Prudential Advisors, the wealth management business of Prudential Financial, has added Christopher Grella to its NJ Wealth Partners practice in Holmdel, New Jersey. Grella brings more than 31 years of financial-services experience to Prudential and previously served as a vice president at Ameriprise Financial.

The transition is significant less because of a single advisor appointment than because of what it says about the competitive economics of wealth management. An advisor overseeing more than $110 million in client assets represents an established book of business, long-standing client relationships and substantial recurring revenue potential. Recruiting professionals at this level has become an important growth strategy for large wealth-management organizations.

Grella's career spans several major financial-services firms, including Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Janney Montgomery Scott and MetLife, as well as a period as an independent financial advisor. He holds a bachelor's degree in marketing and international business from Miami University and an MBA in finance from Rutgers Business School.

At NJ Wealth Partners, Grella will operate within Prudential Advisors' open-architecture wealth-management model. The approach is designed to give financial professionals access to a broad range of investment, insurance, annuity and financial-planning solutions rather than restricting advisors to a single proprietary product ecosystem.

That model is increasingly relevant as advisors look for platforms that can combine institutional resources with greater flexibility in constructing client portfolios. Prudential says its advisor platform covers investments, insurance, annuities and financial planning, while its relationship with LPL Enterprise provides access to an open-architecture investment advisory platform.

For enterprise wealth-management firms, technology is becoming an equally important part of that value proposition. Advisors increasingly need integrated customer relationship management, digital account opening, financial planning tools, portfolio analytics, electronic signatures, secure document exchange and data-driven workflows.

That creates an interesting competitive backdrop for Grella's move from Ameriprise. Ameriprise has invested heavily in its own advisor technology through its PracticeTech platform, which includes client engagement, account-opening, research, financial-planning and practice-management capabilities. The company also uses digital tools such as OmniView to give advisors and clients consolidated visibility across accounts.

Ameriprise's scale illustrates the challenge facing Prudential and other advisor platforms. In its 2025 annual report, Ameriprise said client assets reached a record $1.2 trillion, while its advisor force exceeded 10,500 at year-end. The company also reported more than $31 billion in total client flows during the year and continued investment in AI, cloud infrastructure, analytics and advisor technology.

Prudential's advantage is positioned somewhat differently. Rather than competing only on the depth of a digital advisor platform, its proposition combines a large financial-services brand with insurance and retirement capabilities and an open-architecture approach. That can matter for advisors whose clients require more than investment management, particularly around retirement income, insurance protection, estate planning and intergenerational wealth transfer.

Grella's stated emphasis on personalized guidance and long-term relationships also fits a broader shift in wealth management away from purely investment-centric relationships. Clients increasingly expect advisors to coordinate multiple aspects of their financial lives while delivering a digital experience that reduces administrative friction.

The technology challenge is substantial. McKinsey reported that global assets under management reached a record $147 trillion by June 2025, while asset-management industry costs rose to $167 billion in 2024. Technology costs alone increased 9%, underscoring the growing investment required to modernize financial-services infrastructure.

For advisors, that means the choice of platform is increasingly a technology decision as much as a brand or product decision. The ability to automate routine processes, access integrated client data and deliver personalized advice can directly influence how much time an advisor spends on client relationships versus administrative work.

The broader market also includes technology-led competitors and major financial institutions such as Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Salesforce-powered wealth-management operations and specialized fintech platforms. In that environment, advisor platforms are competing to create an ecosystem rather than simply sell investment products.

For Prudential Advisors, bringing Grella into NJ Wealth Partners therefore represents a combination of advisor recruiting and platform expansion. The firm gains an experienced professional with a sizable existing practice, while Grella gains access to Prudential's broader wealth-management infrastructure.

The harder test will come after the transition: whether the technology, product flexibility and operational support enable Grella to preserve client relationships while expanding the practice. As wealth-management platforms become increasingly digital, those execution capabilities may prove more important than the headline value of assets recruited.

Market Landscape

The wealth-management market is moving toward larger, more integrated platforms that combine financial planning, investment management, insurance, digital client engagement and advisor productivity tools.

Ameriprise demonstrates the scale of the incumbent model. Its 2025 results show $1.2 trillion in client assets and more than 10,500 advisors, supported by investments in AI, cloud infrastructure, analytics and integrated advisor technology.

Prudential Advisors is competing with a different combination of strengths: a large financial-services enterprise, an open-architecture approach and access to investment, insurance and retirement-oriented solutions. Its advisor platform is explicitly positioned around flexibility and support for experienced financial professionals.

The competitive landscape is increasingly shaped by advisor productivity. Firms need to give advisors better data access, automated workflows and digital client experiences while preserving the human relationship at the center of financial planning. That puts wealth-management technology closer to the broader enterprise MarTech and CRM conversation, where customer data, personalization and automation increasingly determine service quality.

Strategic Outlook

Prudential Advisors' recruitment of Grella reflects a broader industry race for experienced advisors with established client relationships. For large financial-services companies, acquiring advisor talent can be a faster route to asset growth than relying entirely on organic customer acquisition.

The next phase of competition will likely focus on the infrastructure behind those advisors. AI-assisted research, predictive analytics, automated financial planning, CRM intelligence and personalized digital engagement are becoming increasingly important differentiators.

The strategic question is no longer simply which wealth-management firm an advisor joins. It is whether the firm's technology and operating model can help that advisor serve more clients, deliver more personalized advice and grow assets without proportionally increasing administrative workload.

Top Insights

• Prudential Advisors' recruitment of Christopher Grella adds more than $110 million in client assets, strengthening its New Jersey wealth-management presence.
• Ameriprise's $1.2 trillion client-asset base illustrates the scale of technology investment required to compete for experienced financial advisors.
• Open architecture gives Prudential Advisors flexibility to combine investment, insurance and planning solutions across increasingly complex client financial needs.
• Advisor technology is becoming a competitive differentiator as wealth firms invest in AI, cloud infrastructure, analytics and automated workflows.
• Enterprise wealth platforms increasingly compete on advisor productivity, client personalization and digital infrastructure rather than investment products alone.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts

Georgia-Pacific marketing executive Laura Knebusch has been named an Ad Age Leading Woman 2026, recognizing her work modernizing the company's consumer marketing organization through AI, analytics, digital media and retail media. Her remit spans more than 80 marketing, media, analytics and consumer experience professionals supporting a multibillion-dollar portfolio of household brands.

Marketing leadership is changing as consumer brands contend with fragmented media, increasingly sophisticated retail platforms and the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence.

At Georgia-Pacific, Laura Knebusch has been helping steer that transition.

Knebusch, senior vice president of CPG Marketing & Customer Experience at Georgia-Pacific, has been named to Ad Age's Leading Women 2026, an annual recognition highlighting executives whose work is influencing marketing strategy, organizational performance and innovation.

The recognition comes as large consumer packaged goods companies increasingly combine traditional brand building with digital marketing, retail media, marketing analytics and AI-powered workflows.

Knebusch leads an organization of more than 80 professionals spanning marketing, media, analytics and consumer experience. The team is responsible for the strategy and growth of Georgia-Pacific's professional and consumer brands, including Angel Soft, Quilted Northern, Brawny, Sparkle, Vanity Fair and Dixie.

