Anup Oommen, Editor, Campaign Middle East.Now that the industry has pulled through the first month of 2026 – wait, wow! Has it only been a month? It feels like three – it’s worth asking some crucial questions: Has anything changed for the better this year or is it just more of the same? If something’s got to give, what should? Do people matter?
Campaign Middle East met with more than two dozen client-side marketers and agency leaders through January 2026, and listened to everything they had to share. It’s been one of the busiest months in the past year, filled with different formats of decks and presentations. Looks like leaders have been swamped with requests for proposals (RFPs) on unbelievably tight deadlines.
P.S. who pitched for the one with a response time of one week? Or, more importantly, who was brave enough to decline? Meanwhile, the rest of the industry spent hours in campaign shoots, award submissions and reporting on current campaigns.
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The new mantra in the industry is: Good defence is the best offence. Those who’ve defended clients successfully in January – or have acquired a few mid-sized and one anchor client – have enjoyed a celebratory night out while their industry colleagues continued burning the midnight oil on pitch decks.
In such a climate, leaders have cautioned against cost-cutting at the expense of value, speed at the expense of outcomes, performance at the expense of people, and growth and transformation at the expense of culture.
The jury’s out on whether life’s getting easier. In the era of artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as Hubspot’s Breeze; agentic AI platforms such as Gumloop, Zapier, Climaty.AI and OnePane; and advanced conversational social media listening options such as Brand24, leaders are seeing expectations for efficiencies, engagement and execution skyrocketing. So, what’s the need of the hour? The recurring refrain is for people, empathy and trust to take centre stage.
What’s got to give? Emotion – a return to the real and raw. Trust – within the client-agency-adtech ecosystem and across the brand-consumer relationship. Co-creation – ‘build with’ rather than ‘speak to’ communities. Experiences – immersive and memorable; the kind that leads to downstream nostalgia much after the hype fades.
And, above all – People. Focus on humans – always and in all ways. It’s time to ask the questions that matter: What value are brands adding to consumer’s lives? Will we bury the hatchet on past client-agency trauma and build a better world together? Will we celebrate human-led original creativity or bend a knee to algorithmic bias and trending synthetic slop? Will we further polarise the world or begin an age of belonging?
Consider this issue an invitation to lead with empathy as a strategy, not a slogan.
