Infographic

How Marketing Leadership Changed over the Last Decade

What separates marketing leaders from laggards? It changes every year. See how the leaders have raised the standards for excellence over the past decade.

  • First published on Οκτωβρίου 13, 2026

Infographic

How Marketing Leadership Changed over the Last Decade
en

Over the past decade, Bain & Company has researched the strategies, approaches, and capabilities that have separated marketing leaders—those consistently growing sales and share—from everyone else.

While the world has changed dramatically, one thing has remained constant. Marketing is not just about the tools that can help drive performance, including AI. Marketing leaders identify new tools and innovate faster, orchestrate both the “math” and the “magic” of marketing to deliver breakthrough content that resonates with audiences at key moments, and consistently put humans—customers and the marketing organization—at the center of their strategy.

Take a look over the years:

Timeline of five stages of marketing leadership from 2016 to 2026, each pairing three leader behaviors with how much more likely leaders are than other marketers to do them. Themes move from data-driven decisions and in-house talent (2016, 3X more likely to use data), to customer-centric and agile ways of working (2019, 2021), to AI-enabled experimentation (2025, up to 10X more likely to treat AI as a core capability) and rebuilt, customer-focused AI workflows (2026, 3.7X more likely to redesign workflows).
  • Data highlights from the interactive graphic

What will future marketing leadership require?

Amid constant change, marketing leaders have delivered exceptional results by keeping the customer as their North Star and by using new technologies to deliver value. Looking forward, marketers must experiment early and often, blending technology and the human touch to meet customers where they are and build industry-leading brands and demand.

READ MORE

AI in Marketing: How Leaders Achieve Double the Revenue Impact

AI adoption has surged, but value realization has not. Value comes from rebuilding systems and teams around the customer, not the technology.

Authors
  • Partner, San Francisco
  • Partner, Seattle
  • Partner, San Francisco
  • Practice Senior Manager, Houston
Tags

Έτοιμοι να μιλήσουμε

Συνεργαζόμαστε με φιλόδοξους ηγέτες που θέλουν να καθορίσουν το μέλλον και όχι. Όχι να κρυφτούν από αυτό. Μαζί, επιτυγχάνουμε πετυχαίνουμε εξαιρετικά αποτελέσματα.