Her role illustrates how the modern CPG marketing function is expanding beyond advertising and brand management.

AI Moves Into the CPG Marketing Workflow

Over the past year, Georgia-Pacific has expanded the use of AI-powered tools across creative development, media optimization and analytics under Knebusch's leadership.

For enterprise marketing teams, that shift is increasingly becoming an operational necessity rather than an experimental exercise.

Generative AI can accelerate content development, while machine learning and predictive analytics can help marketers identify audience patterns, optimize media allocation and evaluate campaign performance.

The larger challenge is integrating those capabilities into existing marketing operations without sacrificing brand consistency or consumer insight.

Georgia-Pacific's approach combines AI adoption with a broader digital marketing strategy and increased emphasis on retail media.

That combination reflects the changing economics of CPG marketing. Retailers such as Walmart, Amazon and other commerce platforms increasingly operate advertising ecosystems that provide brands with access to shoppers closer to the point of purchase.

As retail media networks expand, CPG marketers need to connect brand-building activity with measurable commerce outcomes while still maintaining long-term brand equity.

From Consumer Insights to Measurable Brand Growth

Knebusch's organization has also been behind several campaigns that have received industry recognition.

Angel Soft's "Potty-tunity" campaign earned Gold and Silver Cannes Lions awards, while Quilted Northern's "Keep It Quilted" campaign received the Grand Prize in Media Excellence at the ANA In-House Agency Conference.

Brawny was also recognized by Fast Company as one of its Brands That Matter.

The awards are notable because they demonstrate a marketing model that combines creative development with consumer insight and data-driven decision-making.

That balance is becoming increasingly important for enterprise marketers.

Pure performance marketing can prioritize immediate conversions, while traditional brand advertising often focuses on longer-term awareness and consideration. Modern CPG organizations increasingly need both approaches working together.

The challenge is particularly pronounced for companies managing large portfolios. A brand such as Angel Soft or Quilted Northern may need to maintain distinctive positioning while operating across television, social media, ecommerce, retail media and increasingly AI-mediated discovery.

Building a Modern Marketing Organization

Knebusch joined Georgia-Pacific in 2008 and moved through leadership positions spanning brand management, shopper marketing and consumer experience before becoming senior vice president of CPG Marketing & Customer Experience in 2023.

Her progression mirrors a broader evolution in marketing leadership.

Today's senior marketers are increasingly expected to understand not only brand strategy and creative, but also customer data, media technology, analytics, ecommerce and emerging AI systems.

That requires organizational structures that can bring different disciplines together.

Georgia-Pacific's marketing organization brings marketing, media, analytics and consumer experience teams under a connected leadership structure. Such models can help reduce the separation between consumer research, campaign development and measurement.

For companies building enterprise MarTech stacks, that organizational alignment can be just as important as the underlying technology.

A sophisticated customer data platform or marketing analytics system provides limited value if insights cannot move efficiently between media, creative, commerce and customer experience teams.

Retail Media Raises the Stakes

Georgia-Pacific's emphasis on retail media is also significant.

Retail media has become one of the fastest-evolving areas of advertising technology because it gives consumer brands access to first-party shopper signals and advertising inventory within commerce environments.

The rise of Amazon Ads, Walmart Connect and other retail media platforms is changing how CPG companies plan and measure campaigns.

For marketers, the opportunity is to connect consumer understanding with purchase behavior. The risk is allowing short-term retail media optimization to overshadow broader brand objectives.

A modern CPG marketing organization therefore needs to balance media efficiency with creative differentiation, customer experience and long-term brand value.

Knebusch's recognition comes against that backdrop.

Why the Recognition Matters

Ad Age's recognition is ultimately an individual leadership award, but its broader significance lies in the marketing transformation taking place inside large consumer businesses.

AI, retail media, digital channels and analytics are reshaping how brands reach and understand consumers. The executives leading these functions increasingly have to operate across technology, creative strategy and business performance.

Georgia-Pacific's recent marketing work suggests that the company is pursuing that integrated model.

The next challenge will be scaling AI and data capabilities while preserving the consumer-first thinking that drives effective brand building.

For enterprise marketers, that may be the more important lesson from Knebusch's recognition: technology can accelerate marketing, but organizational alignment and a clear understanding of consumers remain the foundation for turning those tools into growth.

Market Landscape

The CPG marketing landscape is being reshaped by three overlapping forces: AI adoption, retail media expansion and increasingly fragmented consumer attention.

Large brands are moving beyond traditional media planning toward integrated systems combining first-party data, marketing analytics, ecommerce signals and automated campaign workflows.

Retail media networks are particularly important because they connect advertising with commerce data, while AI is increasingly being applied to creative production, audience analysis, media optimization and measurement.

The competitive challenge for CPG companies is to use these technologies without reducing marketing to short-term performance metrics.

Strategic Outlook

The next generation of CPG marketing organizations will likely operate at the intersection of brand strategy, AI, customer data, commerce and media.

Companies that successfully connect those disciplines can potentially move faster from consumer insight to creative execution and measurement.

Georgia-Pacific's approach under Knebusch points toward that model, with AI and analytics supporting a broader transformation rather than operating as standalone technology initiatives.

As AI becomes embedded throughout enterprise MarTech stacks, marketing leaders will increasingly be judged on their ability to combine technological efficiency with distinctive brand experiences and sustainable consumer relationships.

Top Insights

• Laura Knebusch's recognition highlights how CPG marketing leadership increasingly spans AI, retail media, analytics, digital strategy and consumer experience.
• Georgia-Pacific is expanding AI across creative, media optimization and analytics as enterprise brands seek greater marketing efficiency and stronger consumer engagement.
• Retail media is becoming strategically important for CPG marketers seeking to connect brand investment with shopper behavior and measurable commerce outcomes.
• Georgia-Pacific's award-winning campaigns demonstrate the continued importance of combining consumer insights, creative development and data-driven marketing decisions.
• Modern MarTech organizations increasingly require integrated teams that connect marketing, media, analytics and customer experience rather than operating them independently.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts

Propelis is expanding its integrated brand services model across Asia-Pacific as global and regional companies look for faster ways to manage creative production, packaging, content localization and market execution. Formed through the merger of SGK and SGS & Co, the group entered operations with roughly 10,000 employees, nearly $1 billion in annual sales and more than 2,000 clients, positioning APAC as an important proving ground for its connected go-to-market strategy.

For multinational brands, expanding across Asia-Pacific is rarely a matter of translating a campaign and changing a few product labels.

Packaging requirements vary by market. Languages change. Retail environments differ. E-commerce channels have their own specifications. Local consumer preferences can reshape creative execution, while regulatory requirements can introduce additional production and approval steps.

Propelis is betting that a more integrated operating model can reduce that complexity.

The global brand services group, created through the merger of SGK and SGS & Co, is increasing its focus on APAC as companies seek to accelerate product launches and maintain greater consistency across increasingly fragmented markets.

