2026 is shaping up to be a pressure-test year for marketers. Not because one big thing is changing, but because everything is shifting at once. Streaming continues to rewrite “TV.” AI is reshaping how consumers discover and evaluate brands (often before they ever hit an actual website). Political and advocacy budgets are gearing up for a noisier, more competitive market. And across it all, one expectation keeps rising: marketing has to feel relevant at the local level: market by market, neighborhood by neighborhood.

We’ll be exploring these trends in a three-part 2026 Trends series, inspired by conversations with Simpli.fi’s Chief Product & Technology Officer, Michael Schoen. Each post breaks down the major shifts we see accelerating this upcoming year, along with the operational changes marketers will need to keep up.

Part 1: Local Reach, Reimagined — how brands win one market at a time

Part 2: CTV: The New Main Stage — streaming as local reach, plus the organized chaos of sports

Part 3: Politics and Omnichannel: The Pressure Test Year — The push to unify advertising channels coincides with a massive political year

In this first installment, we’ll focus on why localized marketing is moving from a “nice-to-have” tactic to a baseline expectation in 2026 and why the fastest-growing national and multi-location brands are shifting toward a new operating model.

Read the full article here. Watch the full video interview here.