Campaign Middle East’s Predictions and Planning 2026 issue is out now on stands and online.
Featuring top leaders and industry experts, the issue reveals the top predictions, themes and bets the leaders are placing for 2026. In this month’s cover story, the marketers discuss their focus areas for the upcoming year, emphasising selective silence, A/B testing, nostalgia and co-creation, and going beyond clever campaigns and cracked algorithms to adding value to people and communities.
Focusing on the year ahead, the Predictions section shares a glimpse from industry players’ outlooks as they touch upon topics ranging from educational and hospitality marketing to strategy and creative originality to purpose and ESG to wisdom and mastering humanity. Coming from different sections of the industry, contributors include industry experts from both the brand and agency sides.
Sharing their take on their respective industries, the client-side marketers include GEMS Education’s Suad Merchant, DoubleTree by Hilton Resort’s Pieter Van Beugen, Volkswagen’s Virginie Ludmer, and SQUATWOLF’s Anam Khalid. Other marketers joining them on diverse themes such as purpose and marcomms include Al Masaood’s Marwa Kaabour and LIXIL IMEA’s Gita Ghaemmaghami.
Getting down into the niches, agency leaders shared their perspectives on the future of various aspects of the industry, ranging from business-focused angles like procurement and pitching, outcome-based marketing to more human-orientated ones such as wisdom, mastering humanity, truth, trust and transparency. Marketers also take a look at the future of artificial intelligence (AI) and its applications in the industry, sharing their perspectives on agentic AI, AI agents and applied intelligence, while others discuss balancing the use of technology with empathy and talent.
In this month’s brand focus, Expo City Dubai’s Shoulto–Douglas Adams reveals ways in which organisations – and their marketing communications teams – can leverage AI as a force for good by supporting the brand’s integrity and reputation. On the flipside, Ahmed El Gamal heavily focuses on outcomes and how brands should follow the discipline of connecting marketing decisions to financial outcomes across time, examining risk honestly, and treating brand and performance as interdependent levers in the same measurement system.
Sharing more insights from the brand side, Mohamed Yousuf Naghi Motors’ Executive Director – Marketing and Communications, Bilal Hallab explains how marketing could either reflect the growing complexity of the Saudi market or completely flatten it into safe, smiling wallpaper.
Additionally, Imagination Saudi Arabia’s Abdulla J. Alrasheed explains why the next phase of Saudi Tourism will be defined by precision over volume, authenticity over spectacle and connection over transaction.
More on AI and authenticity. Campaign Middle East also reached out to marketers, brands and agency professionals for their take on the status of ‘AI’ and ‘authenticity’ as buzzwords in 2026. Most answers leaned heavily towards one side over the other – showing a general consensus but with few valid arguments from the opposite side.
The issue also doubles as Campaign Middle East’s annual agency guide that sheds light on digital and influencer marketing agencies, along with adtech players. See all the listings and the complete Predictions and Planning 2026 issue below or here.