The transaction, first announced in January 2025 and completed in May 2025, created an entity with an initial enterprise value of approximately $900 million and projected annual run-rate cost synergies of more than $50 million over an expected 30-month integration period.

Propelis began operations with approximately 10,000 employees across more than 30 countries, nearly $1 billion in annual sales and more than 2,000 clients.

Those numbers make the merger significant beyond the brand-services industry. It reflects a broader consolidation of capabilities that traditionally have been distributed among creative agencies, packaging specialists, production companies, localization providers and technology platforms.

The company's APAC strategy puts that integrated model to a particularly demanding test.

APAC Turns Brand Execution Into an Operating Challenge

The region combines significant consumer growth potential with unusually complex market conditions.

Consumer spending across the SEA-6 economies—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam—is projected to grow by 8% annually to nearly $5 trillion by 2035, according to the figures cited by Propelis.

At the same time, local and regional manufacturers already represent more than half of FMCG market value across the region.

For global brands, this creates a dual challenge. They need to maintain recognizable global identities while adapting products and communications to local markets where regional competitors can have a deeper understanding of consumers.

That tension is increasingly becoming an operational problem rather than simply a creative one.

A single packaging change can require coordination between designers, regulatory teams, printers, retailers and ecommerce platforms. Scaling that process across several countries can introduce delays and increase the possibility of inconsistencies.

Propelis is attempting to address that problem by bringing several parts of the workflow under one organization.

Connecting Creative, Packaging and Content

The group combines capabilities across packaging graphics, brand creation, content production and workflow technology through businesses including SGX, Marks, Collide and 5Flow.

The strategic proposition is relatively straightforward: instead of handing different stages of brand execution to separate vendors, brands can connect them through a coordinated operating model.

That could be particularly valuable for enterprises managing hundreds or thousands of localized assets.

The shift mirrors developments elsewhere in enterprise MarTech. Marketing organizations are increasingly consolidating data, content, campaign execution and analytics to reduce handoffs between disconnected systems.

Propelis is applying a similar principle to physical and digital brand execution.

Its focus areas in APAC include creative adaptation, artwork management, packaging production, content workflows and transcreation. The company also plans to use AI selectively for tasks such as quality checks, approval tracking and content testing.

That qualification is important.

Rather than positioning AI as a replacement for creative and production teams, Propelis is describing it primarily as an operational tool for reducing friction in repetitive and highly structured processes.

For enterprise marketing teams, that is potentially a more practical application of generative and agentic AI.

The Localization Problem

Localization has traditionally been treated as a downstream step in global marketing.

A global campaign is developed first, then adapted for individual markets.

That model can work for relatively simple campaigns, but becomes increasingly difficult when brands need to manage multiple product variations, languages, regulations, retailers and digital channels simultaneously.

Propelis' APAC strategy suggests localization is moving closer to the center of the go-to-market process.

The objective is not simply to make global content understandable in another language. It is to preserve brand consistency while allowing local teams enough flexibility to respond to market conditions.

That requires workflow technology as much as creative expertise.

5Flow and WAVE are expected to support Propelis' broader efforts around practical AI-enabled brand execution, including workflows that can help manage content and production complexity.

The competitive landscape includes large marketing services networks, specialist packaging companies, production platforms and enterprise content management vendors. Propelis' differentiation will depend on whether its combined capabilities actually reduce the operational burden for global brand teams.

Local Relevance Still Requires Human Judgment

The company's expansion also highlights an important limitation of automation.

AI can accelerate content adaptation, quality assurance and workflow management, but local market relevance still requires human judgment.

A message that performs well in one country may not translate culturally or commercially to another. Packaging can involve regulatory requirements that cannot simply be inferred from a generic global template.

Propelis' recent work for Starbucks China illustrates this model. The launch of Starbucks' first Chinese New Year Blend received recognition from the FBIF Wow Food Awards, MUSE Design Awards and iSEE Global Awards.

The example demonstrates how global brand stewardship can coexist with local creative execution.

That balance is likely to remain central to APAC marketing.

A Broader Shift in Brand Operations

Propelis' expansion comes at a time when marketing organizations are under pressure to produce more content, more frequently and for more channels without proportionally increasing budgets or headcount.

The response has increasingly involved automation, AI and consolidation.

The opportunity for integrated brand-services providers is to combine those technologies with human expertise and physical production capabilities.

Propelis has also appointed Sean Silveira as Client Director of Marks, IMEA, strengthening its creative leadership as the company expands its regional operations.

For marketers, the real measure of the merger will not be its $900 million valuation or workforce size. It will be whether the integrated model allows brands to launch faster, reduce production errors and adapt global campaigns more effectively across diverse markets.

APAC provides a particularly demanding environment in which to prove that proposition.

If Propelis can successfully connect creative, packaging, localization, content and AI-enabled workflows, the model could become increasingly relevant as multinational brands attempt to balance global consistency with local speed.

Market Landscape

Global brand execution is becoming more complex as companies produce increasingly large volumes of localized packaging, creative assets and digital content.

APAC amplifies that complexity because brands must navigate different languages, regulations, consumer behaviors, retail structures and ecommerce environments across markets.

Large agency networks compete with specialist production companies, packaging firms, content platforms and marketing technology providers. The emerging opportunity lies in connecting these capabilities rather than managing them as isolated functions.

AI is adding another layer to the market, particularly for content quality control, workflow automation, localization and asset management. However, enterprises still require governance and human oversight for brand and regulatory decisions.

Strategic Outlook

Propelis' APAC expansion reflects a broader shift from agency-led campaign production toward connected brand operations.

The next generation of enterprise marketing infrastructure will likely combine creative expertise, workflow technology, first-party data and controlled AI capabilities.

For brands operating across multiple countries, the value proposition is speed without sacrificing consistency.

Propelis' challenge will be proving that its post-merger scale translates into simpler workflows and better commercial outcomes for clients. If it succeeds, APAC could become a major testing ground for a new model of global-to-local brand execution.

Top Insights

• Propelis is expanding its integrated brand services model across APAC as multinational companies seek faster, more consistent creative and packaging execution.
• The SGK and SGS & Co merger created a global organization with nearly $1 billion in annual sales and approximately 10,000 employees.
• APAC's fragmented markets make localization especially complex, requiring brands to balance global consistency with local creative, regulatory and consumer requirements.
• Propelis plans to apply AI selectively across quality checks, approval tracking and content testing rather than treating automation as a replacement for creative expertise.
• The company's connected model combines creative, packaging, content and workflow capabilities to reduce handoffs and accelerate enterprise go-to-market execution.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts

A new Boats Group study suggests that conventional lead-based marketing attribution may be missing a significant portion of the recreational marine industry's digital influence. After connecting more than 85,000 verified boat registrations with marketplace listings and lead activity, the company found that only 21% of buyers submitted a documented lead before purchasing—and just 15% bought the exact boat they originally inquired about.

For marketers, a lead is often treated as the moment when a buyer's intent becomes measurable.

In the recreational marine industry, that assumption may be too narrow.

New Buyer Journey Insights research from Boats Group indicates that consumers frequently change direction between their initial online research and the boat they ultimately purchase. The findings suggest that digital marketplaces influence purchase decisions well beyond the point at which a customer submits a lead, creating a measurement problem for manufacturers and dealers that rely heavily on conventional lead attribution.

