My 2026 Marketing Anger Index
This is my latest newsletter for Marketing Unfiltered, going out Jan 2nd.
So rather than just give you a LOL or spike your frustration a little before Monday, here’s a list of the buzzwords (and "official words of the year: “slop” selected by Merriam-Webster and “rage bait” by Oxford University Press) that will give you some anger this year, with a simple explainer of each buzzword and phrase you will hear all about in the coming days and weeks.
Nano Banana graphics are something else!
Here is the full buzzword explainer card with accompanying anger index, so 1 (ok that’s annoying) 😤 → 5 😤 😤 😤 😤 😤 (about to blow my top if I hear that again)
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AEO We will continue to be told, sold and reminded how important AEO/AIEO/GEO/LLMO is - 😤
Agentic - Agent and “agentic AI” is being built in the background, while many opt out of agentic, many early adopters will move to enable agentic commerce - 😤😤
AI Feature - Despite consumers not loving AI and being hyped on AI there will be internal pressure on AI features and including AI in everything - 😤😤😤
AI First - Competitors spring up out of nowhere, we will see a number of AI first competitors spring up and create loud marketing. There will be a number of startups who pressure incumbents on AI and being AI first - 😤😤
AI Share Of Voice - Most likely the most important metric companies will be pushing and trying to measure this year and next year - 😤😤😤
AI Slop - We are already inundated with low quality and mass produced AI content, we will see a lot of content being labelled slop and AI slop and its on leaders to own how you respond - 😤😤😤😤
AI Tools - Expect your inboxes to be full of AI tools being sold to you, low cost to high cost tools chasing to be the first to measure AI and AI’s impact - 😤
Anti AI - Apple have already pushed the anti AI ad and promoted how long and artistic anti AI is, expect this to be a key trend and one embraced by many companies - 😤😤
Brand campaigns - We saw this a lot in 2025, the push for brand campaigns and the experts pushing brand again. Brand will be important as ever but how frequently we hear those around us and executives reference brand will be important to take note and guide - 😤😤
Brain Rot - Many customers are complaining of low quality content (short form, meme’s, social videos etc) and it will be something many companies will want to be aware of and expect pushback from customers, whether loudly with videos and comments or unfollowing and blocking across feeds and CRM - 😤😤😤
Community - The shift to deeper connection with our audience has been promoted since 2022, the need for deeper and direct relationships will mean more companies and team members will reference community. Expect a huge wave of recommendations for building a community from executive peers, team members and agencies 😤😤😤
Cult Brand - Social media will be promoting the brands with intensely loyal fans and customers who rave about the brand and their products. Expect to hear this in agency pitches, social media experts and younger team members - 😤😤😤
EGC - Employee generated content is something we have all craved, whether that’s organic promotion from our team members, an employee wanting to be the face of the brand or becoming the interviewer for social video’s, expect to hear about EGC and an increased demand for inhouse creators - 😤😤
Episodic Content - Not new but becoming popular, content that are part of a series or designed to be watched as box sets. Episodic content will be the area that social networks expect brands to create 😤😤
Fandom - A core connector to community, fandom is the next level of advocacy, creating the superfan and those who love your brand or products and sell across social and live commerce 😤
GTM Engineer - Not just someone who can build AI automations but someone who can build your go-to market and develop out your AI automations to improve your team’s output and remove the human barrier in creating better ads, analysis or creating social updates - 😤😤😤😤
Headcount Request - The pressure for more headcount will never be higher, while others invest into building operationally and with AI others will be in battle for headcount requests and being creative with budgets. CFOs will be squeezing on headcount and requests - 😤😤😤
Layoffs - Layoff pressure will intensify unless markets improve—watch competitors reframe AI investments and productivity gains as justification for headcount reduction - 😤😤😤😤😤
Live Shopping - Many have seen the power of selling across social networks, there will be continue pressure to sell via live streams and platforms like whatnot. Expect live shopping to be the area many external partners recommend and push for - 😤😤😤
(Marketing) Events - The return to meaningful connection and meeting IRL is going to be loaded this year, with a huge number of brands investing into more events, more in person events and organising in person meetings and activities to connect their users and build affinity over competitors. Expect to see and hear a lot about events - 😤😤😤
Micro Drama’s - Micro-dramas are bite-sized video series (under 3 mins) designed for binge-watching, expect brands to explore sponsorships and product placements in episodes - 😤😤
» Here’s a great explainer from a micro drama director
More With Less - Operating with reduced budgets and headcount will be the baseline. Expect constant pressure to deliver more impact with fewer resources - 😤😤😤😤😤
Paid Marketing Performance - Paid performance is becoming more and more of a black box, although some channels are performing well without knowing what exactly is working expect even more scrutiny on paid marketing performance and knowing how to ramp paid channels. Predictability = investable - 😤😤😤
PLG - Product led growth hasn’t gone anywhere, but the need to find and keep PLG has ramped up in the age of AI. Expect challenges on your numbers and reporting and what is attributed to PLG and what’s attributed to Marketing - 😤😤😤😤
Productivity Gains - 2026 is the year of AI ROI, there will be continued pressure to justify investments into AI and AI tools and proving productivity gains will be critical. Expect C-Suite leaders to be pushing back on lack of progress and ask what productivity gains you are experiencing - 😤😤😤😤
Rage Bait - Enragement = engagement across social media and advertising, expect more team members to want to create more content designed to provoke anger, cause frustration, or spark outrage. This year, vanity metrics will have to be classified and be reconsidered - 😤😤😤
Rebrand - The topic that will cause mass debate, rebrands will be something that is either pushed by investors and the board or repelled, rebrands saw huge backlash in 2025 and expect 2026 to be a year full of opinion and unwanted feedback on rebrands - 😤😤😤😤
Reduce CAC - This is something most will hear constantly, reduce costs, reduce CAC, prove CAC etc - 😤😤😤
Retention - Rightly becoming an area Marketing & Growth leaders will want to own and manage and prove that you can retain users and engage them into more usage or purchases 😤😤😤
ROAS - Like reducing CAC, ROAS will be the word that you will hear frequently in WhatsApp groups, across LinkedIn and in ELT meetings. Keep across ROAS and own it - 😤😤😤
Storytelling - Everyone wants storytelling not everyone is prepared to understand what it is in today’s new media market and feed driven lives. Storytelling is a number of different activities and actions, be prepared to understand, teach and preach it constantly through the next 12 months - 😤
Substack - The platform many are flocking in demand for audience and embracing a different culture to engage a newer breed of network, the newsletter + social network built on top. You will need to do more than just use Substack for a newsletter - 😤😤😤😤
Unhinged Content - The demand for more has led many company and Marketing leaders to embrace unhinged content and be part of the unhinged content creation movement. You will need to ultra confident that unhinged content won’t hurt your brand and won’t be used against you - 😤😤😤😤😤
Vibe Coded - Marketing & Product are always siblings, with vibe coding apps there will be more pressure to create prototypes not presentations. The shift from reporting problems and presentations to potentially building prototypes will be something that is embraced by the savviest Marketing & Growth departments and something that is loved or loathed by your Product and ENGG colleagues. Expect to see competitors vibe code microsites and landing pages while you could be left behind - 😤😤😤
Volume To Value - A phrase some have never heard, except the volume of output to be quizzed on and asked about the value it is bringing to the business. With AI there is a tendency to create quantity not quality, 2026 is the year of proving more os signal not noise - 😤😤😤
Zero-Party Data - Brands will increasingly ask customers to voluntarily share data in exchange for value. Expect zero-party data to become a competitive advantage metric - 😤😤
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