Do you ever feel like our industry is stuck on a hamster wheel?
Usercentrics brought that to life brilliantly in its activation, and it stuck with me for a reason. It perfectly captured where a lot of marketing feels right now: constant motion, constant optimisation, but not always meaningful progress.
More channels, more content, more pressure to perform, all against a backdrop of tighter budgets and greater scrutiny on what actually drives impact. And yet a lot of brands still feel no clearer on what they stand for, where they have permission to show up, or why anyone should care.
That, for me, was the real tension running through the week. The strongest sessions didn’t try to sell, they told a story and offered a perspective and challenged thinking.
A few points from sessions which stood out to me.
The Observer’s session on ‘culture’ brought into focus how the overuse use of this term is risking it meaning everything and nothing at once.
It’s a reminder that culture doesn’t exist in isolation. It’s shaped by communities, by nuance, and by the people who carry it forward. Without that context, it quickly becomes surface-level. And without trust in the voices bringing it to life, it doesn’t land at all.
From a brand point of view, this matters more than ever as AI redraws the map of brand authority. Consumers are increasingly discovering brands through summaries, recommendations and third-party signals, not just through branded content or a neat website journey – meaning authority is moving further outside the brand itself.
For comms professionals, that should be a wake-up call, not a threat.
Earned credibility, trusted voices, editorial validation, expert commentary and creator advocacy are not supporting tactics anymore. They are what shape how and if a brand is found, understood and believed.
People decide what resonates. Algorithms increasingly shape what gets surfaced. Either way, the brands that cut through will be the ones with something clear to say and the credibility to back it up.
The session on generational marketing also reinforced a useful truth: age is becoming a weaker proxy for behaviour. Shared interests, communities and behaviours often tell us far more than generational labels. In some cases, the difference between generations isn’t belief, it’s action. Which again points back to the importance of understanding real audience context, not defaulting to assumptions.
I also dropped into a TikTok session, which was an interesting listen. It focused on building community, being honest within that community and finding a niche. All valid, and a good reminder of a truth we’ve known for a long time: authenticity is what resonates. A lesson that clearly still holds.
My biggest takeaway from the week is this: the answer isn’t more, it’s better.
Better insight. Better storytelling. Better judgment on where and how you show up. And a much clearer understanding of where trust actually sits.
Because in a market this noisy and this pressured, volume alone won’t cut through. Conviction will.
