The Marketing and PR Trends Everyone's Talking About (And the Ones Actually Changing the Game)
I've been in enough strategy and board meetings to recognise the pattern: someone mentions a "trend", everyone nods knowingly, and then... nothing changes.
The problem isn't that we don't know what's trending. It's that we're terrible at separating signal from noise. We're drowning in trend reports while the actual shifts reshaping our industry slip past unnoticed.
Here's what I'm seeing right now—not what's buzzing on LinkedIn, but what's actually forcing smart teams to rethink how they work.
The Obvious Trends (That You Still Need to Take Seriously)
Let's get these out of the way. Yes, everyone's talking about them. No, that doesn't make them less important.
AI Is Eating Content Creation (But Not How You Think)
Every marketing team is experimenting with AI. Most are using it wrong.
The mediocre approach: "AI, write me 10 blog posts about X." The result: Generic, forgettable content that sounds like every other brand.
What's actually working? AI as a research and ideation partner, not a replacement for thinking.
I'm seeing high-performing teams use AI to:
Compress research time from days to hours
Generate 50 angles on a topic, then pick the 3 best
Analyse competitor content and find the gaps
Turn one piece of strategic thinking into 10 different formats
The humans still think. The AI handles the grunt work. That's the division of labour that works.
The Death of the Press Release (Finally)
Traditional press releases are dying. Not slowly—quickly. Journalists don't want templated announcements. They want stories, data, access, and angles that their competitors don't have.
What's replacing the press release:
Direct pitches with actual newsworthiness (not "we're excited to announce")
Embargoed exclusives to key outlets
Data drops that journalists can build their own stories around
Expert commentary positioned in real-time around breaking news
The shift: from "broadcasting our news" to "helping journalists do their job better." If your PR strategy still starts with "Let's write a press release," you're already behind.
Short-Form Video Isn't Optional Anymore
I know. Everyone's been saying this for three years. But here's what's changed: it's no longer just for B2C brands.
B2B companies, professional services, and even financial firms are realising that short-form video is where their audience actually lives now.
LinkedIn video engagement is up 34% year-over-year. TikTok is becoming a search engine for Gen Z professionals. Instagram Reels continue to dominate algorithm preference.
The teams that cracked this aren't hiring video production companies. They're empowering their own people to create authentic, useful, brief content on their phones.
Production value matters less than you think. Usefulness matters more.
The Quieter Trends That Are Actually More Disruptive
These are the shifts that haven't hit every trend report yet. But they're rewiring how marketing and PR work.
The End of "Brand Voice" as a Static Thing
For years, we built brand guidelines: "Here's how we sound. Always." That model is breaking.
Why? Because your audience exists in radically different contexts across platforms, a monolithic brand voice feels tone-deaf.
The new approach: adaptive brand voice.
Your brand on LinkedIn sounds different from on TikTok
Your crisis communication sounds different from your product launch
Your CEO's personal brand voice differs from your corporate account's.
The through-line isn't consistency of tone—it's consistency of values and perspective.
I'm watching brands get more comfortable with this multiplicity. The ones clinging to "one voice everywhere" are getting drowned out.
First-Party Data Is the New Competitive Moat
With third-party cookies dying and privacy regulations tightening, the brands with rich first-party data are pulling ahead fast. But here's the problem: most companies are sitting on gold mines of customer data and doing nothing strategic with it.
What's changing:
Email and SMS are having a renaissance (because you own the relationship)
Zero-party data collection (asking customers what they want instead of inferring it)
Community building as a data strategy (owned platforms where you control insights)
The question I'm asking teams is, "If paid media costs doubled tomorrow, would your business survive?"
If the answer is no, you don't have a first-party data problem—you have an existential risk.
Influence Is Fracturing Into Micro-Communities
The era of the mega-influencer is fading. The era of the niche community leader is here.
Brands are learning that 100,000 followers means nothing if only 0.5% engage. Meanwhile, someone with 5,000 highly engaged followers in a specific niche can move product.
What smart brands are doing:
Building relationships with 50 micro-influencers instead of 5 big names
Partnering with Substack writers, Discord server owners, and Reddit moderators
Looking for influence in places that don't have "influencer" in the bio
The shift: from reach to resonance. From broadcasting to conversation.
Employees Are Your Best (and Most Underutilised) Channel
Employee advocacy programmes have existed for years. Most have been performative garbage.
What's changing: companies are realising that their employees' networks are more valuable than their corporate channels.
Not in a "force everyone to share company posts" way. In an "empower people who actually want to build their own thought leadership" way.
I'm seeing:
Companies are training employees on personal branding
Leadership actively supports team members who build public profiles
Employee-generated content outperforms corporate content 10:1
The catch? You can't fake this. If your culture is toxic, employee advocacy will expose it, not hide it.
The Trends I'm Sceptical About
Let me be honest about what I think is overhyped:
The Metaverse (Still Waiting)
Every year, someone predicts, "This is the year brands crack the metaverse." Every year, we're still waiting. Are there interesting experiments? Sure. Is it a core channel for 99% of brands? Not even close. I'll pay attention when behaviour shifts, not when tech companies tell me it's shifting.
NFTs for Marketing (Mostly Dead)
The hype cycle came and went. A few brands found legitimate use cases (ticketing, loyalty programmes, and digital collectables). Most did it for PR and got burnt. If you're still building an NFT strategy in 2026, I'd love to hear the thesis. But I'm sceptical.
Fully Automated Marketing (Not Yet)
Yes, automation is powerful. No, you can't set it and forget it. The dream of "marketing that runs itself" keeps getting sold. The reality is that automation amplifies what you put into it—garbage in, garbage out. The best teams use automation tactically, not as a replacement for strategy.
The One Trend That Matters More Than All the Others
Here it is: speed to relevance.
The brands and agencies winning right now aren't the ones with the biggest budgets or the fanciest tech. They're the ones who can identify what matters today and respond before it's over.
Real-time marketing isn't new. What's new is how fast the window closes. A cultural moment used to last weeks. Now it lasts hours. By the time you've scheduled the approval meeting, it's too late.
This requires:
Decision-making authority pushed down, not up
Pre-approved frameworks so teams can move without asking permission
Trust in your people to represent the brand in the moment
If your brand still needs three approvals to post on social, you've already lost the speed game.
What I'm Watching Next
A few early signals I'm tracking:
AI-generated influencers competing with real humans
Weird, but it's happening. And some are getting real engagement.Brands building their own media properties
Not "content marketing". Actual media. Newsletters with 100k+ subscribers. Podcasts that rival traditional outlets.The rise of "search everywhere"
People search on TikTok, Instagram, ChatGPT, Reddit—not just Google. SEO is becoming "SEE" (Search Engine Everywhere).Crisis is the default state, not "crisis management" as an occasional need. Crisis preparedness as a permanent operational posture.
The Real Question Isn't "What's Trending?"
It's "What's changing in how people make decisions, find information, and build trust?" Trends come and go. Human behaviour evolves more slowly. The teams that win are the ones watching behaviour, not buzzwords.
——-
Note:
What are you seeing? I'm always curious where I'm missing the signal because I'm too focused on what I think I know.
About the Author
Steve Gardiner (exec MBA) is a senior marketing and commercial leader at Lighthouse PR, bringing global experience from Accenture, Electronic Arts, Virgin Media, Telekom, and Etisalat. Latterly, as VP Business at Etisalat, he was responsible for $1.8B in revenue.
Today, Steve applies his strategic, marketing, and growth expertise to support Lighthouse PR clients as part of the agency’s service offering.