Boats Group connected more than 85,000 verified boat registrations obtained from state agencies with listings and seller information across its platforms. The company then compared those transactions with lead activity to examine how consumers moved from online discovery and research to verified ownership.

The result was a picture of a buying journey that looks considerably less linear than traditional marketing funnels imply.

Only 21% of buyers in the study submitted a documented lead before purchasing. That means nearly four in five buyers did not generate a recorded lead through the systems examined before completing their purchase.

For digital marketers, the implication is important: the absence of a lead does not necessarily mean the absence of marketing influence.

Consumers can research anonymously, compare multiple listings, revisit different brands and prices, and use multiple channels before deciding to engage directly with a seller.

The Lead Is Not the Purchase

The study's second finding makes the attribution challenge even clearer.

Only 15% of buyers purchased the exact boat they had originally inquired about.

In other words, submitting a lead for one boat frequently represented the beginning of a shopping process rather than a commitment to that specific inventory item.

The most common purchase path identified by Boats Group involved a consumer moving from an inquiry about a used boat to the purchase of a new boat. That journey accounted for 34% of the study's identified purchase paths.

This matters because a marketing system focused exclusively on lead-to-sale conversion could interpret the original used-boat inquiry as unsuccessful.

The eventual new-boat purchase tells a different story.

The marketplace may have helped the buyer understand pricing, compare specifications, assess ownership costs or refine preferences before that consumer moved toward a new model. Conventional attribution can struggle to capture that influence when the final transaction occurs through a different listing, seller or product category.

That dynamic is not unique to boats.

Across ecommerce and high-consideration purchases, consumers increasingly research products across multiple sessions and channels before converting. The longer and more expensive the buying cycle, the more difficult it becomes to assign revenue to a single interaction.

Why Marketplace Behavior Matters

Boats Group's findings are particularly relevant because marketplaces can function as both discovery environments and research platforms.

A consumer may arrive looking for a specific model, then compare similar boats, investigate used inventory and ultimately move into a different price range. Each interaction can shape the eventual purchase even if only one final transaction appears in sales records.

For dealers and manufacturers, that makes marketplace visibility more than an inventory-distribution strategy.

It becomes part of the customer intelligence layer.

The challenge is determining how those behavioral signals should influence marketing decisions.

If a prospective buyer initially researches used inventory, for example, a manufacturer should not necessarily treat that activity as evidence that the consumer has no interest in a new boat. The research could represent price discovery or an attempt to understand the market before considering a larger purchase.

That distinction can materially affect audience segmentation, retargeting, media allocation and campaign measurement.

From Lead Generation to Purchase Intent

The research points toward a broader shift from lead-centric measurement to purchase-intent analysis.

Traditional digital marketing reporting often emphasizes impressions, clicks, leads and conversions. Those metrics remain useful, but they can become incomplete when customers move between products and stages of the buying journey.

Boats Group's approach attempts to connect behavioral data with verified ownership records.

That creates the possibility of measuring whether digital research activity correlates with eventual purchases even when the original lead did not convert directly.

For the recreational marine industry, this could help manufacturers and dealers understand which marketplace interactions contribute to sales, which products act as entry points into a buying journey and how consumers move between new and used inventory.

It also creates opportunities for more sophisticated marketing analytics.

Instead of asking only, "Did this lead buy this boat?" marketers can begin asking questions such as: "Did this buyer interact with our marketplace before purchasing?" or "What sequence of products and listings preceded the final transaction?"

Those questions are closer to how consumers actually shop.

AI Could Make the Data More Actionable

Boats Group says the findings will inform future investment in AI, data and analytics.

That direction is significant because the value of large behavioral datasets increasingly depends on the ability to turn them into usable insights.

AI and predictive analytics could potentially help identify patterns among buyers who change product categories, distinguish early research from high purchase intent, and identify the interactions most strongly associated with eventual ownership.

The challenge will be ensuring that those models are based on sufficiently reliable transaction data and that marketers understand the difference between correlation and causation.

Still, verified registration data provides an important foundation for improving measurement.

For dealers and manufacturers, the commercial lesson is straightforward: marketing should not disappear from the analysis simply because the customer changes their mind.

A buyer who begins with a used boat, explores several alternatives and eventually purchases a new model has not necessarily followed a failed marketing journey. They may have followed exactly the journey the marketplace was designed to facilitate.

As digital research becomes more influential in high-consideration purchases, the companies that understand the entire path from discovery to ownership will have an advantage over those optimizing only for the first measurable lead.

Boats Group's research provides an example of what that broader measurement model could look like: connect customer behavior to verified outcomes, analyze the path between them and use those insights to improve marketing decisions.

The lead may be measurable.

The journey is where the real story happens.

Market Landscape

Digital attribution is increasingly moving beyond last-click and lead-based measurement as marketers attempt to understand fragmented customer journeys.

This is especially relevant in high-consideration categories such as automotive, real estate, financial services and recreational marine, where consumers can spend weeks or months researching before making a purchase.

Marketplaces occupy a particularly important position because they combine discovery, comparison and product evaluation. That makes marketplace behavioral data potentially valuable for customer intelligence, predictive analytics and media optimization.

The Boats Group research illustrates the limitations of treating a lead as the primary proxy for purchase intent. When customers frequently change products before buying, marketers need measurement frameworks that connect multiple interactions to the eventual transaction.

Strategic Outlook

The next phase of marketing attribution is likely to focus less on identifying a single conversion event and more on reconstructing the sequence of interactions that precedes a purchase.

Verified transaction data can provide the outcome layer, while marketplace behavior, CRM activity and advertising exposure can help explain the journey leading to it.

For marine manufacturers and dealers, that could mean shifting budget decisions toward channels that influence consideration even when they do not immediately produce a lead.

As AI and predictive analytics mature, the industry could move toward models that identify changing purchase intent earlier and personalize marketing around the buyer's evolving needs.

Top Insights

• Boats Group found only 21% of buyers submitted a documented lead, suggesting conventional lead reporting significantly understates digital influence throughout the purchase journey.
• Just 15% purchased the exact boat they initially researched, demonstrating why product-level attribution can misrepresent marketing performance in complex buying journeys.
• The largest identified path moved from used-boat inquiry to new-boat purchase, showing how marketplaces can influence higher-value purchases beyond initial customer intent.
• Verified registration data gives manufacturers and dealers a stronger foundation for connecting anonymous research behavior with eventual purchases and improving marketing attribution.
• AI and analytics could help marine marketers identify changing purchase intent, understand cross-product journeys and optimize campaigns around the complete buying process.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts

Levitate has been named to the 2026 Inc. 5000 list of America's fastest-growing private companies for the fourth consecutive year, ranking No. 1,498 nationally. The recognition comes as the relationship-first marketing platform expands its AI capabilities, customer success operations and industry reach while serving nearly 9,000 businesses across the U.S. and Canada.

For small businesses, digital marketing has created an unusual contradiction: there are more tools for reaching customers than ever, yet maintaining the personal relationships that drive repeat business can become harder as communication becomes increasingly automated.

