Four Marketing Truths Business Leaders Must Confront Going Into 2026

by Marion Barnham on 29th Dec 2025

As organisations approach 2026, growth remains a priority for business leaders facing tighter constraints. Markets are more competitive, budgets are limited, and tolerance for uncertainty is low. Marketing is expected to deliver measurable revenue, predictable pipelines, and efficient capital use.

Less often considered is whether marketing is structured and led to achieve these outcomes. Similar patterns appear across organisations of all sizes and sectors. These are not capability issues, but rather leadership and governance challenges.

Truth 1: Marketing momentum is set by business leaders

Marketing effectiveness is established before campaigns launch. Frequent reprioritisation, delayed decisions, and unclear ownership consistently erode momentum.

For business leaders, these behaviours increase execution risk. Work slows, costs rise, agencies disengage, and teams focus on short-term tasks instead of long-term value. The organisation appears active, but progress stalls.

Often, approved marketing plans are undermined by leadership behaviour. Unplanned requests override priorities. Decisions are deferred or reversed, and multiple leaders direct outcomes without clear accountability. Marketing is then evaluated against targets it was structurally unable to deliver.

Momentum is not an operational issue. It is a leadership condition.

Truth 2: Marketing is still governed as a cost, not a revenue system

Despite driving demand and revenue, marketing is often managed as a discretionary cost. This mindset influences reporting structures, decision rights, and performance expectations.

When marketing reports to sales or is excluded from senior leadership discussions, its role narrows to short-term support. It loses influence over positioning, demand generation, and the full customer journey, yet remains accountable for growth.

This creates a fundamental gap between responsibility and authority. Revenue impact is expected, but marketing lacks control over the necessary levers. This is a structural, not a performance, failure.

Truth 3: Creative and delivery bottlenecks represent material commercial risk

Slow approvals, unclear briefs, brand ambiguity, and limited capacity are often dismissed as operational details. In reality, they have direct commercial consequences.

Delays reduce market responsiveness. Inconsistency weakens positioning. Missed timing affects the pipeline. Burnout increases attrition risk. These outcomes are predictable when decision-making is unclear and accountability is lacking.

Business leaders should view persistent creative bottlenecks as warning signs. They signal governance gaps, unclear ownership, and prioritisation that favours consensus over progress. More spending or activity will not resolve these issues.

Truth 4: Increased marketing activity often increases risk, not return

When growth targets are at risk, the instinct is often to increase marketing activity through more channels, campaigns, or tools. While this may seem decisive, it often increases inefficiency.

Activity based on internal preference rather than customer behaviour creates noise without impact. Paid digital is often overused to compensate for weak positioning, poor alignment, or gaps in the customer journey, creating the illusion of momentum while core issues persist.

For business leaders, this is a misallocation of capital. More activity does not lead to greater effectiveness when the system is misaligned.

The business leadership question for 2026

The top-performing organisations in 2026 will not be those with the most marketing activity, but those that show focus, restraint, and commercial discipline. They will treat marketing as a revenue system and measure success by its contribution to pipeline and growth, not activity volume.

Together, these truths show that marketing outcomes directly reflect leadership behaviour and governance design.

As business leaders set 2026 priorities, the most important questions are strategic, not tactical:

Is marketing positioned and governed as a revenue-generating function?
Are decision rights and accountability clearly defined?
Are priorities stable enough to allow momentum to compound?
Is marketing aligned with customer buying behaviour rather than internal preference?

Marketing does not need more pressure in 2026. It needs clearer leadership, disciplined decision-making, and alignment with its commercial role.

From a fractional CMO perspective, these issues are recurring and solvable. When marketing is structured, led, and treated as a commercial function, it delivers stronger growth, greater predictability, and more sustainable performance.

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