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In December 2024, our survey with Harris Poll asked B2B marketers to share their top areas for investment in 2025. Artificial intelligence tools were at the top of the list. It also wasnt surprising to see the AI architects named Time magazines Person of the Year as the ripple effects of the technology continue across every sector. And in 2026, we will see B2B decision makers do something new: return to basics andembrace AI to reimagine whats possible. This approach reveals a compelling duality in how marketers are planning for 2026. Theres a return to what weve always known while also betting big on AI as a force not only reshaping work, but rewriting todays B2B marketer and modern buyer playbook. According to our most recent Harris Poll survey, next year will bring a clear acknowledgement that while the fundamentals of marketing havent changed, the way we execute these absolutely will. THE PENDULUM SWINGS BACK For years, marketers have chased the next shiny object: new formats, new platforms, new channels. But the pendulum is swinging back. According to the survey, leaders say their biggest 2026 investments will focus on customer experience and brand buildingnot the newest social platform or the latest ad tech novelty. Theres a collective realization happening. In an environment of AI-enabled disruption, the brands with the strongest emotional equity and deepest buyer trust will win. By doubling down on loyalty, automation, and reputation, organizations can differentiate and ensure that every marketing dollar contributes to sustainable, long-term growth. Loyalty isnt a metric anymore; its a moat. But this return to what works doesnt necessarily mean a return to traditional tactics. AI ISNT REPLACING STRATEGY More than half of marketing decision-makers (55%) expect AI to reshape both the development and execution of marketing strategies. Thats not a subtle shift. It means strategy will move from something built in quarterly cycles to something that updates dynamically based on behaviors, signals, and real-time learning. This shift requires marketers to embrace AI, not fear it. When positioned as a strategic input, AI enables strategy to evolve with the market and puts leaders in the strongest position to reach todays modern buyer at the right time and place. AI becomes the connective tissue unifying audience data, creative insights, content intelligence, and activation. Audience understanding becomes dynamic as AI continuously interprets signals and behaviors to identify whos truly in-market. Content and messaging adapt in real time as AI learns what resonates across channels. Orchestration becomes predictive, determining where buyers are most likely to engage next and routing the right message to the right surface. Measurement shifts from backward-looking to forward-driving, surfacing early signals that guide creative, budget, and activation decisions. The strategy itself becomes fluid, evolving, and continuously optimizing. Instead of asking, Is my strategy right? marketers will ask, Is my strategy learning fast enough? ZERO-CLICK IS RESHAPING BRAND COMPETITION Nearly half of marketing leaders (45%) believe AI-powered search and assistants will dramatically change how customers discover brands. That means marketers are beginning to understand a new reality: In 2026, competition happens before the click. In a zero-click environment, the buyer journey is no longer linear. People are forming opinions inside AI Overviews, chat assistants, recommendation engines, and result pages that summarize expertise without ever sending traffic your way. The search click read evaluate journey marketers built their strategies around has been replaced by one where discovery and evaluation happen simultaneouslyoften without a website visit. Buyers may never land on your page, yet theyve already developed a perception of your credibility, authority, and relevance. This shift demands a fundamentally different approach to visibility. Its no longer enough to create great content; brands must create signals. Reputation, authority, and consistency become the new KPIs, because AI systems rely on patterns across the broader ecosystem, not just what lives on your domain. Zero-click environments reward brands that show up with clarity and coherence across every channel, not just the ones they own. The brands that win are the ones influencing the answer long before a user ever reaches a brand webpage. This isnt a retreat from brand building; its an evolution of it. AI DOESNT REPLACE THE BASICS, IT AMPLIFIES THEM The survey findings tell a clear story: AI doesnt exempt marketers from doing the hard work of brand building; it makes that work even more essential. Rather than overshadowing fundamentals like loyalty, reputation, and customer experience, AI deepens their impact. It enables personalization at a level previously impossible and transforms audience understanding by replacing static personas with living intelligence. With AI orchestrating channels dynamically instead of treating them as disconnected tactics, the longstanding divide between brand and performance marketing collapses. The two disciplines become interdependent, each strengthened by AIs ability to learn, predict, and adapt across the entire customer journey. But recognizing AIs potential and operationalizing it are two very different things. The real competitive advantage in 2026 wont come from experimenting with a handful of tools; it will come from embedding AI across the full lifecycle, including strategy, creation, activation, measurement, and optimization. Marketers already feel this shift coming. AI is becoming the operating system of modern marketing, not an accessory. The question for the year ahead isnt whether marketers will use AI; its whether they will scale it in a way that elevates the core principles that have always distinguished the strongest brands. BACK TO BASICS, BUT SMARTER The headline for 2026: AI is making the basics matter more. Marketers are rediscovering that trust, loyalty, and brand still determine winners, while embracing AI to execute those fundamentals with far greater intelligence, speed, and impact. And next year, the brands that thrive will be the ones that combine timeless principles with transformative technologygoing back to basics, but this time with an engine powerful enough to take them further than ever before. Great marketing and advertising have always been an art. AI doesnt diminish that; it simply elevates it. Keith Turco is CEO of Madison Logic.