Levitate is positioning its marketing platform around that problem.

The company, which combines marketing software with a dedicated customer-facing team, has been named to the 2026 Inc. 5000 list for the fourth consecutive year. Levitate ranked No. 1,498 nationally, No. 127 among software companies, No. 39 in North Carolina and No. 9 in the Triangle region.

The Inc. 5000 recognition measures business growth rather than the performance of a particular technology, but repeated appearances can provide a useful indicator of sustained expansion. For Levitate, the latest ranking arrives alongside increased investment in artificial intelligence, customer success and geographic expansion.

The company announced a $16 million funding round earlier in 2026, bringing its total capital raised to $71 million. Levitate says the funding is supporting its AI roadmap as well as expansion of its sales and customer success teams in the United States and Canada.

That investment reflects a broader shift in marketing software.

AI has made it increasingly easy to generate content, personalize messages and automate campaign execution. The challenge for relationship-driven businesses is ensuring that automation does not strip away the context and authenticity that make customer communication effective in the first place.

Levitate's approach is to combine software automation with human support rather than treating AI as a replacement for relationship management.

The Rise of Relationship-Centric Marketing

Traditional marketing automation platforms are generally designed around scale. They help companies segment audiences, schedule campaigns, automate emails and track engagement across large customer populations.

That model works particularly well for high-volume businesses. It can be less straightforward for companies where a relatively small number of customer relationships can have a significant impact on revenue.

Professional services firms, financial businesses, healthcare organizations and other relationship-driven companies often depend on referrals, repeat business and long-term customer relationships.

For these organizations, the marketing challenge is not necessarily generating thousands of leads. It can be maintaining relevant, consistent communication with the customers and prospects who matter most.

Levitate's platform is built around that use case.

The company combines software with a dedicated team intended to help businesses execute personalized outreach. Its growing use of AI adds another layer by making customized communication more scalable.

The strategic question for the company is whether AI can improve efficiency without turning relationship marketing into another stream of generic automated messages.

That distinction is increasingly important as customers become exposed to AI-generated content across email, social media and digital advertising.

AI Becomes Part of the Relationship Layer

Levitate says its AI roadmap is designed to make personalized outreach more effective and accessible for small businesses.

This positions AI less as an autonomous marketing replacement and more as an infrastructure layer supporting human-led engagement.

That approach is consistent with a wider evolution in MarTech. AI is increasingly being embedded into CRM, marketing automation, customer data and engagement platforms to help marketers identify opportunities, generate content and prioritize interactions.

Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft and Adobe are all pursuing variations of this broader strategy, incorporating AI into existing customer and marketing workflows.

For smaller businesses, however, technology sophistication can create another challenge: managing the technology itself.

A platform that combines software and dedicated support can potentially reduce that burden by giving businesses access to automation without requiring them to build an extensive internal MarTech operation.

That is particularly relevant to small and midsize companies, where marketing teams may consist of only a few people—or where marketing responsibilities are distributed among owners, sales teams and customer service employees.

Healthcare Expansion Adds a New Dimension

Levitate's growth has also extended into new vertical markets.

The company achieved HIPAA-readiness in late 2025, allowing it to expand its platform and services into healthcare. That move is significant because healthcare marketing requires organizations to balance personalization and engagement with strict requirements around sensitive information.

Entering healthcare therefore creates additional demands around data handling, governance and operational processes.

It also expands the addressable market for relationship-oriented marketing technology. Healthcare providers frequently rely on trust, repeat interactions and long-term relationships, making personalized communication an important component of patient engagement.

The company's expansion into Canada adds another dimension to its growth strategy. Levitate has expanded its teams across the U.S. and Canada, including the growth of its Raleigh headquarters and the opening of a Canadian hub.

Today, Levitate says it serves nearly 9,000 businesses across relationship-driven industries.

Competing in a Crowded MarTech Market

Levitate operates in a market populated by CRM platforms, email marketing systems, marketing automation providers and increasingly AI-native customer engagement tools.

Its differentiation is less about providing another mechanism for sending automated messages and more about combining technology with human assistance around relationship-based marketing.

That positioning could be attractive to small businesses that want the benefits of marketing automation but lack the resources to operate complex enterprise platforms.

The challenge is scale.

As Levitate expands, maintaining the quality of personalized outreach across thousands of businesses will require sophisticated customer data, automation and AI systems. At the same time, the company must ensure that automation remains aligned with each customer's brand, audience and communication preferences.

Its $16 million financing provides additional resources to pursue that balance.

The company's fourth consecutive Inc. 5000 appearance therefore represents more than another growth milestone. It highlights a broader market question: whether AI-powered marketing can become more personal rather than simply more automated.

For relationship-driven businesses, that distinction could determine which marketing platforms remain useful as AI reshapes the customer engagement landscape.

Market Landscape

The marketing technology market is shifting from campaign automation toward intelligent customer engagement.

Enterprise platforms from Salesforce, Adobe and Microsoft increasingly use AI to personalize experiences, automate workflows and analyze customer behavior. Smaller businesses, however, often need simpler systems that combine automation with implementation and ongoing support.

Levitate is targeting that gap by pairing marketing software with a dedicated team. Its relationship-first positioning also differentiates it from platforms focused primarily on high-volume campaign execution.

The company's healthcare expansion demonstrates another trend: verticalized MarTech solutions increasingly need to address industry-specific data, compliance and workflow requirements.

Strategic Outlook

Levitate's next phase will depend on whether it can scale AI-powered personalization while preserving the human context at the center of its product strategy.

The broader opportunity is substantial. Small businesses increasingly need sophisticated customer engagement capabilities but often lack the staff and technical resources required to operate complex enterprise MarTech stacks.

If AI can handle repetitive marketing work while customer-facing teams focus on higher-value relationships, platforms like Levitate could become an important middle ground between manual marketing and fully automated engagement.

Top Insights

• Levitate's fourth consecutive Inc. 5000 appearance highlights sustained growth as small businesses seek technology that combines AI automation with personalized customer relationships.
• The company's $16 million funding round is supporting AI development, customer success and geographic expansion across the United States and Canada.
• Levitate's relationship-first model differentiates it from traditional marketing automation platforms by combining software capabilities with dedicated human support.
• HIPAA-readiness expands Levitate into healthcare, where personalized engagement must operate alongside stronger requirements for privacy, data governance and compliance.
• Serving nearly 9,000 businesses positions Levitate to compete for growing demand among small companies seeking accessible, AI-enabled marketing technology.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts

Decile has launched an ecommerce analytics and activation MCP that brings customer intelligence and audience segmentation directly into AI assistants such as Claude and ChatGPT. The new integration allows marketers to query enriched first-party customer data, analyze ecommerce performance and create activation-ready audiences through natural-language conversations instead of switching between analytics dashboards and marketing platforms.

Ecommerce marketers have spent years moving between analytics dashboards, customer data platforms, advertising tools and spreadsheets to answer relatively simple questions about who their best customers are and how to reach them.

Decile is betting that AI assistants can become the interface connecting those tasks.

