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The beginning of a new year is what behavioral scientists call a temporal landmark - a date that is more meaningful than others. Temporal landmarks often prompt us to make significant life changes or commit to pursuing new goals.
If you doubt the power of temporal landmarks, just consider how often we make "New Year's resolutions" to lose weight or begin a regular exercise program.
Like many marketers, I used the final few weeks of 2025 to reflect on what happened during the year and plan for 2026. For the past few years, I've used my first post of the new year to review a few of the major developments that occurred in B2B marketing during the year just ended, and preview some of the topics I'll be writing about in the year ahead.
So, here's a look back at 2025 and a look forward to 2026.
Looking Back - Another "Year of AI"
Artificial intelligence was one of the hottest topics in marketing in 2025, as it was in 2024 and 2023. OpenAI's release of ChatGPT in November 2022 ignited an arms race of epic proportions among the mega-cap technology companies.
As a result, the performance of the large language models that power generative AI has been increasing at an exponential rate, and the number of software applications incorporating AI in some form has exploded.
Despite the obvious importance of the subject, I did not publish a single post in 2025 that focused primarily on AI. I decided to steer clear of the topic because an abundance of information about AI is available from other reliable sources.
If you want to stay on top of what's happening in the AI space, I strongly recommend that your subscribe to Christopher Penn's newsletter. Penn is my go-to resource for insightful and pragmatic commentary on the latest advances in AI. His December 14, 2025 newsletter contains an excellent review of the major developments in AI that occurred in 2025.
Looking Back - B2B Brand Building Gains Traction
After languishing in the shadow of demand generation/performance marketing for nearly two decades, B2B brand marketing seems to be on the cusp of a renaissance. The volume of content highlighting the importance of having a strong B2B brand has increased dramatically over the past couple of years.
The growing interest in B2B brand building can be attributed to several factors. For one thing, many B2B marketers are finding that marketing tactics that worked well only a few years ago have become less effective.
In addition, several recent research studies have provided insights about the real-world B2B buying process that make the value of a strong B2B brand abundantly clear. The most recent research addressing this issue is the 2025 B2B Buyer Experience Study by 6sense, which I wrote about in November.
We are still in the early stages of the resurgence of B2B brand building, but the momentum is real, and I expect it will continue to build in 2026.
Looking Forward
Each year, I try to identify a small group of issues or circumstances that I believe will play a prominent role in B2B marketing during the coming year. These issues or circumstances will provide the themes for many of my posts here.
In 2026, one set of issues I plan to focus on relates to the scope of authority and responsibility of the senior marketing leader and the marketing organization in a B2B company.
There is a widespread belief in the marketing community that the role and influence of the marketing function are more narrow today than they were in the past. Many marketers describe this issue in terms of the 4P's of the marketing mix.
In Marketing Week's 2025 Career & Salary Survey, over 88% of the responding marketers said they or someone within their team have influence over advertising (promotion). But:
- Only 48.5% said they have influence over product development
- Only 34.1% said they have influence over price
- Only 32.7% said they have influence over place
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