By: Claudine Tass: Client Director Middle East, Interbrand

Defining shifts or lesson from 2025 

Brand accelerated by AI 

2025 marked a pivotal transformation as AI accelerated at unprecedented speed, fundamentally  reshaping how work is approached. This shift compelled organizations and individuals to embrace  agility, foster continuous learning, maintain intellectual curiosity, and harness AI as an amplifier of  human intelligence. 

Actions continue to speak louder 

A critical insight emerged in 2025: brand perceptions became increasingly defined not by messaging,  but by authentic action. As technological disruption intensified and stakeholder expectations soared,  the strongest brands distinguished themselves through unwavering consistency between their stated  values and lived behaviors. Success demanded crystal-clear purpose paired with rigorous execution. 

Building relationships through behaviours 

At Interbrand, our pride extends beyond what we’ve delivered, to how we’ve done it. 2025 demanded  more of our behaviors: empathy and leading with love in how we supported one another and our  partners, the discipline to truly listen—not just to stakeholders, but to the data—the courage to be bold  and brave in our thinking and choices, and the determination to make things happen with both strategic  clarity and accountable outcomes. 

One bold, grounded prediction for 2026 

Using data to guide brand decision making 

Yet authenticity alone is not sufficient. Equally important is the strategic application of brand  economics: the discipline of translating brand and marketing data into measurable business  outcomes. Today’s brands sit atop vast reservoirs of information that remain largely untapped for  strategic decision-making. The competitive advantage belongs to those who harness this intelligence  to build performance models that deliver actionable insights. By analyzing brand tracking data, own  media customer interactions and competitive positioning, brands can now see clearly which  initiatives drive the greatest returns and which align most directly with overarching brand objectives. 

This data-driven approach to brand economics is especially critical for stretched marketing teams  operating under budget and time constraints. Rather than distributing resources evenly across all  initiatives, brands can now prioritize with precision, allocating budget and talent to projects that generate the greatest impact on both brand strength and business performance. The proprietary  Interbrand Brand Strength framework serves as an essential guide in this process, providing a  structured methodology that directly links brand data with activation. By understanding how specific  brand factors influence the performance of the brand teams can make confident roadmaps to  prioritise efforts and justify their initiatives to leadership. 

The brands that will thrive in this era are those that combine purposeful action with economic  discipline: those that measure what matters, learn from the data, and redirect resources with agility  toward initiatives that strengthen brand while advancing business objectives.