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The Gist
- The brand vs. demand debate is officially outdated. CMOs increasingly see brand and demand as one interconnected growth system, not competing priorities, with trust, relevance, and revenue compounding when the two are planned and measured together.
- Investment decisions are about maturity, not ideology. Rather than rigid splits, leading marketers sequence and blend brand and demand based on company stage, category noise, and data readiness—focusing on how brand fuels performance over time.
- “Brand blanding” is the real competitive risk. In an AI-saturated market, sameness erodes differentiation; the brands that win lean into radical specificity, customer truth, and provable claims instead of safe, generic messaging.
For years, marketers have been asked the same question: brand or demand? And across industries and disciplines, the honest answer has been … it depends.
But as 2026 moves along, I'm starting to see a shift in that debate. Buyers are more informed, attention is scarcer, AI is accelerating everything and "brand blanding" (my term for when a brand lacks strong features or characteristics) is quietly eroding differentiation across nearly every category.
The stakes have certainly changed, so how are CMOs dealing with this new landscape? When I asked fellow marketing leaders how they're thinking about brand versus demand heading into the new year, the varied responses ultimately converged on a single truth: it's time to ditch the false binary of this debate and focus on what actually matters.
Editor's note: This piece follows last week's talking to 10 other marketing leaders on what they're doubling down on and what they're scaling back.
Table of Contents
- The False Binary Finally Breaks
- Investment Follows Maturity, Not Dogma
- The Real Threat: Brand 'Blanding'
- Where This Leaves the Modern CMO
The False Binary Finally Breaks
Several leaders I spoke with were quick to dismiss the idea that there is or should be a single winner in the brand versus demand debate.
Grant Ho, chief marketing officer at Ironscales, put it bluntly: "There is no winner because the separation is an outdated framework built for a world that doesn't exist anymore." In his opinion, brand and demand are "two sides of the same growth system." He believes that treating them as separate workstreams will only lead to disconnected machines.
Kathleen Booth, VP of marketing at Sequel.io, echoed that sentiment, calling it the death of a false binary. "Modern buyers don't move linearly through a funnel," she said. "They move emotionally through a series of trust signals. Brand creates the gravitational pull. Demand converts it into action." Kathleen believes that each depends on the other, and the real impact happens in the middle.
Grant would agree: "Brand builds trust velocity—the speed at which belief turns into intent—and demand captures and compounds that trust into revenue."
Jen Leaver, senior director of growth marketing at Rithum, described this convergence as "brandformance." With a more unified, customer-centric approach, brand gives demand campaigns gravity, and demand gives brand accountability.
When Brand and Demand Run on Separate Systems
And yet, despite this philosophical alignment, I still see brand and demand teams operating in parallel more often than truly together.
In practice, this usually shows up as different KPIs, different cadences and different definitions of success. Brand teams are measured on reach, sentiment and share of voice, while demand teams are under pressure to hit short-term pipeline targets, often with little shared accountability between the two.
The consequence is predictable: brand creates awareness without momentum, and demand campaigns convert attention that was never properly earned. When those teams don't share a narrative, a data model or even a common planning cycle, marketing becomes a set of disconnected motions instead of a compounding system.
The CMOs I see making real progress aren't just talking about convergence, they're restructuring around it. That means shared planning, shared metrics tied to revenue influence over time and a willingness to trade short-term efficiency for long-term differentiation when the two come into conflict.
Related Article: 10 Marketing Leaders on What Stays, What Goes and What Scales in 2026
Investment Follows Maturity, Not Dogma
While the philosophy is converging, many CMOs still value an intentional investment mix.
Allison Kavanagh, chief marketing officer at Inflo Health, shared a pragmatic split: roughly 60% brand, 40% demand. But more insightful was her observation that AEO and generative search are blurring the line between brand and performance altogether. Strong brands now drive performance, as they always should have.
"The real challenge is translating that blended strategy into a cohesive data story that helps executives and investors see the compounding value of brand over time," she said.
Debbie Umbach, chief marketing officer at M-Files, plans to lean even further into brand in 2026, increasing brand investment while dialing back pure demand. For her, brand is "critical to differentiate in crowded markets, provide air cover for sales, and feed the LLMs."
But even then, the mandate is clear: whatever mix you choose, the important part is to connect the dots. Brand doesn't live in isolation; it must flow into the funnel.
Other marketing leaders are choosing to sequence instead of split.
Melanie R. LoBue, founder and president of Voyager Communications, plans to push brand in the first half of the year, then shift toward demand.
