The State of Marketing with Stacia Allen

A Conversation with Stacia Allen, Partner, GreenRubino

AI is reshaping how brands reach audiences, trust is harder to earn than ever, and the playbook for reaching audiences is changing faster than most brands can keep up with. We sat down with Stacia to get her perspective on what's changing, what's not, and what it means for the clients and industries we serve.

What's the single biggest shift happening in marketing right now, and do you think most brands are keeping up with it?

The biggest shift is that brands no longer fully control the path people take to discover, evaluate, or decide.

That was already changing with social, creators, media fragmentation, and changing search behavior, but AI is accelerating it. People are no longer just searching for links. They're asking for answers, recommendations, comparisons, and shortcuts. That means brands need to think differently about where and how they show up. It's not just about the message they put into market. It's about being present, trusted, and relevant across the many places people are forming opinions. And I don't think most brands are fully keeping up yet. Many are experimenting with AI tools, but fewer are stepping back and asking what this means for their brand, their content, their audience strategy, their media strategy, and their customer experience. The opportunity is not simply to use AI. It's to understand how audience behavior is changing and build smarter, more connected marketing around that.

When you look across the industries our clients work in, what's the common thread in what they're wrestling with today?

The common thread is trust.

Whether we're talking about healthcare, finance, hospitality, or tourism, clients are navigating audiences who are more skeptical, more informed, more overwhelmed, and harder to reach in traditional ways. People have more access to information than ever, but that doesn't always make decisions easier. In many cases, it creates more noise, more comparison, and more uncertainty. So brands are having to work harder to earn attention and even harder to earn belief.

For our clients, that means the work can't just be visible. It has to be clear, relevant, and credible. It has to reflect a real understanding of the audience. And it has to show up consistently across the full experience, from brand storytelling to media to PR to content to the actual customer interaction.

Where do you see AI opening up real new ground, and where is it just putting a new face on challenges the industry has always had?

AI is opening up real new ground in how quickly we can understand audiences, identify patterns, test thinking, and personalize strategy.

The most exciting opportunity is not replacing human judgment. It's giving teams better intelligence faster, so we can make stronger decisions. For GreenRubino, that's where audience intelligence becomes really important. We're looking at how to bring together data, behavior, media performance, social signals, cultural context, and client knowledge in ways that help us see where the real audience opportunity is. That can inform everything from messaging to media to creative to content strategy. But AI is also putting a new face on an old challenge, which is relevance. Marketers have always had to answer: Who are we trying to reach? What do they care about? Why should they believe us? What will move them to act? AI doesn't change those questions. It just raises the stakes because the speed, volume, and complexity of the environment are much higher now. The risk is using AI to create more noise. The opportunity is using it to create more clarity.

What do brands that navigate change well tend to have in common?

They are clear on who they are, but flexible in how they show up.

The brands that navigate change well don't chase every new trend, but they also don't hold too tightly to old playbooks. They have a strong sense of their audience, their value, and their role in people's lives. That gives them the confidence to evolve without losing themselves. They also tend to have alignment internally. Change gets much harder when brand, media, PR, digital, content, and customer experience are all operating separately. The strongest brands connect those pieces, so the audience gets one clear, consistent experience. They pay attention to what audiences are doing, not just what they say they want. They use data, but they also use judgment. They understand that good marketing today requires both intelligence and instinct.

What are you most optimistic about heading into the back half of 2026?

I'm optimistic that the conversation is shifting from "How do we use AI?" to "How do we use intelligence better?"

That's a much more meaningful question. It pushes us beyond tools and into strategy. It asks how we can better understand audiences, reduce waste, find new opportunities, strengthen trust, and create work that is more relevant and effective.

For GreenRubino, I'm excited about the role we can play in helping clients navigate that. Because we sit across strategy, creative, media, PR, content, and digital, we can look at change from more than one angle. We're not just thinking about the campaign or the channel. We're thinking about the full picture. The pace of change can feel overwhelming, but I actually think it creates a lot of opportunity for brands that are willing to be thoughtful, brave, and audience-led.