As marketers plan for 2026 and beyond, Ad Age’s Future of Advertising series explores what’s next for the industry, the people behind the work, and the consumers they’re trying to reach. For the series, GALE’s Chief Brand & Experience Officer, Winston Binch, weighed in on where the agency pitch process is headed, and Jason McCann, Managing Director, Creative, explored the future of loyalty—two key areas where AI, evolving expectations, and new models are already reshaping how brands and agencies work.
The Future of the Pitch
The pitch has long been a defining ritual of the agency/brand relationship—a moment to envision a brand’s future and demonstrate how a new partnership might bring it to life. Looking ahead, some in the series centered the evolution on shrinking review cycles and a move toward less “pitch theater.” Binch focused on the pitch process: “Timelines will become even more compressed and pitch work will shift from being theoretical to more actionable,” he says. “AI is dramatically accelerating our time to getting both the right insight and executing on it. Historically, agencies have won pitches based on perceived quality of thinking and chemistry fit, but most of the actual campaigns pitched never came to fruition. There’s significant potential for that to change.”
The New Loyalty Landscape
Just as AI is reshaping how agencies build and win pitches, it’s also redefining how brands build loyalty with the next generation of consumers. As agentic shopping becomes more ubiquitous, generic requests with the need at the forefront (such as “help me find new workout clothes”) will increase. For McCann, brand loyalty – getting people to care enough to ask for your brand by name – is the remedy: “It’s more important to have people engaged with your brand by name. Loyalty, treating your customer with a lot more care, is going to become more important as the shopping activity becomes more commoditized.”
But how do brands build loyalty and name preference with younger consumers? McCann points to a greater emphasis on community and personalization, citing GALE research showing that the overwhelming majority of respondents are more likely to join a brand’s loyalty program if it includes an active community. That shift raises the bar on what loyalty looks like in practice: “The expectation of personalization and engagement is higher,” McCann adds. “Every 10th free is not personalized enough.”
Read more from GALE in the full Ad Age Future of Advertising series.