Ali Jawin, chief experience and marketing officer at Pontera, framed the decision as lifecycle-dependent: early-stage companies still need demand engines to earn the right to invest in brand, but once demand proves itself, brand investment becomes easier to justify.
Patrick Thomas, VP of marketing at Backblaze, summarized it best: "Brand primes demand, and demand funds brand." According to him, if you've optimized every conversion point and still aren't hitting targets, the problem may not be demand execution—it may be that your brand hasn't earned trust.
How Marketing Leaders Are Rethinking Brand and Demand in 2026
Rather than choosing sides, CMOs are blending, sequencing, and restructuring brand and demand based on maturity, market pressure and long-term growth goals.
| Leadership Perspective | Brand vs. Demand Approach | What Guides the Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Integrated Growth System | Brand and demand fully unified | Trust velocity increases when brand and demand operate as one compounding engine. |
| Trust-Led Convergence | Brand and demand converge mid-funnel | Brand creates emotional pull; demand converts trust into action across nonlinear journeys. |
| “Brandformance” Model | Unified execution with shared accountability | Brand gives demand gravity, while demand provides measurable accountability. |
| Intentional Investment Split | Roughly 60% brand / 40% demand | AEO and generative search blur performance boundaries, making brand a growth driver. |
| Brand-Forward Strategy | Increased brand investment, reduced pure demand | Differentiation, sales air cover and LLM visibility require stronger brand signals. |
| Sequenced Execution | Brand first, demand later | Early brand momentum improves downstream demand efficiency. |
| Lifecycle-Dependent Mix | Demand-led early, brand-led later | Demand engines earn the right to scale brand investment as companies mature. |
| Reinforcement Loop | Brand and demand fund each other | If conversion stalls despite optimization, the underlying issue is often brand trust. |
The Real Threat: Brand 'Blanding'
If brand and demand are converging and the debate is quickly becoming irrelevant, what's actually holding teams back? According to nearly every CMO I spoke with: sameness.
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Kathleen didn't mince words: "The secret to standing out is radical specificity—saying the things others are afraid to say, but backing it with empathy and evidence." In her view, the brands that will stand out in 2026 will have a clear point of view, an authentic voice and the courage to say something meaningful.
Jen described "blanding" as the result of playing it safe. Her team is moving away from corporate tone and safe visuals toward storytelling that is rooted in customer voice, emotional resonance and unexpected creative formats. "Our test for every asset: would this stand out in a LinkedIn scroll?" she said.
In noisy markets, credibility also cuts through. Howard Davidson, chief marketing officer at Almond FinTech, believes standing out means specificity over generality. For him, a clear, provable claim tied to real outcomes and numbers is key. Leading with honesty and emphasizing measurable improvements is his preferred approach to combating brand "blanding."
Leaning into the uniqueness and the honesty is an angle that many leaders were in alignment on. "In an era where blanding is on steroids thanks to LLMs, every company's secret is to share their secrets," Patrick said. "Infuse all your tactical execution with data, narratives and expertise unique to your company, or prepared to be ignored."
Why Clear Marketing Beats Loud Marketing
I see brand "blanding" most often when companies mistake professionalism for neutrality. The moment every website headline promises to be "the leading, AI-powered, end-to-end solution," differentiation is already gone.
Two examples of breaking away from this pattern come from Pendo and Gong, particularly in their earlier brand evolution. Neither led with features. Instead, they anchored their brands around uncomfortable truths their buyers already felt but rarely articulated.
Pendo built its narrative around a simple, unsettling reality: most software is under-adopted, and teams don't actually know how users experience their product. Gong did something similar by calling out how little visibility revenue teams had into why deals stall or die. In both cases, the brand wasn't aspirational fluff, it was diagnostic.
What made these approaches effective wasn't louder marketing, but clearer marketing. Customer language, behavioral data and real-world evidence were embedded directly into both brand storytelling and demand execution. Screenshots, usage insights and real examples did the heavy lifting. Prospects recognized themselves in the message before they ever saw a product demo.
Where This Leaves the Modern CMO
The main takeaway I got after speaking with other marketing leaders isn't that brand has won or demand has lost. It's that marketing in general has matured.
Brand is no longer a soft, upper-funnel luxury, and demand is no longer a bottom-funnel numbers game. They must work together to form a single growth engine that is coherent, courageous, and unmistakably human.
In 2026, the CMOs who win will be the ones resisting "blanding" and designing brand and demand as one system that tells stories only they can tell—clearly, consistently and with conviction.
