#three-part-release

#three-part-release

Spirits continue to grow in volume even as their long-standing dollar share gains have stalled, while beer and wine remain in steady decline.

"Instead of starting with a product that we didn't feel like existed in the marketplace, we started with a mission that we felt like didn't exist, particularly in the beauty space," Cohen said. "We love that young people are turning to brands for not just products, but for the issues that they care about-and also that's what holds us accountable."

Marie Swift, founder and CEO of Impact Communications, said the firm also emphasizes "credibility marketing," including being quoted in reputable industry outlets, publishing bylined articles, submitting for and winning awards, issuing news releases, speaking at conferences and appearing as guests on webinars and podcasts. "Social media is an amplification tool," she said. "It should not be the primary communication tool."

Performance has always been the foundation of commerce media because it tied spend to measurable behavior. From sponsored search to sponsored products, the category scaled by delivering outcomes that could be directly attributed to transactions. Automation, AI-driven optimization and closed-loop measurement accelerated that model and made outcomes-based buying the norm. Outcomes still matter. But as AI reduces friction and increases competition, outcomes alone no longer create separation.

Key stat: 54% of US marketers plan to fully implement their generative engine optimization (GEO) strategy within three to six months, according to September 2025 data from Scribewise. Beyond the chart: Use this chart: Drop this into your next digital strategy review to show stakeholders the GEO timeline pressure. Use it to benchmark your team's implementation plans against the majority.

For years, marketing to the "general market" was a reliable path to growth. Broad reach, consistent messaging, and scale-driven efficiency helped brands build awareness and momentum.

With digital trends accelerating, it's more important than ever that marketers know how to build strong, data-driven marketing strategies. Data-driven marketing is a type of marketing strategy that is based on using consumer information to develop and optimize marketing campaigns and messaging. It is extremely impactful because marketing efforts are based on online trends and are specifically tailored to the organization's target audience.

Spend half an hour exploring #StrategyTwitter or #MarketingTwitter and you'll quickly discover huge swathes of talented folks arguing passionately about the correct way to market brands. On one end of the spectrum you'll find the staunch strategists quoting lines from Sharp's How Brands Grow (which is well worth a read), while on the other end you'll find people posting fairly nauseating Gary Vaynerchuk quotes in serif fonts about how the number one rule in marketing is 'love'.

A big marker of brand success is recognition. When customers can pick out any of your products or services and easily identify them as part of your brand, you know you've made a lasting impression. A great example is Google, whose products and services are distinguishable from a mile off, from Gmail and Google Ads to Google Maps and Google Pay.

CMSWire's Marketing & Customer Experience Leadership channel is the go-to hub for actionable research, editorial and opinion for CMOs, aspiring CMOs and today's customer experience innovators.

Capturing your audience in the perfect moment with the perfect content to produce startling results is the ultimate goal of creative content marketing. But the real magic happens when creatives and performance marketers work closely together. When creative experts join forces with performance specialists, you are building a winning formula to achieve maximum impact for your campaign investment. So, the million-dollar question is: how do you create content that achieves your goals and cuts through the noise, across every touchpoint of the customer journey?

Any thin hope marketers had that 2026 might calm the turbulence of last year didn't survive January, as political shocks, platform upheaval and fresh economic jitters piled new uncertainty onto an already fragile market. Nobody expected serenity to be clear. The hope was for a more predictable kind of chaos: slower regulatory fights, fewer sudden platform pivots, and an economy drifting rather than lurching.

Brand builds long-term awareness, perception, and emotional connection. Performance marketing focuses on immediate, measurable actions and specific behaviors like clicks, sign-ups, purchases, or downloads which drives conversions and business goals. The most successful companies know that true growth happens when these two objectives work in harmony, not in opposition. The evidence is now clear: Brand and performance are not opposing forces; they are multipliers.