use technology as a substitute for skill and authenticity rather than as a tool for amplification. One example that was seen at the end of 2025 by the entirely AI-generated advert for McDonalds. The 45-second advert was produced with generative AI clips and released publicly on McDonald’s Netherlands YouTube channel on 6 December.

Viewers on social media denounced the use of AI in the film, with one commenter calling it “the most god-awful ad I’ve seen this year”

On 9 December (just 3 days later)  McDonald’s Netherlands removed the video, adding in a statement to BBC News that the moment served as “an important learning” as the company explored “the effective use of AI”.

Now I am not against using AI at all, but using AI as a replacement for the human creative role entirely damages trust – and trust is the new battleground over and above efficiency, scale and speed. If your brand cannot demonstrate absolute conviction, clarity and integrity, no amount of automated content will compensate.

The B2P approach reminds us that people want honesty, not performance. We’re finding more and more that ‘likes’ often do not equate to sales.

3. The era of perfect brand identities is over

For years, organisations have been sold the dream of perfect consistency. A brand that behaves identically in every channel, every context, every touchpoint. A single immaculate identity that maintains control regardless of cultural or platform-specific nuance. But that dream isn’t a reality.

TargetNXT and Collective Measures both highlight the fragmentation of discovery within their trends reports. Audiences now encounter brands across an expanding ecosystem of social platforms, AI search tools, in-app micro journeys and unpredictable digital environments. They move between these spaces quickly, fluidly and with little tolerance for friction. So the idea that a brand should remain precisely the same everywhere is not only impractical. It is irrelevant.

This is the moment for coherence, not consistency.

Consistency demands sameness and it prioritises compliance over creativity.

Whereas coherence equals relevance. It creates recognition through meaning rather than through duplication and it gives brands space to flex, allowing expression to adapt without losing its core.

Most organisations are still stuck in a mindset that confuses consistency with control. But real people do not experience brands as rigid systems. They experience them as fluid interactions shaped by time, context, culture and above all, emotion.

In 2026, B2B brands must function more like living organisms than rigid technical frameworks. Structured enough to be recognisable. Flexible enough to feel real and appropriate in that moment.

The most successful brands will be the ones that start designing for expression, instead of policing.

4. Performance marketing’s addiction cycle is killing long-term value

The reports are unambiguous about budgets remaining under intense pressure. Cost per acquisition continues to climb, and organisations increasingly respond by leaning into short-term performance tactics instead of long-term investment.

The Mediacharge report calls this the addiction cycle. When results weaken, invest more in performance. When costs rise, chase even harder. When conversion stalls, increase the volume. The short-term numbers look convincing enough to reassure leadership, but the long-term impact is actually corrosive.

Forrester reinforces that misalignment between finance and marketing compounds the problem. Businesses optimise for immediacy rather than longevity – and the space for creativity, brand building and emotional differentiation shrinks. However, performance marketing is not the enemy. Over reliance is.

When brands chase clicks rather than connection, they start to trade long-term distinctiveness for short-term metrics. And once a brand becomes interchangeable with its competitors, no amount of targeting can save it.

B2P perspective: value is created when brands make people feel something. Not when they treat audiences as conversion flows.

5. B2B is becoming entertainment, but brands are not

One of the most significant shifts highlighted by Collective Measures is the rise of entertainment in B2B. Buyers expect to be engaged, not educated. They are looking for brands with personality, energy and narrative depth.

Meanwhile, influencer-led B2B is increasing, and thought leadership consistently outperforms traditional brand advertising. People trust people, not faceless organisations. They want to hear from voices they respect, not institutions trying to sound authoritative.Yet most brands behave like corporate librarians.

Entertainment is not the opposite of seriousness. It shows that you understand how people actually consume information and value their time. It reflects a brand confident enough to express itself rather than hide behind formalities.

B2P reframes entertainment as a form of respect. Brands must stop trying to sound important and start to sound open, empathetic and honest.

6. Culture moves faster than brand systems can cope with

Every report that we read reflected the same underlying tension: that culture is accelerating while market conditions are unstable. Expectations are also shifting massively. Collective Measures notes that buyers use twice as many channels as they did only a few years ago. Mediacharge highlights that strategies burn out in months rather than years. And Forrester points to growing volatility in customer behaviour.

Against this backdrop, many organisations double down on rigid processes to contain chaos. This shows up as templates, systems and governance frameworks designed to contain chaos. But chaos is not a problem to be eliminated, instead it needs to be understood.

Synthetic personas and AI-tested creative can replicate patterns, but they cannot replicate the irrationality of humans. It’s a fact that people are unpredictable. They respond to nuance and they are influenced by cultural forces that cannot be captured in data models.

When brands rely exclusively on systematic control, they fall behind cultural momentum. They may produce work that is technically correct but lacks emotional relevance.

A B2P approach results in brands which are built for adaptability, interpretation and evolution. Not perfection, enforcement or preservation.

The organisations that thrive in 2026 will be the ones that design for change instead of resisting it.

7. B2P is no longer an approach. It is more like an ultimatum

For years, our B2P approach has been positioned as a modern alternative to traditional B2B and B2C frameworks. A way of reframing marketing around real human needs. But in 2026, B2P is no longer an interesting concept. It is the only viable foundation for brand resilience.

Trust is declining, and expectations are rising. Attention is also fracturing; the gap between what brands say and what they do has become uncomfortably visible.

A brand built around processes, politics and performance metrics cannot survive this shift. However, a brand built around people can.

B2P is a direct response to the world as it is, not as organisations wish it to be. It demands clarity, honesty, creativity and courage. It forces businesses to confront uncomfortable truths about who they are and how they behave.

In summary

2026 will be the year that exposes which brands have been built for real people and which have been designed to look good on the surface only. One of those can survive cultural acceleration, AI disruption and rising customer expectations. The other will collapse under the weight of its own internal politics.

Good enough is no longer enough. The brands that act now will push the boundaries, have far greater impact and be remembered and talked about for long to come. The rest will simply be forgotten.

If you want your brand to stand the test of time get in contact. We’ve been doing this successfully for 15 years.