The opening panel at FP Live! 2026 showed that brand has returned to the top of the marketing agenda – even in the age of AI.
Miriam Boote, Managing Director at Designate, pointed to a shift in mindset among senior leaders.
“Brand is the number one concern for European CMOs right now,” she said. “AI is much further down the list. What really connects people is brands.”
As Jayne Fieldhouse, Head of Global Institutional Marketing at RBC Global Asset Management, put it: “Brand is back, but it’s back with authenticity.”
“In a commoditised world, you can’t just rely on the old ways – you have to stand for something.” Without a clear point of difference, “every asset manager ends up sounding the same,” she added.
The industry is under increasing pressure to provide better value. Iulia Balan, Vice President of International Marketing at Verisk, highlighted the balancing act many teams face.
“We’re having to balance our investment in brand awareness and demand generation to match the variety of needs across our audiences and markets,” she said. “It’s about doing more while showing what that delivers in real terms, and whether AI can help us do it faster.”
For Peter Williams, Global Head of Asset Servicing Marketing, Northern Trust, that scrutiny is only intensifying, which has led to a renewed emphasis on value.
“This isn’t about vanity metrics or how many people turned up to an event – it’s about what that event actually delivered for the business.”
AI is part of the equation – but it has limits.
“It’ll get you 80% of the way there,” Fieldhouse said, “but it can’t replace strategy or stakeholder relationships.”
Boote agreed, warning that ‘AI creates normative outputs – and if you rely on it too much, everything could end up sounding the same.
“The work that stands out is the thinking that goes beyond that,” she added.
“A piece of creative that stops you in your tracks is always going to be above anything that is AI-produced and normative,” Boote added.
The marketer’s mandate is evolving. The challenge is how organisations blend brand and performance, prove commercial impact and still stand out.