Why 2026 is going to be a more deliberate year

We are drowning in content, advice, how to’s and ‘personal brands’, AI ads, AI ambitions and just so so much STUFF.

But for people and brands to stand out in 2026, it’s going to be about intentionality.

I believe that we can’t keep churning - testing yes, but throwing out wholly AI generated content just to be visible will be damaging to brands.

Yes use it to unlock, but the Christmas ads that relied on AI had pretty strong consumer rejections.

As with all things new, it’ll be about bedding in and incorporating into processes.

But not automation and AI instead of creativity.

It’s as well as.

And intentional use of analogue media, IRL events and more.

Maybe that’s just me. Maybe I’ll eating my words. Or be part robot by the end of the year.

Beep, boop.

Fractional Marketing 9 years in, the update

An early adopter of the think that latterly became being a Fractional CMO (actually not to start with) and now, agency leader, here’s everything I know:

• You’re a business, baby - the mental shift from being an employee to fractional is probably the number one challenge I see folks battling with. Learn the word opportunity cost and stick it on a post it on your face, screen, mirror, wherever. You’ve got to remember that your time is money. And you don’t want people that waste either.

• Be crystal clear about what the problem is, and be prepared to do some sleuthing - and learn to coach it out of people, fast. So many times I hear from fractionals that struggle because what they’ve been told the situation is and the actual situation is can be very different - business not growing fast enough (but there’s no business strategy in place and changes direction every 5 mins…), brand is a problem (is it, or is it the positioning, or market that’s changed). Get your sleuth on.

• A no is often a not now. Keep in touch with people who decide not to proceed now, you never know.

• Likewise find your people. It’s lonely old world out there. And there’s a million places that profess to be a community.. find your people and spend dedicated time to network.

• Marketing is STILL misunderstood - so much of your life from before is teaching the rest of the c suite what marketing is. This will always happen - the only thing when you’re fractional is the gap in keeping in touch time being enough for the founder or CFO to ask Chat GPT a new question and get some utter claptrap back… so get ready.

• You’ll get the most incredible insights into what people really think - that being ‘in but not full time’ seems to give everyone the permission to open the floodgates and tell you what they really think. Good for some signals of bigger problems, but also a sense of how much the culture is rumour mill city.

• A fractional + very junior teams isn’t always a good mix - you need a midweight and driven marketing manager level who can take the reigns on some things and drive it forward without 5 days a week supervision. Very green teams need much more close management than sometimes your fractional coverage can support - i’ve spoken to some fractionals that said it can feel like groundhog day.

• New business needs TIME and energy - continually broaden your horizons and network, and do it so often you lose the ick.

In all? Love it.

And love supporting others so much I created a dedicated Fractional Community under my other brand, We Are All Marketing. We find and curate the latest fractional gigs, too. So come join.

Why are we still calling Digital Marketing Digital Marketing?

“Digital Marketing” has grown up with me.

Which is why I’m still surprised that Digital gets its own label still.

Name me a marketing campaign that doesn’t have some sort of digital element. Are we conflating performance marketing (ie spend money > generate money) as digital? What about the maturity of social?

It's baffling that we’re still considering them separate, with separate budgets, and separate strategies.

Working with a brand on only lower funnel digital recently has been a stark reminder, we can’t keep thinking of them as separate. That it’s big brand investment (ie TV) over off doing something wholly, mutually exclusive of what digital is up to.

It HAS to work together. Especially in a world of expensive CPMs, harder to track tracking and an unending will-they-won’t-they on third party cookies.

It needs to be something we consider all together, and ultimately do with the customer rather than the P&L in mind.