A new year, the same belief...

Local matters.

As 2026 begins, it's tempting to talk about nothing but disruption, transformation and the pace of change. Yet for all the noise, one thing has stayed remarkably consistent since We Are Acuity first opened its doors in 1998, the brands that win are the ones that feel genuinely local, even when they operate nationally or globally.

For over 25 years we've helped ambitious brands turn national and global campaigns into powerful local activity. We understand the reality for marketing leaders working with retailers, branches, dealers, franchisees and other local partners. Budgets are under pressure, expectations from the board are high, and your network still needs support, guidance and usable tools.

That is the backdrop to our 2026 manifesto.

AI is changing marketing, but not our purpose.

There is no getting away from it. AI is going to shape marketing more in 2026 than it did in 2025. For multi-location brands, AI is already starting to help with:

Faster versioning and adapts of central campaigns for local markets

Smarter targeting and optimisation in local digital channels

First-draft copy and concepts that give teams something to react to instead of a blank page

Pattern spotting in performance data that highlights where local partners need help or where something is working brilliantly

Used responsibly, this is good news. It can free central teams from repetitive, low-value tasks and give local partners better tools and guidance.

But AI is not a magic button that halves marketing and creative costs overnight. It cannot sit down with a dealer principal or local charity partner and understand the nuance of their community. It cannot feel the difference between a head office message and the reality on the high street. It cannot hold a brand’s heritage, tone of voice and values in its head the way an experienced creative team can.

Most importantly, AI cannot replace the very human work of building trust between:

Head office and local partners

Brands and the communities they serve

Marketers and the colleagues they support

So, in 2026 we're not asking, “How do we replace people with AI?” We're asking, “How do we use AI to give people more time and space to do the work only they can do?”

Our 2026 manifesto: local at heart, enhanced by AI.

Our mission remains the same, to unlock local audiences for ambitious brands with strategic and creative marketing that is local at heart.

What changes in 2026 is how we deliver on it.

Here is what we are committing to this year.

1. Keep human insight at the core.

Every brief we take on in 2026 will start with people, not with tools.

That means:

Talking to central teams about their pressures, expectations and measures of success

Understanding the reality on the ground for retailers, dealers, franchisees and branches

Getting under the skin of customers, their communities and what “local” really means in that context

AI can help us process information, but it cannot replace the conversations, curiosity and empathy that sit at the heart of effective local marketing.

2. Use AI to remove friction, not remove humans.

We will continue to explore and deploy AI in very practical ways, particularly in distributed and local marketing, where there is often a lot of manual effort.

Examples include:

Accelerating the creation of on-brand local variants of national campaigns

Generating intelligent starting points for local copy that our team and our clients can refine

Supporting our services with smarter automation and reporting, so that everyone has better visibility of what is happening across networks.

The test we will apply is simple. Does this use of AI:

Save time or reduce complexity for marketing teams and local partners?

Improve consistency and brand quality across markets?

Free people up to focus on higher value strategic and creative work?

If the answer is “yes”, it's worth pursuing. If the answer is “it might save some money but will damage relationships or quality”, it's a no.

3. Bridge the gap between head office and local partners.

Our recent work and whitepapers on distributed marketing show the same pattern. When head office and the network work together, and when budgets, tools and stories are aligned, performance improves for everyone.

In 2026 we'll continue to:

Design strategies that work for both central brand teams and local partners

Build toolkits and platforms that make it easier to do the right thing locally

Capture and share the success stories that prove what is possible when the model works

AI has a role to play here, especially in surfacing insights, predicting where support is needed and simplifying local execution. But the real magic is still in the human relationships, the listening and the joint problem-solving.

What this means for you in 2026

If you're a Marketing Director, CMO or Brand Manager working with a network of retailers, dealers, franchisees or branches, 2026 may feel like another year of “more with less”.

Our message is simple.

You do not need another silver bullet. You need a partner who understands both the big picture and the local reality, who can help you use AI intelligently, and who is happy to operate in the space between your central strategy and local activation.

That is where We Are Acuity comes in.

Ready to talk about your 2026 goals?

If you're looking at your network and wondering how to support local partners better, make smarter, more responsible use of AI, and protect brand consistency while unlocking local relevance, we'd love to have a conversation.

Get in touch and let us explore how we can help you stay local at heart in an AI world.