News and Insights

Brand’s big comeback: Takeaways from Advertising Week

October 15, 2026

Advertising Week New York packs a year’s worth of industry conversation into a few days. Four floors, eight stages, a panel every ten minutes, and thousands of marketers zipping up escalators and down elevators from 9 in the morning til 6 in the evening. 

As I stood in line for a panel and took a minute to observe the commotion, I couldn’t help but compare all the people blurring by to the millions of data points that marketers are chasing and trying to make sense of every day. It turns out this was on the minds of the panels, too.

After four days of panels, fireside chats, and more partner booths than I could count, two ideas stood out to me:

One, brand marketing is making a comeback (and not a minute too late). 

And two, some of our most valuable results are showing up between channels in unexpected places.

The buzzwords of the week

Authenticity was the clear winner, coming up in nearly every session (to the point where more than a few panelists admitted it’s now overused). Trust was close behind: trust your audience to be smart, and be sure to earn their trust in return. The importance of community (building and/or entering), signals (wherever they may come from), and the flywheel of your marketing channels rounded out the list.

Two words told an even bigger story, though. ROAS (once the metric everyone wanted to talk about) stood in a more negative light, because the industry as a whole has become far too focused on the bottom of the funnel at the expense of the top. 

The concept of the Halo also took center stage as speakers urged us to break down the walls confining our data to create data lakes, a place where unexpected connections and surprising outcomes are hiding amidst the zeroes and ones.

Retail media networks are everywhere

If the number of channels out there already feels like a lot, the partner wall and showroom floor made clear they’re just getting started. It seemed like every company with customers and a website is now selling ad space (or will be soon).

Their pitch was consistent. All these new spaces for ads are intended to be additive to the ones we’re spending in, not a replacement for them. 

A lot of exciting opportunities, but also a lot of new complexity. Every new network brings its own data, its own reporting, and its own definition of success. Without a connected view, it’ll be way too easy to optimize each channel in isolation and lose sight of the whole.

Brand is back, baby

The strongest consensus of the week was that the industry has leaned too hard into bottom-funnel performance. Performance still matters, of course. But a plan built only to capture existing demand eventually runs out of new customers, and misses countless opportunities along the way.

A panel titled “Performance Isn’t Enough” made the case directly. Platforms like Roblox and Tripadvisor have communities that trust them deeply, and brands that show up thoughtfully in those spaces can bask in that trust. The panelists also argued for a wider definition of success: positive comments, people choosing to wear your brand in a digital world, and travelers recommending your destination in their article. 

Some companies are already investing heavily in brand marketing. Supergoop built a sweeping partnership with the PGA Tour and golfer Justin Rose including exclusive social content, on-course sampling, sunscreen dispensers, and a custom metal sculpture of the arc of Justin’s golf swing. They couldn’t be happier with outcomes so far, reinforcing their premium positioning, reaching high-income households, and gaining awareness among more men. 

Monster Energy also took the stage to discuss their long-time relationship with TKO (the company behind WWE, UFC, PBR, and others). Their partnership lead said that sometimes you just have to trust the marketing is working, and the results supported his confidence: sales lift, sampling at three times their benchmark, and huge multi-platform reach courtesy of their logo in the center of the mat during a recent activation with UFC.

Even the Connected TV operating system can be a valuable brand platform. A TiVo Ads panel described the CTV home screen as the top of its own funnel, reaching viewers while they sit together and put down their second screens briefly, agonizing over what to watch. (It’s also a cost-effective way to be present around cultural moments when timed to run during big games and shows that still attract appointment viewing.)

Halos hide across the silos

Companies are working to unite their disparate data sources, and the ones that have succeeded are uncovering revelatory findings.

Colgate-Palmolive’s session on social commerce offered the best example of the week. The company tested TikTok Shop ads with Hello, a brand that fit the platform thanks to its flexibility, newness, and younger target audience. By looking at unified data instead of TikTok results alone, the team discovered that Hello’s TikTok Shop ads were lifting sales and consideration on Amazon. Needless to say, they’re continuing their test and learn investment.

An LG Ad Solutions panel made a similar point about the glowing halos between walled gardens. Consumer insights that stay inside one platform aren’t enough anymore. Measurement is moving beyond clicks, impressions, and sign-ups toward a view across every customer touchpoint. AI is often the engine behind that work, sorting through huge volumes of data inside planning tools to create data lakes that human beings (analysts, in this case) then take a dip in.

The passage of time matters, too. We can’t just focus on immediate performance! In another panel about IRL experiences, Sloomoo Institute talked about a creative partnership during a real world activation that didn’t sell many tickets for the event itself, but significantly lifted sales weeks later as creator content from the event traveled across social media feeds. If it were judged only within its own channel and flight dates, it would have incorrectly looked like a miss.

Bringing it together

The brands with the biggest wins had a few things in common: they planned ahead for every possible outcome, they stayed nimble throughout, and they left no channel or tactic behind. 

Whether getting take-away customers to add a Pepsi to their Wolt order in the Nordics, inspiring Gen Z women to learn more about their health from medical professionals in a video podcast, alerting Fox One customers they could watch all the World Cup games on streaming, or enlisting fitness enthusiasts to embark on running challenges on Strava for glory and prizes in advance of the New York Marathon, brands showed up with a village consisting of their partners, creators, ambassadors, and agencies to ensure surround sound campaigns, bespoke and localized assets, connected omnichannel data, and messaging that spoke directly to the recipients in their own words, at the right time, and in the right place.

For marketers planning for 2027 and beyond, here’s a few questions worth keeping in mind:

• Are my KPIs clear and defined?
• Am I using every channel across paid, earned, and owned the way it should be used?
• Is what I’m saying at each touchpoint meeting my intended audience when, where, and how they are?
• Is my measurement connected across my audience’s journey, and ready for the long haul?  
• Am I building something my audience will remember?

Marketers have been insisting that brand and performance work best when they work together for years. In the aftermath of Advertising Week, I’d say this knowledge has reached critical mass.