Redux: Canadian Marketing Week 2026
Last week the Canadian Marketing Association hosted their third annual CMA Marketing Week, which generatr was fortunate enough to attend. It’s been years since I’ve been active in the CMA, so it was refreshing to get a new perspective on how the organization is evolving. Needless to say, there were some highlights worth mentioning here:
AI continues to be a topic. While I don’t get the sense most organizations have answers yet, the quality of questions around how AI is influencing marketing is getting sharper. What roles can it play, where does it contribute the most value, and what properly remains in the domain of humans? Possibly more importantly, questions around agentic vs. generative AI are becoming more refined, reflecting an emerging maturity in both understanding and use cases.
Connected to this is also the impact of AI on search. While chatbots have not replaced search marketing, this trend is developing, and not expected to stall or reverse. Consumers are using chatbots to answer product and service questions, check fit and pricing, track down hard-to-find purchases, and leverage increasingly accessible ways to solve consumer problems. This gives rise to the need for AEO and AGO: optimization for your brand to play a leading role in answering consumer questions and encouraging use of its material in the generation of responses and creative assets. This is a new domain, but it’s evolving quickly. While AI remains behind search algorithms in sophistication today, it will quickly catch up. Brands are on notice.
Finally we have the inevitable, with Cossette and Bell discussing their use of AI in creating a campaign involving the beloved TELUS critters. For what might be one of the first demanding executions, the latest critters were, in fact, a convincing development of generative AI. In all honesty, these artificial actors did not have any of the usual AI tells, and part of the secret to getting it right is the rise of the creative technologist: a role with expertise in optimizing the use of generative AI in creative development.
Outside of the AI territory, there remains a suite of classical and digital marketing domains that continue to evolve. Personalization continues to focus on consumer value, with highlights on how gaps in context and relevance can quickly overshadow the consumer benefits. Retail media, especially by way of Loblaw Advance, is becoming increasingly powerful at identifying early demand signals in non-grocery items, allowing for targeted programs that activate otherwise invisible intent. Meanwhile, social and influencer marketing continues to evolve, with Pintrest discussing Gen Z’s engagement in character and style development outside of the prying eyes of traditional social media.
A number of speakers also criticized a narrow focus on marketing metrics, and in particular, attribution models. As Jon Crowley of FUSE pointed out, for any given performance improvement, there are at least three separate departments taking credit: the latest creative campaign, enhancements to SEO, and maybe a three-year-old UX initiative that just went live, all of which may have contributed, but none of which are independently responsible. We need to look at broader performance, and the answer is found in collective commercial impact, not isolated marketing initiatives.
And lastly I cannot omit the research components the CMA highlighted. An ongoing study titled “Confessions of a CMO” helped elucidate the various roles that CMOs play, and how they must adapt to the needs of each organization in which they operate. The styles might vary, but the mission remains the same: drive business performance, not just marketing activity. Meanwhile, an even broader study revealed that marketing as a whole contributes over $130B to Canada’s GDP. That is to say, marketing has a material impact on business growth in Canada. That’s right folks: we’re not just fluff.
Needless to say, it was great to spend a week immersed in marketing, comparing notes, reconnecting with old clients and colleagues, and learning about how the rest of our industry sees the world. It made for an entertaining and insightful week, and we are looking forward to future opportunities to participate in upcoming CMA events.
