Marketers Grapple With Media Mix Uncertainty as Spending Shifts to Smaller Creators

The modern advertising ecosystem offers marketers unprecedented access to performance data, yet determining the optimal combination of channels remains elusive. Confidence among advertisers in their organization's media mix has declined to 57%, down from 64% the previous year, according to Kantar's 2026 Media Reactions report. Additionally, just 51% of advertisers report receiving actionable intelligence that supports their marketing objectives.

The uncertainty extends to balancing brand-building efforts with performance-focused initiatives. Only 50% of advertisers this year feel assured about their equilibrium between these two approaches, compared with 60% in 2025. Yet despite these concerns, marketers continue investing in emerging areas such as artificial intelligence and creator partnerships.

"I don't think marketers have lost their faith in media," said Jeff Greenspoon, CEO of Americas at Kantar. "I think it's that the media ecosystem is fragmenting, changing and probably outgrowing the way decisions have been made for the last 25 years." Kantar's research surveyed 806 senior marketers globally and 23,452 consumers across 33 markets between May 25 and September 10.

Building Brand Affinity Across Channels

Marketers frequently face a dilemma: how to cultivate lasting brand loyalty while maintaining near-term revenue growth. Multichannel strategies present a path forward, Greenspoon noted. Data from Kantar shows that between 2020 and 2025, 43% of campaign effectiveness came from coordinated channel activity, a significant jump from 18% in the pre-2014 period.

Measurement across multiple channels, however, remains problematic. Different platforms and analytics solutions complicate the ability to isolate which tactics deliver results. "Media, creative, brand, performance, and commerce all have different dashboards. They have different partners, and those partners are incentivized differently," Greenspoon said. "[They] are measuring the instruments and not the orchestra."

Greenspoon advised that advertisers demand their media partners supply transparent documentation of how their inventory aligns with agreed business targets, alongside data that integrates seamlessly across systems.

Emerging Bets on AI and Smaller Creators

Marketers are testing new approaches and channels at scale. Generative AI represents a significant opportunity in the eyes of many: nearly two-thirds of marketers expect it to become central to product recommendations, and 75% intend to expand AI assistant spending in the coming year. Consumer adoption tells a different story, with only 23% expressing confidence in AI-generated suggestions.

"If you look at the number of people that are using it across the journey, that is continuing to increase," Greenspoon said. "The more it gets used, the more consumers get comfortable with it, and the more they begin to trust it."

Creator partnerships are undergoing a significant realignment. Marketers plan to increase spending on micro-creators and nano-creators by 66% and 61% respectively in 2027, outpacing the 42% and 48% growth planned for mega- and macro-creators.

"The creator with the largest audience is not going to be the creator who makes your brand the most meaningful," Greenspoon said. "The shift we're seeing is from borrowing fame through some of the bigger influencers to trying to earn relevance amongst a smaller audience, but in a way that will actually move the needle for either brand-building or sales."

The fragmentation of media channels does not mean they operate independently. Creators, AI systems, retail media networks and other channels can amplify one another's impact. Once marketers synchronize their objectives and measurement frameworks to capture these interactions, confidence in their media strategies should improve.

"We have to look at portfolio-level measurement, where we look at what each channel does independently, and then determine the value that is created across channels and how that value changes and compounds over time," Greenspoon said.