Category:
E-Commerce
Say what you will about Crumbl Cookies. It’s always sure to get a reaction. Earlier this month, when a sudden swirl of social media rumors began to suggest that the polarizing bakery chain was closing down, some of the online reactions were downright gleeful. “Too sweet and too expensive!” went one typical comment. The chatter was so loud that Crumbl cofounder Sawyer Hemsley took to TikTok to dispel the rumor, explaining that the fast-growing chain is just moving offices as it prepares for its next wave of expansion. But while reports of Crumbl’s demise may be premature, the chain has in fact closed a number of locations over the last few years following a period of accelerated growth. Here’s what to know: Is Crumbl Cookies still growing? According to Rhonda Bromley, Crumbl’s VP of public relations, Crumbl now has 1,103 locations in the United States and 25 in Canada, up from just 326 at the end of 2021. And the Utah-based chain will indeed continue to expand its footprint next year. “We have no plans for growth to stop and will be opening many more stores in both the United States and Canada in 2026,” Bromley tells Fast Company. Which Crumbl Cookies locations have closed? At the end of 2021, Crumbl hadn’t closed any of its locations, which speaks to the rapid, social media-fueled growth that it had famously experienced in its early years. But over the last few years, at least 19 locations have closed, according to a Fast Company review of media reports, online review platforms like Yelp, and Crumbl’s own store locator. The shuttered stores, which were located across 10 states, are listed below. A Crumbl spokesperson confirmed the closures. California 481 Madonna Rd Ste D San Luis Obispo, CA 93405 550 Woollomes Ave Ste 105 Delano, CA 93215 2750 41st Ave Ste E Soquel, CA 95073 12274 Palmdale Rd Ste 102 Victorville, CA 92392 8126 E Santa Ana Canyon Rd Ste 167 Anaheim, CA 92808 32545 Golden Lantern Ste C Dana Point, CA 92629 Connecticut 360 Connecticut Ave Unit 4 Norwalk, CT 06854 Colorado 1805 29th St Ste 1136 Boulder, CO 80301 3480 Wolverine Dr Ste G Montrose, CO 81401 Florida 1695 W Indiantown Rd Ste 22-23 Jupiter, FL 33458 Georgia 2615 Peachtree Pkwy Ste 210 Suwanee, GA 30024 Illinois 1441 N Wells St Chicago, IL 60610 1530 E Lake Cook Rd Wheeling, IL 60090 Ohio 3038 Westgate Mall #20 Fairview Park, OH 44126 34330 Aurora Rd Solon, OH 44139 Pennsylvania 3741 West Chester Pike Ste 103 Newtown Square, PA 19073 604 228th Ave NE Sammamish, WA 98074 Tennessee 8068 Hwy 100 Nashville, TN 37221 Utah 4211 Pony Express Parkway Suite 130, Eagle Mountain, UT 84005 It’s not unusual for restaurant chains to close locations even as they grow their overall footprint, as some stores will inevitably underperform or could succumb to other unfavorable location-specific factors. A Crumbl spokesperson did not directly respond to the question of why these stores have closed. Why did people think Crumbl was closing for good? Some of the online rumors appear to have been spread by AI-powered social media accounts that post misinformation for engagement, as Reddit users pointed out in the Crumbl subreddit. At the same time, a Bloomberg Businessweek story this month took a decidedly unflattering view of the brand and raised questions about its ability to sustain hypergrowth. The story may have added fuel to the rumors that Crumbl’s days are numbered. Crumbl, which was founded in 2017, is known for its substantial social media presence. It has almost 11 million followers on TikTok alone, so it makes sense that rumors about the company would spread quickly across the internet. Also, as stated earlier, controversy around Crumbl is not exactly new. It was more than a year ago that food blog Delish.com posed the question: “Has the Crumbl backlash begun?” We’ll let you decide the answer for yourself.
