Given the accelerated pace of change in so many aspects of life, from technology to geopolitics, it can help marketers to keep at least one maxim from Amazon boss Jeff Bezos in mind.
To paraphrase, don’t tell me what’s going to change, tell me what’s not going to change, because that’s something I can build a strategy around.
Dentsu’s trends report, Human Truths in the Algorithmic Era, bears this out.
“When we started working on it in June of last year, one of the things that was top of our mind was just how quickly the world was changing,” its author Dan Calladine, head of media futures at Dentsu International tells Dave Winterlich in the latest episode of the Inside Marketing podcast.
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“We’d had economic turbulence around tariffs, lots of conflicts still happening in the world, and a news agenda seemingly accelerating all the time. It almost felt like we can’t even predict what’s going to happen next week, so how are we going to talk about trends for 2026?” he says.
But by working with strategists, and taking soundings across Dentsu’s network, one clear and predictable truth emerged: “When things are changing so quickly, the thing to remember is the things that don’t change.”
In short, human behaviour.
“We started thinking about the core marketing principles of what it is that makes people love brands, the fact that fame is good for a brand, and that, generally speaking, people like to buy things they are familiar with and that they’ve heard of,” he explains.
“But there are also human truths such as the fact that people’s motivations don’t really change very much over time. We may have new technologies, new toys, new ways of doing things, but essentially we still kind of want the same things. So we decided to focus the trends this year on those core human truths.”
Three truths
The report identifies three core human behaviours that underpin all its trend predictions for 2026.
“The first one is that people like simplicity. It’s one of the reasons why technology has taken off so quickly, people like things to be simple for them. They like things that work, that can be simplified, that they can rely on,” says Calladine.
The second is the fact that humans are, fundamentally, social animals.
“You’ll read a lot about the loneliness epidemic but when you look at the numbers, people certainly want to be sociable and they want to connect with others. There is an awful lot that brands can do to actually help people connect with people, to help people become more sociable and more connected in the world,” says Calladine.
The third truth is that humans, by and large, don’t really want to read, watch, listen to or otherwise consume advertising.
In this he cites renowned copywriter and Mad Men era advertising executive Howard Gossage, who said “No one reads advertising, they just read what interests them and sometimes it’s an ad.”
Likewise for video and audio. “People don’t necessarily like watching adverts, but if it’s something they are really interested in, they’re much more likely to watch it and much more likely to enjoy it,” says Calladine.
The opportunity therefore is to make advertising better targeted, more relevant, and indeed, to move further beyond traditional formats into areas such as branded content.
You only have to look at the rip roaring success of Netflix’s high-octane Formula 1 series Drive to Survive, to see how effective this can be, he points out.
The searchers
Among the biggest emerging trends Calladine identifies is changing behaviour in relation to search, and in particular, the shift in focus from search engine to search experience.
As a result, search, which previously focused on bottom of funnel, high intent to buy customer activity, now features throughout the entire the customer journey, from initial awareness to post purchase engagement.
“The classic thing with search was always that search is great if you know exactly what you want, because then you can find it. But what we’re seeing now is that people are searching at many different stages and using many different tools, including TikTok and Instagram, and on commerce platforms ... and within places like Perplexity and ChatGPT,” he says.
As a result, search is now much more all encompassing than it ever was and set to become even more so.
“You can ask really detailed questions, ask for inspiration, ask for ideas, and the technology is much better at actually answering those questions.”
The rise of GenAI means you can ask it to collect holiday ideas and draw up itineraries, all within a two-hour flight of a particular airport, for example.
“For consumers it makes things a lot easier. But for brands, it makes things a lot more complicated, because it’s no longer a case of simply trying to optimise for search engines like Google or Bing. It’s a case of trying to optimise for wherever your particular audience cohort is likely to be looking for you – or looking for inspiration that you could be the answer to,” he explains.
On top of that comes agentic AI. These are autonomous AI systems that can independently set goals and kick off online actions – such as creating shopping lists and then buying them – with minimal human intervention. What it means for the advertising industry is as yet unclear.
Already some ecommerce platforms are banning such agents. “If you have a human buyer, you can upsell. An agent that has been given instructions is a much more disciplined shopper,” points out Calladine.
There’s the rub
Perhaps of the most surprising predictions he makes is for the return of friction. Despite the fact that humans love simplicity and things that work, and that the industry has always maintained that “friction is the enemy”, there is a growing realisation that a little bit can help drive desire.
It’s why nabbing a ticket for that sell out show is such a thrill, and why dynamic pricing exists. By putting roadblocks in the road, whether in the form of limited edition goods or Black Friday deals, brands can stoke a very human fear of missing out.
Some retailers are taking it further and opting out of ecommerce altogether, such as US grocery store Trader Joes. “If you want any of their products, you’ve got to go into the store,” he points out.
“There’s a lot to be said for putting a bit of gamification into the commerce process. It’s saying, okay you can’t buy this easily, you’ve got to jump through a few hoops, but once you buy it, you’ll appreciate it much more and get a real sense of a win.”
The coming year will also see the industry take content creators, and the need to build communities, even more seriously, he says, pointing out that Unilever will spend half its ad budget on social channels.
“It’s becoming much more essential for brands to do it, including in B2B activity,” he says.
Creating shared memories, and spaces, will become increasingly important too, he says, pointing to Guinness’s new microbrewery and visitor centre in London’s Covent Garden as a case in point.
“Essentially people are paying to go in and be marketed to. But what the brand is doing is giving people a space, and content, that they can connect with and socialise around. We’re going to see an awful lot more of this.”
To hear more from podcast and content series Inside Marketing, click here.
