Marketing leaders say the C-suite is pulling back on long-term brand investment. Meanwhile ROI demands are stepping up. That’s according to NIQ’s latest “CMO Outlook” report.
Key Findings
- Just 69% of CMOs say their CEOs and CFOs support long-term brand initiatives. That’s an 11 percentage-point drop from 2024.
- 84% of marketing chiefs now view return on investment as the primary metric for budget allocation.
- Confidence in “brand purpose” dropped from 83% to 71% this year.
- Only 55% of CMOs say they allocate 60% or more of their budget to brand building. That’s a decline from 2024.
- Many teams face data fragmentation: 54% struggle to integrate data from multiple sources, up from 31% last year. Just 37% say they have a single data source accessible to all stakeholders.
- AI use keeps growing: Around 70% of CMOs say their teams use AI for content generation, 64% for personalization, and 55% for media planning.
- Retail media remains a growth area: 69% of marketing leaders view retail media as critical, and 67% expect increased investment in 2026.
Why This Matters For You
If you lead marketing or media planning, this shift changes how you’ll need to manage your strategy. With less backing for brand building, you’ll have to make the short-term work better without losing the long-term edge.
You’ll want to ask:
- How will you measure and report ROI on brand campaigns?
- How are you balancing immediate performance metrics with brand equity?
- What is your data setup like? Can you cleanly connect channels, campaigns and outcomes?
- Are you using AI tools in a way that supports both efficiency and strategic goals?
What’s Driving the Change
Economic pressures, budget tightening and leadership expectations are reshaping how marketing gets funded. With dollars under scrutiny, brand building is getting less of the spotlight. At the same time, AI and data tools are being used to replace or enhance manual workflows, which raises questions about how brand equity will be maintained.
What You Should Do Now
- Review your budget split: Make sure you have the right mix of brand and performance investment.
- Set up your metrics: Define how you’ll track both brand health and direct returns.
- Check your data architecture: Fix fragmentation and create a centralized view of performance.
- Leverage AI wisely: Automate where it helps, but keep brand control and human review in place.
- Plan for 2026: As more marketers shift to retail media and short-term ROI priorities, you need to decide how your brand will adapt.
Looking Ahead
Marketing leadership is shifting under pressure. The brands that succeed will combine clear ROI measurement with strong brand foundations. The companies that fail may trade short-term gains for long-term risk.
Your next step is to assess how your team navigates this change. How will you keep brand equity while meeting ROI demands? The question is timely. The time to answer is now.