The customer intelligence company has launched the Decile MCP, an integration based on the Model Context Protocol that allows marketers to access ecommerce analytics, customer insights and audience creation capabilities directly through AI clients including Claude and ChatGPT.

The significance is less about adding another chatbot interface to an analytics platform and more about changing where marketing analysis happens.

Instead of opening a dashboard, finding a report, exporting customer data and then building an audience in another system, marketers can ask questions in natural language and move from analysis to activation within the same workflow.

For example, a marketer could ask which customer personas generate the most value for a brand and then request a segment based on attributes such as gender, homeownership and age. Decile says the resulting audience can then be created and saved for activation through connected advertising and marketing platforms.

That creates a tighter relationship between customer intelligence and marketing execution.

From Dashboards to Agentic Workflows

Business intelligence has traditionally been organized around dashboards. Analysts define metrics, marketers review reports and teams make decisions based on those findings.

Generative AI is beginning to change that interaction model.

Large language models can translate natural-language questions into analytical tasks, but generic AI systems typically lack access to a company's proprietary customer context. Asking ChatGPT which customers are most valuable to a particular ecommerce brand, for example, is fundamentally different from asking it to analyze that brand's actual purchase and customer data.

Decile's MCP is designed to bridge that gap.

The platform grounds responses in enriched first-party customer information, including purchase history, lifetime value, demographics and other ecommerce-specific signals, according to the company.

The architecture reflects an emerging direction in enterprise AI: connecting general-purpose AI interfaces to specialized business systems rather than expecting a language model to perform the entire task independently.

MCP, or Model Context Protocol, provides a standardized way for AI applications to interact with external tools and data sources. Its growing adoption is potentially important for marketing technology because it could allow marketers to interact with multiple specialized systems through a common AI interface.

That could eventually make the AI assistant less of a content-generation tool and more of an operating layer for marketing workflows.

Why First-Party Data Matters

The quality of AI-generated marketing recommendations depends heavily on the context available to the system.

A general-purpose AI model can explain customer segmentation concepts or recommend common ecommerce strategies. It cannot automatically know which customers have the highest lifetime value for a specific retailer without access to that retailer's data.

Decile's approach addresses that limitation by connecting AI interactions to enriched first-party customer data.

That distinction becomes particularly important as brands invest more heavily in first-party data strategies. Changes to privacy regulation, browser tracking and digital advertising have increased the strategic value of customer data that companies collect directly through purchases, accounts, loyalty programs and other interactions.

A CDP or customer intelligence platform can provide the data foundation, while an AI interface can potentially make that information easier for non-technical teams to use.

For marketers, the value proposition is therefore not simply faster analysis. It is reducing the distance between a business question and an executable marketing action.

The Convergence of Analytics and Activation

Decile's launch sits at the intersection of several major MarTech trends: customer intelligence, AI agents, first-party data and audience activation.

Historically, analytics and activation have often been separate stages.

A marketing analyst might identify a high-value customer segment in an analytics platform. A data team could then prepare the audience. A marketer might finally activate it through an advertising platform.

Agentic workflows have the potential to compress those steps.

The Decile MCP allows users to create and save audiences during the same conversational interaction in which they analyze customer data. That creates what could become a more common pattern in AI-powered marketing: ask, analyze, decide and activate.

The competitive implications are significant.

Platforms from Salesforce, Adobe and other enterprise MarTech providers already combine customer data, analytics, personalization and activation. At the same time, cloud data platforms and CDP vendors are increasingly making customer intelligence available to AI applications.

Specialized providers such as Decile therefore need to demonstrate that their ecommerce-specific context produces more useful outcomes than generic AI layered over existing business data.

Enterprise Governance Will Matter

The convenience of conversational marketing analytics also creates new requirements around security and governance.

When AI assistants gain access to customer information and activation systems, organizations need clear controls around what data can be accessed, which users can create audiences and which actions an AI agent can execute.

That becomes particularly important when a conversational system moves from answering questions to taking action.

Creating a customer segment may seem relatively low risk, but activating that segment in an advertising platform can have direct financial and reputational consequences. Enterprise deployments will therefore need permissions, audit trails and safeguards around automated actions.

Decile's emphasis on brand-specific data also highlights another important consideration: AI systems need trusted context to produce reliable marketing intelligence.

The broader market is moving toward this model.

Salesforce, Adobe, Microsoft and other enterprise technology providers are developing AI agents that can interact with business data and applications. MCP and similar interoperability standards could accelerate that shift by making it easier for AI systems to access specialized tools.

For ecommerce marketing teams, the eventual outcome could be a move away from tool-by-tool navigation toward conversational orchestration.

Instead of asking which dashboard contains the answer, marketers may increasingly ask an AI workspace to find the relevant data, explain what it means and execute the next step.

Decile's MCP is an early example of that transition, bringing customer analytics and audience activation into the same interface.

The bigger test will be whether these workflows can deliver reliable insights while maintaining the data governance, accuracy and control required by enterprise marketing organizations.

Market Landscape

Marketing technology is moving toward a more interconnected architecture in which AI interfaces sit above specialized data and activation systems.

Customer Data Platforms, ecommerce analytics platforms and advertising technologies already provide the underlying capabilities. MCP-style integrations could make those systems accessible through natural-language AI interfaces.

The shift creates competition between specialist platforms and broader ecosystems from companies such as Salesforce and Adobe. Large vendors have the advantage of integrated data and application portfolios, while specialists can differentiate through deeper domain-specific models and workflows.

For ecommerce brands, the most useful architecture may ultimately combine both: governed first-party data, specialized customer intelligence and an AI layer capable of coordinating actions across the MarTech stack.

Strategic Outlook

The Decile MCP points toward a future in which marketing analytics becomes conversational and activation becomes increasingly agentic.

The important change is not simply that marketers can ask questions in natural language. It is that the same AI workflow can potentially move from understanding customer behavior to producing an audience that is ready for activation.

As MCP adoption expands, marketers could gain a common interface for interacting with multiple specialized platforms. That could reduce operational friction, but it will also make permissions, data governance and human oversight increasingly important.

The winners in this emerging market will likely be platforms that can combine high-quality first-party data with reliable AI reasoning and controlled execution.

Top Insights

• Decile's MCP brings ecommerce analytics and audience activation into Claude and ChatGPT, shortening the path from customer insight to executable marketing action.
• The platform grounds AI responses in enriched first-party customer data, addressing a key limitation of generic AI systems that lack brand-specific customer context.
• Natural-language audience creation could reduce dependence on dashboards and manual segmentation workflows, giving marketers faster access to activation-ready customer groups.
• MCP integrations signal a broader shift toward AI interfaces that orchestrate specialized MarTech platforms instead of forcing marketers to work inside isolated applications.
• Enterprise adoption will depend on governance, permissions and auditability as conversational AI moves from analyzing customer data toward executing marketing actions.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts

TrueDialog has been named to the 2026 Inc. 5000 list of America's fastest-growing private companies for the second consecutive year, highlighting continued growth for the enterprise messaging provider as businesses increasingly connect SMS, MMS and RCS communications with CRM, MarTech and AI systems.

Business texting is moving beyond basic SMS campaigns.