Category:
E-Commerce
You quit the 9-to-5 to have more control over your time. You wanted flexibility, autonomy, and the freedom to structure your days around your life instead of someone else’s schedule. Yet here you are, apologizing to a client for not responding to a message immediately. Feeling guilty on a Tuesday afternoon when youve only worked for four hours that day. Checking Slack at 9:00 PM because thats been your routine for most of your working career. Many solopreneurs don’t realize they’ve inadvertently recreated corporate life until they’re already living it. You traded a demanding boss for a dozen demanding clients. You swapped mandatory meetings for back-to-back Zoom calls. That freedom you craved? Doesnt exist in your solopreneur world. To find actual freedom as a solopreneur, you have to recognize that youre following a corporate playbookand make a conscious decision to change. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/04\/workbetter-logo.png","headline":"Work Better","description":"Thoughts on the future of work, career pivots, and why work shouldn't suck, by Anna Burgess Yang. To learn more visit workbetter.media.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.workbetter.media","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}} Identify your corporate workday habits Corporate habits are deeply ingrained. Weve worked that way for so long that they just feel like “how work is supposed to be done.” For me, it was the instant email (or Slack) response. In my corporate job, quick replies signaled that I was on top of things, engaged, and reliable. When I started freelancing, I brought that habit with me. If a client sent me an email, Id reply immediatelyeven if I was in the middle of the grocery store. Here’s something to try: What would happen if you took an entire day off, unplanned? Not a vacation day you scheduled weeks in advance, but a spontaneous decision to step away from your client work on a Wednesday. Does that break your clients’ expectations around your response time? Does the idea make you feel a bit squeamish? Those feelings are your corporate habits talking. To embrace your freedom, you have to undo the rigid 9-5, always on mentality. Structure your work for outcomes, not time spent Corporate life is built around a 40-hour workweek. Even if you finish your work in less time, youre often expected to fill the bucket of the workweek with more work. As a solopreneur, if you price your work by the hour, youre invariably still tied to the amount of time you workwhich has its limits. Youll have more freedom if you can earn the same amount (or more!) even if you work less. Clients pay you for your expertise and outcomes, not the number of hours you put in. Over time, youll get more efficient, and each project will require fewer hours. Youll have a shorter workweek (if you choose), and can break free from a 9-5 schedule even more. Build systems that protect your boundaries Corporate life often has no boundaries. Someone else dictates your workload, schedules your meetings, and approves your PTO. Ill never forget the time a CEO texted me on a Saturday morning because he found a typo on a blog post and wanted me to fix it right that minute. No boundaries. When you work for yourself, you might assume boundaries will naturally emerge. They won’t, unless you choose to define and enforce them. The easiest way to do this is to build systems that make boundaries automatic. Turn off notifications. Set up email filters. Block off time for deep work and use a calendar scheduling app so clients cant meet with you during that time. Boundaries are necessary if you dont want to feel like youre constantly working or letting other people control your schedule. Don’t let yourself fall back into old habits It’s easy to fall back into corporate habits because they feel familiar. It can be uncomfortable to shake things up at first. You should regularly review your work habits to see if youre falling back into patterns that arent serving you or your business. You have to be intentional about the hours you work and how you interact with clients. The way to build a sustainable solo business is to find a schedule that works for you. Maybe you still follow a mostly 9-5 schedule, even if youre more flexible with your days. Maybe you work best late at night or before the sun rises. Any of those decisions is fine, as long as youre in control of when and how work gets done. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/04\/workbetter-logo.png","headline":"Work Better","description":"Thoughts on the future of work, career pivots, and why work shouldn't suck, by Anna Burgess Yang. To learn more visit workbetter.media.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.workbetter.media","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}}
Category:
E-Commerce
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