PR & Marketing Trend Predictions You Need To Know In 2026

Last year we were invited by Australian Fashion Council to share our top predictions for the communications industry. Now we are in February, and after revisiting this piece we are standing behind these predictions even more so.

We are already watching many of these materialise and start to take shape, with some predictions louder than others. It's impossible to ignore that we are entering a reckoning brought on by tighter budgets and shrinking attention spans, in a market that no longer rewards noise and will expose those that lack a clear point of view.

Read on for the predictions we believe will define the year for brand, communications and marketing.

1. Integration will be key 

Traditionally, marketing and PR have operated separately - different teams, goals, objectives and campaigns. Now thanks to shrinking media pools, competitive social landscape and tighter budgets  the lines have started to blur and we are witnessing a shift to paid, earned and owned operating within the same ecosystem.

This is a critical shift, as in my opinion this level of integration is vital to modern brand building if executed well. Customers are no longer experiencing your brand in just one place - every touch point for the brand from the physical product or service, to socials, EDMs, influencers or brand partners you work with, the media you show up in, and your ads all influence a customer's decision to shop with you (or not). 

But for any type of integration to work, you first need to have a clear strategy. You have to know and set the direction you are going, and equally understand the roles that each function plays in getting you to this destination.

Strategy doesn’t need to be complex, you just need to have the answers to these questions:

• What are we trying to achieve?

• Who are we trying to talk to? 

• How do we reach them?

Brand, comms & marketing may be intertwined, but they each play a different part in the overall strategy. Brand should set the what & why, comms leads the right customers through awareness, credibility and desire, and marketing turns that attention into action. 

Without a strategy, you run the risk of wasted money and underperforming campaigns not because the tactics were wrong but because the direction was unclear. 

The most successful campaigns in 2026 will be the ones that are deeply integrated and with a clear strategy, getting the very best from both marketing and communications to ensure resonance with their audience. 

2. Visibility will no longer be enough

In the race of excess reach, clicks, engagement, brands have been under pressure to constantly churn out new content, new talent, new products, new news. The amount of content that consumers are faced with has meant that it is all blurring together and leaving a complete sense of overwhelm. A friend of mine once likened scrolling her social media feeds like watching TV where only the ads play. 

And because of that, audiences have learned how to tune out.

In Deloitte's recent Media & Entertainment Consumer Insights Report, overall media consumption trended downwards for the third year in a row. It is now sitting at 42 hours per week (compared to 44 hours in 2024, and 48 hours in 2023) with social media in particular taking a massive hit declining by -17%. This is telling us that audiences are becoming more intentional and curated when it comes to what content they are engaging with, and that quality matters. 

My prediction for next year is a forced shift towards restraint. To go beyond just visibility and vanity reach, and a return to aligned storytelling with purpose. Less noise, fewer campaigns but a far higher quality output and better results for brands. 

3. You won’t find inspiration in the algorithm

I recently read about someone's take on the ‘Canva-fication’ of design - something I have been thinking about a lot, but now I have a name for it. Tools like Canva, Pinterest, Chat GPT and the growing suite of AI programs out there have completely democratised creation. 

Don’t get me wrong I think this level of innovation can be amazing, but the issue lies when it is used as a substitute for individual creativity instead of enhancing it. What’s more, it has birthed a new challenge: living in a sea of sameness. 

I touched on it above how audiences are automatically checking-out of content they see, the antidote for this is originality, or at the very least a point of view. Part of this is making sure you are sourcing inspiration from places that others may not be so you do not fall victim to the algorithm who is probably serving you and a million other people the same ideas. Second hand book stores, old print magazines, art, film, even switching up your normal commute can offer up inspiration for new ideas. 

Furthermore, I predict that we will see authentic creatives, designers, artists and writers… even strategists who are not afraid to create and challenge ideas to reclaim space. AI can mimic, but it will never be able to replicate the physical and very real emotions, relationships and experiences that make us human. 

4. Social anonymity becomes cool 

As audiences continue to battle the feelings of being overwhelmed with content and the digital world, I have been observing a quiet rejection of being ‘known’. 

There is something incredibly mysterious and compelling when you meet someone who doesn’t have social media. Even the New Yorker noted this shift in a recent piece ‘It’s Cool To Have No Followers Now’ pointing to a certain status that comes with opting out of the usual markers of success online.

For brands, this idea does create some tension. Typically, a brand's ability to build a community on social media is tied closely to profitability and success. What I find most interesting about this is that I don’t think it means disappearing entirely, obviously social media is a huge revenue driver for many brands (more on that in the point below) but what brands can take from this is an opportunity to show up in more considered and deliberate ways. 

Think of this as an invitation to grow communities the old-fashion way: in person. You could take it one step further and encourage each guest to stay present by making it a phone-free event that will exist as memories purely for those in that room. Or it could be a renewed focus on the craft; working with individuals that have deep relevance with their communities as opposed to 6 figure followings, impeccable long-form writing in the form of newsletters, embracing a little friction in discovering. 

This is an exciting time for brands at any stage, as it means relevance is increasingly earned in rooms, not solely on our feeds. 

5. The new rules for ads 

This one might hurt. Your ads aren’t ‘not’ working. It's your content and overall brand awareness.

I kicked this article off by talking about how brand, comms and marketing have converged, so it felt important to have ads firmly a part of this conversation. 

Many of the e-comm giants we know today scaled up in the era where ads worked regardless of whether the creative was good, the website was optimised or the product branding was good.

That era is now over. 

Ads work. They absolutely do. But they don’t do the heavy lifting on their own. Their role is to amplify, not to compensate or be treated as the sole driver for sales. 

If you don’t have strategy, taste, community or any type of relevance, your ads are going to expose you. Ads are there to scale demand, not create it. 

2026 will be the year of thoughtful and intentional ads creative, and treating ads with the same level of respect that you would a campaign. 

Content originally appeared on https://ausfashioncouncil.com/news/looking-ahead-key-insights-for-pr-and-marketing-in-2026-with-gum-agency-co-founder-mia-hardman/