As enterprises look to connect customer communications with CRM platforms, marketing automation and AI-driven workflows, messaging infrastructure is becoming part of the broader customer data and engagement stack. TrueDialog's second consecutive appearance on the Inc. 5000 comes as the company expands its enterprise messaging platform around that shift.

TrueDialog, which provides SMS, MMS and RCS business texting technology, has been named to the 2026 Inc. 5000 list of America's fastest-growing private companies. The recognition follows the company's debut on the 2025 list.

While the Inc. 5000 ranking itself is a measure of company growth rather than a technology benchmark, repeat recognition provides a useful signal of momentum as enterprise messaging becomes increasingly integrated with other marketing and customer engagement systems.

TrueDialog's recent product releases illustrate that strategy.

In July 2026, the company launched TrueConnect, a capability designed to make inbound and outbound text interactions visible within CRM and MarTech environments, including Salesforce, HubSpot and Microsoft Dynamics.

That integration addresses a persistent problem in business messaging: conversations can become disconnected from the customer records and workflows used by sales, marketing and service teams.

A customer might respond to a promotional message, request information through SMS or initiate a service conversation, yet the interaction can remain isolated within a messaging platform. Bringing those exchanges into CRM systems gives customer-facing teams greater context and potentially allows messaging activity to influence lead scoring, segmentation, sales follow-up and customer journeys.

The shift is consistent with a broader movement toward unified customer engagement.

Rather than treating messaging as a standalone channel, enterprises increasingly want SMS, email, web interactions, social channels and other touchpoints to contribute to a shared customer profile.

That makes messaging integration particularly relevant to modern MarTech stacks. Salesforce, HubSpot and Microsoft Dynamics are already central systems for many sales and marketing organizations, and messaging platforms that can operate within those environments can reduce the need for employees to switch between disconnected tools.

TrueDialog is also applying AI to messaging compliance through TrueOptOut.

The technology uses machine learning and large language models to identify when a customer intends to unsubscribe, regardless of how that request is phrased.

That is a practical application of AI in communications. Traditional opt-out mechanisms often depend on standardized commands or recognizable keywords. Natural-language messaging introduces more variation: customers may express an unsubscribe request using informal language, indirect wording or a sentence that does not match a predefined pattern.

An AI-based system can potentially interpret the intent behind those messages rather than relying exclusively on exact keyword matching.

For enterprises sending messages at scale, that distinction has implications beyond convenience. Opt-out handling is closely connected to messaging compliance and customer trust. A system that misses an unsubscribe request can create regulatory and reputational risk, while one that incorrectly interprets ordinary customer language as an opt-out could interrupt legitimate communications.

The challenge for AI-powered compliance systems is therefore balancing intent recognition with accuracy and appropriate safeguards.

TrueDialog's product direction also reflects a larger evolution in conversational marketing.

Business messaging was once primarily associated with promotional alerts, appointment reminders and transactional notifications. It is increasingly being used as a two-way interaction channel where customers can ask questions, respond to offers, communicate with sales teams and receive service assistance.

That development brings messaging closer to conversational AI and customer engagement platforms.

The company's recent recognition across several technology and marketing programs reinforces its positioning in that market. TrueDialog says it has received awards including the MarTech Breakthrough Overall Conversational Marketing Solution of the Year, a SAMMY Sales and Marketing Award for AI-Powered Marketing & Sales Growth Catalyst, and the Unified Communications Excellence Award from Internet Telephony.

It was also named a finalist for Digiday's Best Mobile Marketing Platform and the EdTech Cool Tools Awards' Communications category.

Those awards are not direct evidence of market share or product performance, but they indicate that business messaging is increasingly being evaluated as part of a wider marketing and communications technology ecosystem.

The competitive landscape is also changing.

Enterprise messaging vendors compete not only with other SMS and RCS providers but increasingly with CRM platforms, customer engagement systems, CPaaS providers and conversational AI companies. The ability to integrate messaging into existing business workflows can therefore become as important as the underlying delivery infrastructure.

RCS is particularly relevant to that evolution. While SMS remains widely used, RCS offers richer messaging capabilities that can support more interactive customer experiences. Its role in enterprise communications will depend on ecosystem adoption, device and carrier support and the ability of businesses to integrate richer messaging into existing customer journeys.

For marketing teams, the broader implication is straightforward: messaging is becoming less of an isolated campaign channel and more of an operational data source.

A text response can indicate purchase intent. A customer question can trigger a service workflow. An opt-out request can update communication preferences. A sales response can become part of the customer's CRM record.

Connecting those signals can help organizations build more responsive customer journeys.

TrueDialog's second consecutive Inc. 5000 appearance arrives against that backdrop. The company's growth story is tied not simply to sending more messages, but to making business texting more integrated, observable and intelligent.

The next test will be whether enterprises can translate that infrastructure into measurable improvements in engagement, conversion, service efficiency and customer retention.

As messaging becomes embedded deeper into the MarTech stack, vendors that can connect communication, customer data and AI without adding operational complexity are likely to have an increasingly important role in enterprise engagement strategies.

Market Landscape

Enterprise messaging is converging with CRM, customer data, marketing automation and conversational AI.

Traditional SMS providers focused primarily on message delivery, while modern platforms increasingly need to provide integration, analytics, compliance capabilities and two-way communication. RCS is adding another dimension by enabling richer mobile experiences.

The competitive field includes CPaaS providers, messaging specialists and broader customer engagement platforms. Integration with systems such as Salesforce, HubSpot and Microsoft Dynamics can become a meaningful differentiator because enterprise buyers increasingly want messaging activity connected directly to existing workflows.

AI is also becoming relevant to messaging operations, particularly for intent recognition, personalization, routing and compliance.

Strategic Outlook

The future of business texting is likely to be less about sending messages and more about turning conversations into actionable customer intelligence.

As AI becomes more capable of interpreting natural-language responses, messaging platforms can potentially automate more of the journey between customer intent and business action.

For enterprise marketers, the opportunity is to treat SMS, MMS and RCS interactions as part of the broader customer data layer rather than simply another outbound channel.

TrueDialog's TrueConnect and TrueOptOut illustrate that transition, connecting messaging visibility with CRM workflows and applying AI to a compliance-sensitive customer interaction.

Top Insights

• TrueDialog's second Inc. 5000 appearance highlights continued growth as enterprise messaging becomes increasingly integrated with CRM and marketing technology ecosystems.
• TrueConnect connects inbound and outbound texting with Salesforce, HubSpot and Microsoft Dynamics, reducing separation between messaging conversations and customer records.
• TrueOptOut applies machine learning and large language models to recognize unsubscribe intent, addressing the complexity of natural-language customer requests.
• SMS, MMS and RCS are evolving from broadcast channels into two-way customer engagement infrastructure that can support sales, service and marketing workflows.
• Enterprise messaging vendors increasingly compete on integrations, AI, compliance and workflow connectivity rather than message delivery capabilities alone.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts

At the 2026 International Builders' Show (IBS) and Kitchen & Bath Industry Show (KBIS) in Orlando, product innovation was abundant. But according to Merlot Marketing, the brands that generated the strongest attention had something beyond impressive products: a clear story connecting design, performance and customer value. The agency's observations point to a broader shift in home and building marketing, where immersive experiences, AI, personalization and post-event content are becoming as important as what happens on the show floor.

