Strategy first: why brands need a clear answer before they need a feed or a room

Gartner’s 2026 Brand and Business Strategy Survey found that companies with a strong brand strategy are twice as likely to exceed their growth goals. That sounds like good news for agencies. The more uncomfortable finding sits next to it. In Germany and the DACH region, the German Brand Monitor 2026, published by the German Design Council and gmk Brand Consulting, surveyed 311 executives. Only 14 percent use defined KPIs to measure brand performance, and more than half do not measure brand image at all.

So many brands have a logo, a campaign calendar and a social media plan, but no clear way to tell whether the brand is getting stronger. That is the problem we see most often, and it is where we start.

The trust problem is a fit problem

Trust in influencers is fragile. A Modash Creator Trust Report from June 2026, based on 1,042 US adults, found that 40 percent of people say they trust creators at all. Clear sponsorship disclosure raised trust for 55 percent of respondents. Undisclosed sponsorship lowered it for 40 percent. And 43 percent said trust drops when the product seems a poor fit for the creator’s content.

The last point is the one we keep coming back to. People do not only ask whether something is paid. They ask whether it belongs. A product that feels forced into a creator’s life damages trust, even when the disclosure is perfect.

A 2025 study in Marketing Science by Ershov, He and Seiler, based on more than 100 million Twitter posts, found that 96 percent of sponsored influencer posts were not disclosed as paid. The data comes from one platform, and the findings are not automatically transferable to TikTok or Instagram. But it points in the same direction: when a brand has no clear reason to be somewhere, the audience usually notices.

That is why we think strategy comes before tactics. A clear strategy is the filter that decides which partners, formats and moments make sense for a brand.

What we mean by strategy

At Campbell & Jones, strategy is not a deck that sits in a drawer. Before we talk about events, creators or identity, we ask three questions:

1. What does this brand stand for that its competitors cannot honestly claim?

2. Who needs to believe it, and what do they do every day?

3. What should be different in their behaviour after they encounter the brand?

These questions sound simple. In practice, they are the hardest part of the work. Many brands answer them with adjectives like “innovative” or “premium,” which tell nobody anything. A useful answer names a tension, a choice and a consequence.

Once those answers are clear, the rest of the brand system has a direction. Identity expresses the position. Digital gives it a home. Experiences test it with real people. Community keeps it alive after the event is over. Without strategy, each part pulls in a different direction. With it, every part can support the others.

Where experience fits, and where it does not

Live experience is one of the most powerful tools in that system, but only when the strategy is clear. A room amplifies what is already there. If the brand is confused, the room shows the confusion faster.

The European picture is interesting here. Kesch’s Event and Brand Experience Trend Report 2026, based on a survey of 35 European agencies, found that Europe focuses more on stability, quality of experience and long-term relationships, while the USA is more performance and ROI driven. Dentsu’s Q2 2026 EMEA Consumer Navigator found that cautious consumers are becoming more deliberate rather than disengaged, and that the UK over-indexes on live experiences. Caution, in other words, does not mean people have stopped showing up. They show up more selectively.

That selectivity favours brands with a clear reason to be present. A tenth-anniversary dinner, a creator retreat or a product launch in a real space works when the people in the room know why the brand is there.

The data should be read with care. Spiro’s Experiential Marketing Impact Report, based on more than 2,000 consumers at live CPG and tech events, found that where trust did not increase, purchase intent dropped to 34 percent. Spiro is an experiential agency, so this is a vendor study. It is useful as a signal, not as proof.

Our work

Almost ten years ago, shortly after we founded Campbell & Jones, we ran one of our first live experiences with influencers for Dyson in Montreux. This year, we helped the Dyson team in Zurich create Dyson Bespoke 2027. What connects those two projects is not the format. It is the question underneath them: how does a brand like Dyson stay relevant to its community and its business partners as it grows? The answer we keep returning to is that people need a reason to engage, and that reason has to come from the brand’s own position, not from a trend.

In Engelberg, we worked with Galderma on a two-day programme for creators in the Swiss Alps. The programme needed to be effortless for guests. That only works when the planning is precise, the story is clear and every touchpoint reflects the same intention. Hotel, food, route, printed material and gifts were treated as parts of one narrative, not as separate logistics.

We do not claim that a single event changes a brand. We claim that a well-built experience, designed from a clear strategy, gives people a reason to remember and to talk about it on their own terms.

Where the limits are

Strategy does not guarantee growth. The Gartner finding is a correlation across companies, not a promise for any single brand. A clear strategy can still be executed badly, and a good idea can still fail in the market.

Measurement remains hard. We would rather track whether people come back, introduce others or repeat the brand’s language than report impressions. But those signals are harder to present to a finance team, and we do not always have clean data.

Not every brand needs a live experience. Some need a better product, a clearer offer or a website that tells the truth. An event will not fix a weak proposition. It will expose it.

Much of the research on trust and experience comes from surveys, often in the US or UK, and some of it comes from vendors with an interest in the outcome. We try to name the source and the sample size wherever we use a number. Where the evidence is thin, we say so.

And we are a Zurich agency with a Swiss-sized network. We are good at some projects and not at others. Saying that clearly is part of the work.

The bold part

Most brands do not lack ideas. They lack a clear strategy that connects their ideas to their business and to the people they want to reach. We think that is the real gap in brand building today, especially in Europe, where audiences are selective and trust is earned slowly.

If your brand has a logo, a campaign plan and a social calendar but no clear answer to what it stands for, start there. We are happy to help you find that answer, and to build the identity, digital home, experiences and community around it. We will also tell you early if you do not need a room at all.

Sources

• Gartner (2026), 2026 Gartner Brand and Business Strategy Survey, Insights abstract, published 3 February 2026: https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/7397930

• German Design Council and gmk Brand Consulting (2026), German Brand Monitor 2026: https://www.german-design-council.de/en/news/preview/what-defines-strong-brands-key-insights-from-the-german-brand-monitor-2026

• Modash (2026), Creator Trust Report 2026, survey of 1,042 US adults, June 2026: https://www.modash.io/blog/creator-trust-report-2026

• Ershov, D., He, Y., & Seiler, S. (2025), “How Much Influencer Marketing Is Undisclosed? Evidence from Twitter,” Marketing Science: https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormksc/v44y2025i3p505-515.html

• Kesch (2026), Event and Brand Experience Trend Report 2026: https://www.markt-kom.com/en/?p=249644

• Dentsu (2026), Q2 2026 EMEA Consumer Navigator: https://www.dentsu.com/news-releases/dentsu-launches-q2-2026-emea-consumer-navigator

• Spiro (2025), Experiential Marketing Impact Report, via The Drum: https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/live-experiences-are-the-best-way-build-trust

• Kantar BrandZ (2026), Most Valuable Global Brands, Meaningful Model: https://kantar.com/campaigns/brandz/global