BRANDWEEK 2025 in Atlanta highlighted how the fastest-growing brands aren’t waiting for the future. Instead, they are rewriting their game plans in real time. Kantar was at the event meeting with clients, exchanging insights, and discussing where brand growth is headed. One overarching theme is that the next decade of growth will belong to brands that can adapt without losing their essence.
1. CMOs must master dual priorities to drive growth
Jeff Greenspoon, Kantar’s CEO of the Americas, reframed the familiar tensions every CMO faces — pricing power versus cultural relevance, consistency versus reinvention, short-term performance versus long-term building — not as trade-offs, but as dual priorities to master. “As long as you stay true to the core essence of your brand, you can take risks in every other part of the story,” he said, using Nespresso and Barbie as examples. Kantar’s BrandZ work shows that brands strong in both meaning and difference are 70% more likely to grow, and that strong brands recover far faster in turbulent markets.
2. Agentic AI is the new operating system for growth
Across sessions, the conversation around AI shifted from hype to architecture. Marketers no longer ask if they should use AI. They are asking how fast they can integrate it. AI isn’t replacing creativity; rather, it is scaling it. The new era of agentic AI will redefine how ideas are tested, refined, and delivered, from the creative brief to the checkout button.
3. The AI shelf is real
As answer engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity and retail assistants like Amazon’s Rufus and Walmart’s Sparky start shaping how shoppers find and choose products, the shelf is going algorithmic. Product data, reviews, and structured content are the new packaging. If machines can’t read your brand, it’s invisible to shoppers. The smartest marketers are moving to metadata marketing, repackaging their brands for the AI shelf, where structured data and digital storytelling determine which products shoppers ever see.
4. AI is a creative superpower, not a shortcut
Pratik Thakar, Coca-Cola’s global vice president and head of generative AI, called AI “a creative superpower,” not a shortcut. Top marketers are using AI to push creative boundaries, not just generate faster outputs. The strongest work pairs machine intelligence with human intuition, extending storytelling to new languages, markets, and moments. Others like Voya Financial said that without ethical guardrails, AI bias can erode brand trust just as quickly. The consensus is that AI works best when it is directed by human marketers.
5. Commerce media is a new growth engine
Commerce media officially took center stage. Whether it was Uber Advertising transforming ride data into precise ads or Mastercard connecting payments to real-time performance, the takeaway was that media, data, and transactions are collapsing into one connected growth system. The next advantage will belong to marketers that treat retail touchpoints as extensions of storytelling, not just sales channels.
6. Retail media gets smarter and goes off-site
The next phase of retail media is about incremental impact, not just impressions. Liquid Death shared how off-site retail media network activations using retailer first-party data are driving some of its highest verified sales lifts, proving that precision and performance can coexist. The best retail media strategies now are driving potent new data assets that deliver incrementality and unlock a new era of closed-loop precision marketing.
7. Challenger brands rewrite the rules
Liquid Death and Cloud23 are proving that modern marketing rewards boldness over polish. Liquid Death built a USD1 billion brand by transforming category norms, selling canned water with the swagger of an energy drink and measuring creative like a profit center. Cloud23, meanwhile, flips luxury marketing by omitting Brooklyn Beckham’s name, favoring quiet confidence over celebrity hype. Both brands prove that speed, experimentation, and cultural momentum now drive growth faster than legacy awareness or traditional marketing does.
8. Culture is the new media plan
Multiple sessions reinforced that culture is distribution now. From local creators to music collaborations, brands that build credibility inside culture, instead of merely advertising around it, are seeing faster brand relevance and higher retention. The new way forward is to start with community, then scale with data.
9. Measuring meaning matters
Many speakers expressed frustration over the fact that we have so much measurement, yet not enough meaning. The best marketers are shifting from tracking outputs to proving outcomes. They are tying creative, retail media, and influencer investments directly to verified sales signals and AI-driven discoverability. The next frontier discussed involved measuring agentic visibility and being the answer.
10. Build a more predictive organization
One clear theme from the event was the rise of predictive organizations, companies that move from reactive insights to real-time foresight. These organizations are collapsing the gap between data and decision, blending creative excellence with commercial agility. In this new era, speed and adaptability are survival skills. The future, in part, will belong to more predictive brands.
Conclusion
BRANDWEEK 2025 confirmed what we’re already seeing across Kantar clients as the future favors brands that can hold both sides of the paradox, protecting their essence and reinventing their edges. The most agile companies are building for duality with meaningful and different brands, now and in the future, for humans and machines. At Kantar, we help marketers operationalize this shift, turning data into foresight, creativity into growth, and disruption into durable brand advantage.
