Agenda

NOTE: The following agenda is work unveiled here for the first time — multi-year, multi-brand experiments validated through MMA’s Think Tanks and Labs. Each session is delivered by the CMOs and operators who actually ran the work, not by stage speakers brought in to share an opinion.

Day One

As a CMO, don’t you want to see the future?

Every CMO wonders what the corner office really thinks of marketing. In this candid opening session, a sitting CEO — who once held the CMO role — shares what they wish they had known when they ran marketing, and what they now see clearly from the other chair. Walk away with a sharper view of how CEOs evaluate marketing, what builds credibility at the top, and where CMOs leave influence on the table.

Now Validated: The CFO-Ready Financial Equation to Prove Marketing’s Value

For decades, marketers have struggled to prove their contribution in terms the CFO actually trusts. Now, there’s a radical new formula that directly connects marketing activities to enterprise value. This session reveals how leading brands are using it to create a shared language for growth across the C-suite. But here’s the problem: most organizations aren’t remotely built to operationalize it. We’ll explain why — and what you can do about it.

Now Proven: Brand Is Worth More Than You Think

CMOs are often forced into a false choice: build the brand or chase short-term performance. MMA’s multi-year Brand as Performance research shows that choice may be costing companies far more than they realize. This session reveals new evidence on how brand investment drives measurable financial value, why the old budget logic is breaking down, and how CMOs can use the findings to change the conversation with the CFO.

Now Proven: Why Operating Model Matters for Marketing to Succeed

Strategy gets the headlines, but operating model is what decides whether marketing actually delivers. Drawing on new MOSTT research across 900+ participants, this session puts color and clarity around how the operating model shapes everything marketing does: talent, structure, decision rights, speed. See how the right model unlocks alignment and impact for the business, and how the wrong one quietly holds even the best CMOs back.

Now Proven: Time to Throw Out the Outdated Targeting Playbook

Forget the segmentation playbook you’ve been using for decades. More effective targeting for growth isn’t about finding more consumers, but finding the ones most likely to respond — the movable middles. Proven across categories, the Movable Middles Growth Framework beats other audience segmentations. Hear from the first advertiser rolling out this approach company-wide on what’s working, what they didn’t expect, what we still don’t know, and what comes next.

Now Exploring: What If We’re Acquiring the Wrong Customers?

Most acquisition models are built to find consumers likely to buy. But buying once is not the same as becoming valuable in the long term. This new MATT Future Lab with AlixPartners explores a different question: who is likely to become a high-value customer, and where can marketing influence that outcome? Hear from the CMO helping pilot the approach on what they’re learning so far, where the early signals are promising, and what marketers should test next.

Data Loss Is Breaking Measurement. Here’s What Now.

New analysis with LiveRamp surfaces three truths CMOs need to hear: the pattern of data loss matters more than the volume, identity precision matters more than match rate, and RCTs hold up where other methods break. We’ll walk through the implications and what leading brands are doing to stay measurable.

Day Two

MMA and BCG’s 2026 CMO Inquiry on AI’s Real Disruption

BCG’s annual CMO inquiry returns with sharp data on where AI is actually changing marketing, where it’s mostly noise, and what it means for marketing. The clearest read this year on what CMOs are doing differently.

Now Proven: Personalization at Enterprise Scale Is Harder Than You Think

AI personalization can deliver dramatic results — MMA’s CAP work has proven that. But rolling it out across an entire enterprise worldwide is a different challenge entirely. Most companies stall after one or two pilots. Hear from Indeed, one of the brands that’s actually figured it out, on what it takes to operationalize personalization at scale: the org changes, the data foundation, the trade-offs, and the moments where it almost didn’t work.

Plus quick updates from:

• Using AI to drive store traffic — The Home Depot
• Using AI to drive brand lift — General Motors
• Using AI to drive sales — Choice Hotels International
• Using AI to optimize video

How We Spend and What We Say

A cross-industry view of advertising in 2026: what brands are saying in their ads, how layered the messages are, and how much creative they’re producing. Built on five years of MediaRadar data across ten industries. A benchmark for CMOs to ask: am I aligned with my category, or breaking from it on purpose?

Now in Market: AI Finds the Audiences You’re Missing

Most brands target audiences built on yesterday’s data. AURA uses AI to find the segments most likely to convert — weekly, in market, with continuous optimization. AT&T’s beta is the first proof point at scale: 80/20 top-Prism split, 4-week test, real attribution. SIFT does the same on intent and semantic context. Next is to prove cross-category replication and how AURA and SIFT compose with CAP-style personalization.

Where Agentic AI Really Stands Across the Marketing Stack

Agentic AI is the new buzzword, but where are brands actually deploying it, and what’s working? A grounded look at maturity across the marketing stack, with hard examples from Monks and iOPEX.

Inside ACE: Building Real Creative Intelligence with AI

Creative volume is exploding. Human judgment isn’t scaling with it. MMA’s ACE lab, with VidMob and Kroger, is testing how AI can identify what drives creative success and apply that judgment at the scale modern marketing now demands.

Generative AI Is Making Creative Fast. Does It Work?

Generative AI has collapsed ad creative development timelines from weeks to hours. The harder question: does the work actually drive business results? MMA’s A3 initiative — with Intuit, Campbell’s, and Monks — is putting that question to the test. Hear what’s working, what’s not, and how leading brands are building the proof points to scale generative creative with confidence.

AI and the Customer Journey: What’s Changing, and Who’s Ready

Customers now use AI to research, compare, and decide, often before they ever reach your site, and most of it never shows up in your analytics. Drawing on behavioral data across enterprise brands and a survey of senior marketers, Knotch shows how the journey is actually changing, what marketers are doing to keep up, and whether they’re ready.

How AI Search and Communities Reshape Brand Visibility

Generative search engines are rewriting discovery, and community signals are quietly driving what AI surfaces. Reddit shares what brands need to know about AIO, GEO, and the new rules of being found.

Finally, an Industry Becoming a Profession: First Step, a Codified Body of Knowledge

For the first time, marketing has a codified body of knowledge — what’s actually proven, not just opinion. Over the past year, the MMA has been building it, using Empirical Generalizations in Marketing, a collection of 200+ meta-analyses spanning more than 10,000 studies, as the backbone. This session previews the first deliverable: a shared canon every CMO can point to as fact. It’s the first step in marketing becoming a profession.