— CMOs are also aiming to operate more effectively by integrating marketing with sales (#7) and customer experience (#8), as well as through agile working (#9). Two advantages come from more closely integrating the marketing, sales, and customer experience functions. First, companies can become more consistent in how their brand is portrayed, not only when sending marketing messages but also across touchpoints like product experiences and customer care. Second, it helps to limit internal friction (for example, between departments and functions) and external friction (such as with partners and agencies), enabling cost efficiencies. 9 Additionally, CMOs are increasingly adopting agile methodologies to enhance cross-functional collaboration and respond swiftly to market changes. 10 Theme 3: Be bold While Europe’s marketing decision-makers don’t place gen AI and agentic AI among their top topics (#17 out of 20), the need for action suggests a very different outcome (see Exhibit 2). We believe this ranking underestimates both the urgency and the opportunity. Gen AI is already reshaping marketing economics: Gen AI leaders in our survey place it in their top five and report efficiency improvements averaging 22 percent, which they bank or reinvest in growth. Laggards, by contrast, leave it near the bottom of their agendas. If this gap continues, European brands risk ceding ground to global leaders. 9 Aurélia Bettati, Jeff Jacobs, Kelsey Robinson, and Robert Tas, “The CMO’s comeback: Aligning the C-suite to drive customer-centric growth,” McKinsey, June 16, 2025. 10 Clay Cowan, Jennifer Ellinas, and Rachael Schaffner, “When agile marketing breaks the agency model,” McKinsey, September 29, 2021. This report is based on a survey of 500 senior marketing decision-makers across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The research combines a standardized survey with in-depth expert interviews to capture both quantitative and qualitative insights. The participants represent a cross-section of Europe’s marketing landscape, including CMOs of multinational corporations, small- and medium-sized companies, advertising agencies, and academic thought leaders. The companies covered in the survey span B2B (44 percent), B2C (31 percent), and B2B2C (25 percent) along 14 industries (of which the top three include telecommunications, transport and logistics, and industrials). The participants are equally distributed from the five countries where we fielded the survey. Firms of all sizes are represented, ranging from start-ups and scale-ups with revenues less than €500 million (16 percent) to midsize firms above €500 million up to €5 billion (54 percent) and large corporations above €5 billion in revenue (30 percent). The 20 topics included in the study were derived from interviews with marketing leaders. They cover the full spectrum of the discipline, including established fields such as brand building, emerging trends such as gen AI, and strategic approaches to operational marketing and analytics. To ensure a comprehensive view of the 2026 marketing landscape, the topics were designed to be as distinct as possible, while still reflecting relevant overlaps and interdependencies. About our research 8 State of Marketing Europe 2026