2026 brand planning: 4 analytics strategies every marketer needs

Kantar has crunched the numbers to share what you need to know now for your 2026 brand planning. Here are four key lessons from its latest Brand Planning Toolkit:

Integrate digital signals into existing workflows

Today’s marketers certainly don’t lack data, but they do lack signals. The kind that tell you when your pricing power is wobbling, when your organizational culture is choking creativity, or when the quick wins are quietly killing long-term growth. And the earliest signs of brand momentum might not be in your tracker at all but sitting in your search bar.

Kantar’s research shows that when cleaned and processed properly, search can be a good indicator of some brand equity metrics. In other words, the signals that really matter, like visibility, relevance and intent, are already out there. The real advantage comes from connecting them faster than competitors do.

“Search is the world’s biggest database of intentions,” says Cynthia Vega, global analytics and AI director, Kantar: “And when you pair it with survey data, it reveals exactly why consumers slip between interest and purchase. Most marketers still overlook the most honest signals they have.”

Prioritize causation over correlation

Who doesn’t love a good correlation datapoint? But correlation rarely tells you why your brand is rising or slipping. That’s where path modelling comes in – a technique that maps causal relationships rather than just connections, and gives a clearer view of the real reasons behind brand growth or decline. Thanks to AI and automation, it’s finally scalable and far easier to interpret.

The method isn’t new, but it’s been underused, and has at times been dismissed as too technical. Success is down to fostering cultural change to make it stick.

For example, a coffee brand needed to regain category leadership without increasing spend. Kantar’s BrandStructures tool pinpointed the real growth drivers, revealed gaps in the strategy, and identified a stronger positioning and message that could lift demand by 35%. The results? 42% growth in a declining category.

Pilot, then scale synthetic data boosting

Marketers are under pressure to understand more valuable audiences at scale – new audiences and the ones they have trouble finding. Here’s where synthetic data boosting comes into its own. It uses statistical or computational models to generate new, lifelike data rows from existing sets, helping brands understand more people, more quickly.

For example, a global tech brand used Kantar’s Synthetic Data Boosting tool to connect with hard-to-reach cloud decision makers, doubling its sector sample globally and quadrupling it in a key market. Little wonder that the synthetic data market’s projected to balloon more than 10x to $3.7bn by 2030.

Synthetic data is not a magic bullet though. Its quality depends on the real data behind it, the tech infrastructure that supports it and a clear roadmap that guides its use. To get real value, brands need smart piloting, proper integration into existing workflows, and a clear strategy for selectively boosting specific cohorts and segments. This helps them better understand underrepresented audiences, without trying to replace human data altogether.

Democratize data insights

For years, insights and analytics teams controlled who saw what when it came to brand performance. But that gatekeeping is ending fast. Agentic AI and emerging tech is democratizing access to insight, making knowledge more flexible, immediate and widely used across organizations. For instance, Kantar’s KAiA tool is an AI assistant which makes insights more accessible across organizations.

To make it work, brands need to be brave. That means redefining team roles, upskilling people in AI tools and data literacy, training agents (and agencies) on your IP, unifying data access, and starting with tight, well-scoped use cases. And for high-stakes calls? Humans stay firmly in the loop.

Ultimately, 2026 isn’t for the timid. The brands that win won’t be the ones waiting for the data to tell them what’s already happened. They’ll be the ones who act, measure, and move. Because, in an AI-driven world, brand measurement is a commercial radar, a pricing power lever, and a boardroom trump card.

Mary Kyriakidi, global thought leader at Kantar, agrees: “The future of brand-building won’t be tracked, it’ll be led. So, don’t just track the past. Shape what happens next. Move markets, move minds, and move your business forward because in 2026, brand deserves to lead, not follow.If you’re still hesitating, this is your signal to move.”

For the playbook and the proof, download Kantar’s Brand Analytics Playbook and Brand Measurement toolkit.