Trade shows have long been places where manufacturers compete for attention with larger booths, product launches and elaborate demonstrations. At IBS and KBIS 2026, however, the competition appears to have shifted toward something harder to manufacture: a clear reason for customers, dealers and media to care.

Merlot Marketing, a marketing agency specializing in the home and building sectors, argues that the strongest brands at this year's Design & Construction Week in Orlando were those that connected product innovation with straightforward positioning and compelling storytelling.

The agency's assessment comes as Merlot celebrates its 25th anniversary and launches the latest edition of its Haute @ Home video series, extending product and design stories beyond the trade-show environment.

The observation is particularly relevant as IBS and KBIS increasingly overlap in the technologies and priorities shaping the built environment.

IBS traditionally focuses on construction, building systems, materials and performance, while KBIS centers on kitchens, bathrooms, fixtures and residential living. This year, the distinction between performance and design appeared increasingly blurred.

Building products now need to satisfy stricter codes, energy expectations, durability requirements and labor constraints while also meeting consumer demand for attractive, personalized spaces.

That convergence was visible in the way companies approached their physical exhibits.

From Product Displays to Immersive Experiences

One of the clearest trends identified by Merlot was the move away from conventional product displays.

Instead of arranging individual products in rows, brands created environments designed to demonstrate how those products work in real settings.

American Outdoor Grill, for example, built complete outdoor entertaining environments rather than presenting grills as isolated products. Nichiha USA used a large Miraia Architectural Wall Panel installation to create a visual centerpiece.

The strategy reflects a broader evolution in B2B marketing. Products increasingly compete not only on specifications but also on the ability to communicate an outcome quickly.

For contractors, architects and designers, a complete installation can demonstrate application and performance more effectively than a specification sheet. For consumers, immersive displays make it easier to visualize how a product could fit into a future project.

Performance Moves Into the Spotlight

Performance was another defining theme.

Moisture management, fire resistance, energy efficiency and system-level construction considerations have moved closer to the center of product conversations as building requirements become more demanding.

Arclin's Firepoint panel, for instance, is engineered to slow fire while supporting taller wall designs using familiar framing practices. The product illustrates how technical performance can become a central component of product positioning rather than a secondary specification.

That matters commercially because buyers increasingly need to justify product decisions based on long-term value, risk reduction and performance—not aesthetics alone.

For manufacturers, this creates a messaging challenge. Technical differentiation has little impact if customers cannot quickly understand why a particular specification matters to their project.

AI Becomes Less Visible—and More Useful

Artificial intelligence was also present across the show floor, but Merlot's assessment suggests that AI has entered a more practical phase.

Rather than appearing primarily as a novelty, AI is increasingly embedded inside design, project management and visualization tools.

Westlake Royal Building Products, for example, introduced Design Canvas, an AI-powered visualization platform intended to help homeowners, designers and contractors preview remodeling and construction concepts before work begins.

That type of application demonstrates where AI may have the greatest near-term value in the building industry: reducing uncertainty and helping customers make decisions earlier.

The development also reflects a broader MarTech and enterprise technology trend. AI is becoming less about standalone chatbot experiences and more about embedding intelligence directly into workflows.

Personalization Becomes an Expectation

Customization also emerged as an important theme, with configurable systems, finishes and context-aware products increasingly positioned as standard expectations rather than premium extras.

Empava's wellness-focused fixtures illustrate that shift. The company presented products designed to bring spa-like experiences into everyday residential environments.

The underlying marketing lesson extends beyond home design. Personalization works best when it solves a recognizable customer need rather than functioning simply as a technology feature.

For manufacturers, that means connecting customization capabilities with specific lifestyles, use cases and customer outcomes.

The Trade Show Doesn't End When the Booth Closes

Perhaps the most important lesson from IBS and KBIS is that the event itself represents only one part of the marketing cycle.

Merlot notes that the weeks following the shows can be particularly important as editors publish trend reports, product roundups and industry coverage. Brands also have opportunities to continue conversations with dealers, designers, media and prospective customers after attendees return home.

This turns a trade show into a content and demand-generation engine rather than a three- or four-day exhibition.

The approach also aligns with modern B2B marketing strategies, where a physical event can generate video content, editorial coverage, social media assets, sales conversations and search visibility long after the event ends.

Several products highlighted by Merlot received industry recognition during the shows. Nichiha's Miraia in Royal Blue and Arclin Firepoint's 10-foot panel each received a 2026 BIMsmith Best Award at IBS, while Westlake Royal Building Products' TruExterior Lap Siding was named a Best of IBS finalist.

At KBIS, Empava received multiple Best of KBIS 2026 awards, including another Wellness Trailblazer recognition for its indoor/outdoor plunge tubs.

Those awards provide another layer of third-party validation, but the broader lesson is less about individual accolades and more about positioning.

A sophisticated trade-show strategy requires consistency before, during and after the event. Pre-show outreach creates awareness. The booth experience demonstrates the product. Media engagement generates third-party visibility. Post-show content keeps the conversation active.

For home and building brands, that integrated model could become increasingly important as trade-show competition intensifies.

The brands that stand out may not necessarily be those with the largest displays or the most advanced technology. They are the ones that can explain what they offer, why it matters and who benefits in a way customers can understand quickly.

That is ultimately the distinction between attention and momentum.

Market Landscape

The home and building products market is undergoing a convergence of design, construction performance, digital visualization and AI.

Manufacturers are responding to tighter building requirements, labor shortages, changing homeowner priorities and greater demand for energy efficiency and resilience. At the same time, digital tools are changing how products are researched, specified and visualized before installation.

For B2B brands, trade shows therefore serve multiple purposes: product demonstration, media relations, dealer engagement, content creation and lead generation.

The competitive advantage is shifting toward brands that can connect these functions rather than treating the trade show as an isolated marketing event.

Strategic Outlook

The next evolution of trade-show marketing will likely be less about building the biggest booth and more about building the strongest content ecosystem around the event.

AI visualization, interactive product experiences and personalization can attract attention, but clear positioning remains essential. The strongest brands will connect product performance to real customer problems and continue communicating that value after the event concludes.

As IBS and KBIS increasingly reflect the same convergence of technology, performance and design, manufacturers have an opportunity to turn event participation into a longer-term demand-generation strategy.

Top Insights

• IBS and KBIS 2026 showed that immersive product experiences increasingly outperform static displays by helping buyers visualize applications, outcomes and real-world customer benefits.
• Building-product brands are emphasizing fire resistance, durability, energy efficiency and system performance as buyers place greater importance on long-term value.
• AI is moving from trade-show novelty into practical design and visualization workflows, helping homeowners, contractors and designers evaluate projects before construction begins.
• Personalization is becoming an expected product experience, forcing manufacturers to connect configurable features with specific customer lifestyles and use cases.
• Trade shows increasingly function as content engines, with post-event media coverage, dealer engagement and digital storytelling extending value well beyond the exhibition floor.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts