NZ Marketing Trends for 2026
Coming Soon: the latest update to our NZ Marketing Insights & Trends Presentation (2026), which focusses in on some of the hottest and most important NZ marketing topics and trends for 2026 and beyond. Pre-order today to save $100 (link below).
This comprehensive slide presentation will identify for you, and enable you to present to your clients and colleagues a preview of what marketing trends to expect over the next twelve months.
This presentation looks ahead at what marketers should expect and plan for in the year ahead — based on local and global trends you may not yet have had the opportunity to examine — turning those forecasts into a comprehensive report & slide deck in PowerPoint format (with accompanying notes) – information that you can easily present to your team and your clients, bringing everyone up to speed on the latest New Zealand Marketing Insights for 2026. All presentations are unbranded, so you can add your own branding and comments.
This presentation consists of more than 200 slides, dealing with as many key insights. you can either give the whole presentation as a comprehensive overview of what to expect in the year ahead, or slice and dice it into sections as appropriate.
Here’s a sneak peek at some of what’s included in the NZ Marketing Insights & Trends Presentation 2026 Report:
The New Zealand Marketplace 2026
Oh yay, it’s election year. Here are some of the side-effects of our tri-annual search for governmental talent:
Ad Cost Inflation and Inventory Scarcity
The internet is expected to be the primary battleground for the 2026 election. During the regulated period (August 7 to November 6), political parties and third-party promoters will flood digital platforms with millions of dollars in campaign spending. This influx of political capital displaces commercial advertisers and historically causes massive spikes in CPM rates during Q3 and early Q4.
AI Disinformation and the “Authenticity Premium”
The 2026 election is the first where the widespread use of generative AI in political advertising is a major public concern. Different parties have conflicting stances on AI—ranging from total bans to using AI-generated stock imagery—which has already raised alarms over cultural misrepresentation and deepfakes. As voters are bombarded with synthetic content and political attacks on institutional media, general consumer trust will plummet. This makes the “Authenticity Premium” a literal commercial requirement.
Economic Hesitation and the “Cost of Living” Narrative
Inflation remains the single biggest issue for 59% of New Zealand voters, sitting just outside the Reserve Bank’s target band at 3.1%. Historically, the uncertainty leading up to a New Zealand election causes a distinct pause in consumer discretionary spending and business investment. Because consumers are already feeling the financial squeeze, aspirational marketing will likely fall flat.
Political Content May Influence Algorithmic Visibility
Social platforms prioritise highly engaging content. Political posts often generate intense discussion, meaning algorithms may amplify political content over brand messaging. Solution for marketers? Minimise your exposure where you can during the August-November period.
Higher Demand for Real-Time Marketing
Election debates and political announcements create real-time news moments. Brands capable of responding quickly can capture attention. Prioritise rapid response where that’s appropriate for your brand.
Marketer Opportunities 2026
Despite Election Year noise, 2026 brings with it many opportunities for the savvy marketer. Here are just a few:
Agentic Commerce: Optimise for AI Shopping Before Your Competitors Do
Mastercard, Westpac, and AI agent Matilda completed New Zealand’s first fully authenticated agentic transactions in February 2026 — purchasing cinema tickets and Queenstown hotel accommodation using natural language commands, with all parties in the payment chain able to identify that an AI agent conducted the transaction. Deloitte NZ AI director Dr Amanda Williamson warns that ‘it is not going to be about how many dollars you’re spending on Google AdWords anymore. It’s about how you become more discoverable for these agents.’ In a world where AI agents autonomously search, compare, and purchase on consumers’ behalf, the marketing battleground shifts from influencing humans to influencing algorithms.
Synthetic Data Usage is Growing
Faced with stringent privacy laws (like IPP 3A) and high market research costs, NZ marketers are turning to “synthetic data.” AI algorithms generate hyper-realistic, statistical clones of real-world consumer demographics. This allows brands to test campaigns, segment audiences, and train models without ever touching sensitive, personally identifiable information (PII).
Seize the AI Answer Opportunity
AI search is actively redirecting NZ website traffic right now — approximately 30% of queries that previously sent visitors to websites are now answered inside AI Overviews or LLMs. NZ practitioners are reporting the first ChatGPT referral leads. The brands that invest in structured authority content in the next six months may well dominate AI-generated answers for years.
Gear Up for Open Data
The Customer and Product Data Act 2025 established New Zealand’s Consumer Data Right, designating banking as the first sector — requiring ANZ, ASB, BNZ, and Westpac to share consumer-consented transaction data, account balances, and up to two years of transaction history with accredited third parties. MBIE describes this as enabling ‘smarter budgeting, faster account switching, and entirely new financial products.’ For marketers, the opportunity is structural: accredited fintechs, insurance companies, utilities, and retail businesses can now build consent-driven, bank-validated customer propositions that were previously impossible. The electricity sector is expected to be designated next, followed by telecommunications — making CDR a rolling expansion of consented data opportunity.
Leverage Retail Media Networks
NZ Marketing Magazine’s February 2026 Month in Media observed: ‘NZ retail media got an upgrade this month, with DressSmart joining VMO’s retail media network, adding outlet environments to an already growing portfolio.’ But the bigger opportunity is in what has not yet happened: New Zealand’s Foodstuffs (PAK’nSAVE, New World, Four Square), Woolworths NZ, and The Warehouse Group have not yet launched the kind of first-party data-powered retail media networks that Coles 360 and Woolworths Everyday Rewards operate in Australia. For brands that can partner with these retailers early — as media buyers, technology partners, or data collaborators — the first-mover opportunity is significant.
Get in Front of Ad-Supported Streaming Audiences
The arrival of ad-supported streaming tiers from Netflix and Disney+ represents a structural change in NZ advertising inventory availability. For the first time, brands can access the audiences watching prestige drama and sport on the largest screen in the house — without paying full broadcast CPMs. Streaming is transitioning from an ad-free premium environment to an addressable, data-rich, premium content adjacency that NZ advertisers can access at mid-market budgets.
Local Advertisers Can Now Reach Local Audiences Through Multiple Channels
HornTech Auckland’s January 2026 analysis of Local Pack Ad growth — from 1% to nearly 22% of mobile searches in 12 months — is one of the most striking data points in NZ digital marketing. But the opportunity is not just in search. The parallel evolution of programmatic Digital Out-of-Home advertising means that the same local audience can be reached on a digital billboard in their neighbourhood for a modest spend — creating a context-to-conversion path from ‘see the billboard on the way to work’ to ‘see the local pack ad on my phone.’ Combining both channels for a local audience creates a 360-degree local presence that was previously only accessible to major brands.
Wellness Travel Opportunities
Global Wellness Institute’s #1 trend for 2025 was ‘Analog Wellness’ — digital detoxing, nature immersion, and active outdoor experiences. New Zealand’s clean environment, thermal and spa experiences, active adventure offerings, and kaupapa Māori wellbeing philosophy represent a globally unique combination. Tourism New Zealand has already tested ‘digital detox experiences’ positioning with measurable success; the commercial opportunity extends to every tourism operator, accommodation provider, regional council, and activity brand in New Zealand.
Can You Take Advantage of Revenge Spending?
NZ GDP contracted -0.5% in 2024 before recovering. StopPress data from November 2025 shows international travel spend rising even as domestic spend falls. This is the measurable proof that NZ consumers are in a selective ‘revenge spend’ mode — and experience categories that frame their offering as meaningful, transformative, or aspirational will capture it. For experience brands in any category — travel, hospitality, events, education, beauty, sport — the strategic opportunity is to position their offering as the deserved reward for the years of restraint that preceded the recovery.
Kiwi Humour and Informality as Defensive Moat in an AI World
As AI makes generic, globally styled content easy to produce, distinctly Kiwi humour, language, and self deprecation become harder to imitate and thus more valuable defensively. This “cultural texture” becomes a brand asset, not just a tone choice.
NZ Consumer Behaviour
Here are some of the trends we’re seeing for Kiwi consumers in the year ahead:
Polarised Perceptions
Consumer sentiment in New Zealand has fractured along demographic and gender lines, creating a deeply bifurcated market. While younger demographics and male consumers exhibit buoyant optimism anticipating recovery, older generations and female consumers remain entrenched in pessimism, disproportionately burdened by persistent job insecurity and the realities of the cost-of-living crisis.
Smart Second-Life Shopping
Purchasing pre-owned goods has shed its historical stigma, evolving into a mainstream retail channel driven aggressively by economic necessity rather than purely ecological motives. Platforms facilitating peer-to-peer sales and brand-owned resale programs are thriving as consumers actively seek high-quality durables at depreciated prices.
Consumers Hate Shrinkflation
The practice of reducing product size or quality while maintaining the sticker price—”shrinkflation”—has transitioned from a covert manufacturer strategy to a highly scrutinised public grievance. Empowered by social media tracking, consumers are actively penalising brands that engage in deceptive sizing, driving a mass exodus toward transparent private-label brands.
Quick Commerce
The consumer expectation for near-instantaneous fulfilment—previously restricted to hot food delivery—has expanded aggressively into groceries, pharmaceuticals, and general retail. “Quick Commerce” relies on hyper-local micro-fulfilment centres to deliver goods within 30 to 60 minutes, fundamentally rewiring consumer patience and urban logistics. Globally, the Q-commerce market is expanding at an extraordinary Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 24.8%. In New Zealand, this demand for speed is reshaping industrial real estate and retail strategies.
Social Commerce and the Temu Effect
The traditional e-commerce journey has been fractured by the meteoric rise of integrated social commerce platforms and ultra-low-cost international marketplaces. Algorithms on TikTok and Instagram are collapsing the marketing funnel, while platforms like Temu are capturing unprecedented market share (45% market penetration) by gamifying shopping and aggressively undercutting local retailers. The strategic imperative for local businesses is stark: competing on price against offshore mega-marketplaces is largely futile. Instead, domestic retailers must pivot to strategies emphasizing rapid local fulfilment, superior post-purchase support, and community-driven brand authenticity that international conglomerates cannot replicate.
The Generational Trend Towards Instant Gratification
The financial psychology of Gen Z and Generation Alpha is being radically rewired by social media algorithms that glorify instant wealth and “hustle” narratives. The traditional paradigm of delayed gratification is collapsing as younger consumers prioritize rapid monetisation, high-risk digital assets, and view “Buy Now, Pay Later” schemes as standard income extensions.
Scrutiny of the Subscription Economy
The subscription economy is undergoing a period of rationalisation as Kiwi consumers audit their recurring expenditure. Streaming, meal kit, software, and retail membership subscriptions are being evaluated against perceived value, with consumers quick to pause, downgrade, or cancel services that do not deliver consistent utility. Businesses must focus on demonstrable value delivery within the first 30 days to reduce churn.
Health & Wellness Reshaped by Therapeutics
The rollout and funding debates around GLP-1 therapies (e.g., Wegovy) plus growing health-tech adoption change how consumers shop for food, wellness services and health subscriptions. Expect product innovation in lower-calorie and functional foods.
Sustainable Consumption Without the Premium
New Zealand consumers continue to hold strong sustainability expectations, but their willingness to pay a premium for eco-friendly products has measurably declined under cost-of-living pressure. The market is shifting toward an expectation that sustainability be built into standard pricing rather than offered as a premium upgrade.
“Show, Don’t Tell” Sustainability Communications
NZ consumers now reward brands that show evidence and trade offs rather than polished sustainability slogans, making behind the scenes transparency more powerful than big green campaigns. Over claiming invites scepticism and backlash.
Social Issues Outrank Environmental Issues in Brand Perception
While climate concern remains high, social issues like access to healthcare, cost of living, and how employees are treated now shape Kiwi brand perceptions more strongly than eco claims alone. This subtly shifts where value driven campaigns need to focus.
The Erosion of Brand Loyalty
Traditional brand loyalty is eroding across New Zealand consumer markets as value, convenience, and experience take precedence over historical brand relationships. Consumers are increasingly ‘promiscuous shoppers’ — mixing premium and value brands within the same basket, switching readily based on price promotions, and holding no particular allegiance to incumbent brands. Loyalty programmes are showing renewed effectiveness when they deliver tangible financial rewards (cashback, discounts) rather than aspirational points-based systems.
Digital Marketing
Digital Marketing, which now accounts for around two-thirds of New Zealand advertising expenditure, is more complicated than ever. Here’s some of what to expect in the year ahead:
AI Powered Marketing Becomes Default, Not Edge
AI has now become the default in NZ marketing stacks, powering creative generation, media optimisation, personalisation, and journey automation. Over the next 12 months, the competitive gap will widen between AI mature teams and laggards.
B2B Influencers & Thought Leadership
The creator economy has thoroughly penetrated the B2B sector. Instead of relying solely on corporate whitepapers, B2B marketers in tech, SaaS, and finance are partnering with niche industry experts, analysts, and LinkedIn thought leaders to de-risk complex purchasing decisions and build human-centric authority.
Digital Audio and Podcast Advertising Maturation
Digital audio has moved from experimental to mainstream. Driven by surging podcast listenership and the standardisation of audio measurement metrics, brands are starting to invest in programmatic, dynamic audio ads that deliver targeted storytelling directly into the ears of engaged, screen-free consumers.
Shift to Attention Metrics
Metrics like view duration replace vanity stats for NZ campaigns, focusing on real engagement. This evolution aids New Zealand’s data-driven marketers in measuring impact. Businesses should track CPA and ROAS for efficiency.
Attribution is Becoming More Difficult Than Ever
The combination of AI-generated zero-click search results, growing privacy restrictions, and the proliferation of channels has created what The Optimisers describe as ‘going back a decade in terms of understanding the user journey.’ Attribution — knowing which channels and touchpoints drove conversion — is becoming structurally harder. In response, Google’s Meridian (Marketing Mix Modelling platform) and Meta’s Conversions API are emerging as the next-generation measurement tools. NZ marketers must invest in measurement infrastructure now or risk flying blind on budget allocation.
Privacy, Consent and ASA/Privacy Act Enforcement Pressure
Stricter expectations from the Privacy Commissioner, ASA, and Commerce Commission are raising the stakes on consent, targeting, dark patterns, and transparency in NZ digital campaigns. Marketers must bake compliance into design rather than treat it as an afterthought, especially as the May 2026 rollout of IPP 3A introduces further regulations on data acquisition and notification.
First Party Data and CRM Centric Strategies
With privacy changes and cookie deprecation, NZ brands are prioritising first party data capture via loyalty programmes, content, and owned channels, then activating it in CRM and marketing automation. Email, SMS, and app messaging regain strategic importance.
Advanced Measurement, MMM and Incrementality Testing
With cookie deprecation and complex multi touch journeys, NZ marketers are exploring marketing mix modelling (MMM), incrementality tests, and unified measurement approaches. This will be a priority for larger spenders seeking to justify digital budgets.
AI
Of course, there’s plenty to talk about when it comes to AI developments. Here are just a few of the latest trends we’ve observed:
Selling to the Machines
AI is moving beyond conversational chatbots to autonomous execution. “Agentic AI” systems act as proxy consumers—researching, comparing, and purchasing products on behalf of human users. For New Zealand marketers, the battleground shifts from purely persuading human emotion to ensuring that their product data is flawlessly structured via APIs so algorithms select their brand.
AI in NZ Government
New Zealand’s first national AI Strategy, launched in mid 2025, is now shifting from high level vision to funded programmes, guidance, and cross agency coordination. Central and local government agencies are rapidly expanding AI pilots into operational use, especially in case triage, customer service, analytics, and infrastructure planning. This will influence citizen expectations and normalise AI mediated services.
AI in NZ Business
AI adoption in NZ businesses has moved from early experimentation to mainstream usage, particularly among larger firms that are now embedding AI into core workflows. Over the next 12 months, the focus will shift to scaling, integration, and ROI. AI Forum’s 2025 report notes that 82% of respondents are now using AI, with 93% reporting worker efficiency gains and 71% operational cost savings.
AI Skills Bottleneck
AI skills—ranging from data engineering to prompt design and change management—have become a binding constraint, prompting major workforce training initiatives. For 2026, skills and culture will be as important as technology choices.
Consumer AI Usage High but Trust Lagging
Many New Zealanders now use AI tools in daily life—from search assistants to creative apps—yet public trust in AI systems remains low, creating a “usage trust gap”. This will shape consumer responses to AI mediated marketing and services.
Search Marketing
It’s been the primary focus of digital marketers for decades, but now the times they are a’changing. Here are some of the realities of search in 2026 and beyond:
AI Search is Growing Fast
The mechanics of how New Zealanders find information, products, and services have fundamentally shifted. The integration of generative AI into search engines (such as Google’s AI Overviews) means that users increasingly receive synthesized answers directly on the search results page, bypassing the need to click through to external websites. By late 2025, AI overviews appeared on over 21% of all search queries globally, a trend that is accelerating. Furthermore, 58% of consumers now report a preference for product recommendations generated by AI tools over traditional search engine results. This necessitates a radical shift in digital marketing from SEO to GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation).
Evolve Your Video Search Strategies for AI
With AI overviews (like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Mode) causing a rise in “zero-click” searches, video content must be structured to be cited by Large Language Models. Video AEO involves chaptering videos, embedding structured transcripts, and answering specific questions so that AI engines serve your video clip directly in their chat interfaces.
The Reality of Zero-Click Search
Consumers are increasingly receiving comprehensive answers directly on the search engine results page (SERP) or social feeds, eliminating the need to click through to a brand’s website. New Zealand marketers are having to abandon traffic volume as a primary KPI, focusing instead on “share of answer,” brand visibility, and downstream conversions generated by off-site trust building.
Becoming “Search Everywhere”
The “Google-default” mindset is dead. Kiwi consumers are decentralising their discovery processes, actively searching for products and recommendations across TikTok, Reddit, YouTube, and conversational voice assistants. Marketers must build “Search Everywhere” strategies, atomising core content to match the specific intent and native formats of diverse discovery platforms.
Local SEO, “Near Me” and Presence Management Intensify
With high mobile penetration and strong local search behaviour, NZ businesses are investing more into local SEO, Google Business Profiles, and map based discovery. This is critical for multi location retail, hospitality, and services.
Social Media Marketing
There are plenty of obvious social media trends that you can expect to encounter in 2026 and beyond. Here are some that you might not have considered:
Silent Social Shift: Social Use Rises, Visible Engagement Falls
Social media usage continues to climb in New Zealand, but public likes/comments plateau as more behaviour moves into private messaging, passive viewing, and “lurking”. Marketers risk underestimating impact if they judge success only by visible engagement.
Social Platforms Become Full Funnel Commerce and Service Hubs
Social channels in NZ are evolving from awareness tools to full funnel environments with in app shopping, lead gen, customer service, and community management. This compresses the path to purchase and demands integrated social, ecommerce, and CRM strategies.
Platform Mix Shifts but Multi Platform Presence Remains Essential
While specific platforms rise and fall (e.g. X’s ad reach growth, TikTok’s prominence, Facebook’s stability for 30+), NZ’s high social penetration means brands must orchestrate across multiple platforms rather than over optimise to one. 2026 plans will need clear roles for each channel.
Social Search Grows
Platforms like TikTok are becoming search engines, requiring NZ marketers to optimise for ‘social SEO’ with keywords and visuals. This shift aligns with New Zealand’s younger demographics, impacting discovery strategies. Businesses must adapt content for intent-based queries to drive traffic.
The Power of NZ Micro-Influencers
NZIE’s State of Social 2025 reports that 27.7% of Kiwis follow influencers or experts — above the global average of 21%. The Creator Economy is projected to reach US$480 billion by 2027 globally. But the most significant commercial shift in 2026 is micro-creator performance: creators with 1,000–50,000 engaged NZ followers typically deliver 3–5x higher engagement rates than macro-creators, at 10–20x lower cost per post. They also command stronger community trust, more authentic recommendations, and more niche-precise audience targeting. For most NZ brands with influencer budgets under NZ$50,000, a portfolio of six to twelve micro-creators will systematically outperform two to three macro-creators on every measurable metric.
Online Video
Here are some of the latest developments that matter to NZ marketers for online video:
Using Video On Billboards
Following a rigorous two-year resource consent process, Auckland City Council has approved the use of “subtle motion” on roadside digital billboards (pDOOH). This regulatory milestone allows NZ marketers to deploy gentle video animations—such as weather-triggered visual effects or moving condensation on a beverage—without violating strict road safety standards.
Get More Authentic
As generative AI floods the internet with highly polished, synthetic video content, Kiwi consumers are applying an “Authenticity Premium” to brands. Unscripted, raw, “lo-fi” video content featuring real staff or customers now significantly outperforms high-budget, highly-edited commercial shoots.
The “Lore Economy” in Episodic Video Storytelling
Isolated, one-off video ads are losing efficacy. Brands are acting like franchise showrunners, building “cinematic universes” on TikTok and YouTube. This “lore economy” relies on recurring characters, inside jokes, and serialized video content that rewards loyal followers and builds cult-like communities.
The Move to B2B Video
B2B marketing in New Zealand has pivoted from dense corporate whitepapers to executive video content. “Network compression” means partnering with highly targeted, local NZ micro-influencers on LinkedIn who generate trust through native, thought-leadership video discussions.
The Connected TV Migration
Advertising spend is migrating from traditional linear broadcast to Connected TV (CTV) and streaming platforms (like TVNZ+). Marketers are targeting the “main screen” in the living room to capture high-attention, co-viewing audiences, pairing the emotional impact of television with the precise targeting and measurement of digital ads.
Digital Accessibility for Video
The NZ Department of Internal Affairs’ adoption of the Digital Accessibility Standard (aligning with European EN 301 549) means all commercial video must meet strict accessibility requirements. Accurate closed captions, audio descriptions, and readable transcripts are no longer optional, carrying legal implications under the Human Rights Act.
The 3-Second Attention Span
The dominance of algorithmic short-form video has permanently reprogrammed consumer attention spans. If a video does not deliver a visually complete “hook” within the first three seconds, NZ audiences will relentlessly scroll past, forcing marketers to abandon slow-build narrative arcs.
Slice & Dice with Agentic AI
Instead of manually editing video for different platforms, NZ marketers are using “Agentic AI” to autonomously “atomise” a single long-form video into dozens of platform-specific shorts. The AI evaluates the footage, identifies the best hooks, crops to vertical formats, adds captions, and schedules the posts without human intervention.
Marketing Risks to Avoid in 2026
Beyond the various trends we’ve highlighted above, there are a number of risks that marketers have to navigate around, such as:
Under Recognised AI Productivity Shock in Marketing Teams
AI is quietly compressing marketing timelines and headcount needs, not through mass layoffs but by radically increasing individual output, which will reshape team structures and agency relationships in NZ. Many organisations have not yet adjusted planning and role design to this new capacity.
Micro-Moments
Kiwis increasingly browse in ultra short “micro moments” while multi tasking (TV + mobile, commute scrolling), reducing depth of attention but increasing frequency of touchpoints. Campaigns built for uninterrupted viewing underperform in this reality.
Creative Surplus and the Battle for Distinctiveness
AI has made it trivial to produce endless creative variations, creating a “creative surplus” where distinctiveness, not volume, becomes the bottleneck. NZ brands that codify distinctive brand assets and guardrails will cut through in increasingly cluttered feeds.
Hidden AI Infrastructure: Marketing Dependent on IT and Data Teams
As AI tools proliferate, marketers increasingly depend on data, security, and integration decisions set by IT, which quietly determine what is possible in campaigns. This back office dependency is a non obvious driver of speed and innovation in NZ marketing.
Quiet Rise of “Shadow AI” in Marketing Workflows
Individual marketers are using consumer AI tools (public chatbots, unofficial plugins) outside formal governance, creating quality, privacy, and IP risks that most NZ organisations have not surfaced in their risk registers. This gap will increasingly affect brand safety and compliance.
AI Slop
Generative AI dramatically lowers the cost of producing marketing content, leading to an explosion of blogs, videos, and social posts. While this increases output, it also creates content oversupply, making it much harder for brands to capture attention or rank in search results. Be part of the solution, not the problem.
Loss of Data
With third-party tracking declining due to privacy regulations and browser restrictions, brands that lack strong first-party data strategies risk losing their ability to target audiences effectively. What do you really know about your customers and prospects?
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Of course, those are just a few of the trends we’re watching. We also take a detailed look at plenty of other trends relevant to the New Zealand marketplace.
Interested in our NZ MARKETING INSIGHTS & TRENDS FOR 2026 report? For details on how you can pre-order this rich resource, read on.
Personal Use and Agency Use Rights
This NZ MARKETING INSIGHTS & TRENDS FOR 2026 report, like all our Marketing Insights presentations, comes with personal use and agency use rights: you can present these reports to your own team and to your clients and prospects, bringing everyone up to speed on the latest marketing insights and trends for the year ahead. All presentations are unbranded, so you can add your own branding and comments.
The “NZ MARKETING INSIGHTS & TRENDS FOR 2026” report and slide deck is available for pre-order for $797+GST, saving you $100 (This investment will rise to $897+GST on March 13).
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The report and slide deck will be delivered in early April 2026, the week after Easter.
ABOUT THE REPORT
Oh, in case you’re wondering who we are to be preparing such a report: the NZ MARKETING INSIGHTS & TRENDS FOR 2026 report & slide deck has been prepared (like its 7 predecessor annual reports since 2017) by Michael Carney, long-time adman, author, media director and strategic planning director.
Michael is one of New Zealand’s most experienced digital marketing practitioners and educators. As the founder and director of Netmarketing Courses, Michael has dedicated the last fifteen years to researching, creating, and delivering practical, relevant online training designed specifically for the Aotearoa market. His mission is to empower Kiwi organisations and marketers with the skills they need to thrive in a competitive digital landscape. To date, he has trained over 3,000 students through partnerships with leading industry bodies including the NZ Marketing Association, NZ Retailers Association, Tourism Industry Association NZ, and Hospitality NZ.
Michael has practical, hands-on experience with all aspects of digital marketing, from website creation to social media advertising, from strategic guidance and trend analysis to thought leadership. He has been online since 1987 and involved with digital marketing in all its aspects since the mid-1990s. He was an early adopter of Generative AI when ChatGPT launched in late 2022, and now has extensive experience with using AI for research, brainstorming, content creation, design, video creation and editing and what’s become known as “vibe coding”, using AI to develop web applications.
Michael’s expertise is built on a career spanning more than four decades, during which he has developed marketing and advertising strategies for many of New Zealand’s most iconic brands. His extensive list of past clients includes The Warehouse, ANZ Bank, Lion Breweries, Griffins Foods, Sony New Zealand, Honda New Zealand, and Heinz Wattie. THe has held senior strategic roles in major advertising agencies, including National Media Director at HKM Advertising and Strategic Planning Director for The Media Counsel.
Beyond his client work, Michael is a respected thought leader, published author, and industry contributor. He wrote the bestselling book “Trade Me Success Secrets,” which sold out its first printing in just six weeks, and has ghost-written several other business books on topics like digital transformation. For years, he chaired the Network of Digital Marketers for the NZ Marketing Association and he has been a regular magazine columnist for Marketing Magazine and other titles. This unique combination of in-the-trenches experience, proven teaching ability, and strategic insight makes him the ideal guide to marketing trends that will impact Kiwis in 2026.
MARKETING TRENDS WORKSHOP
We can also develop and present a customised Marketing Trends 2026 workshop for you, your team and your clients. Email us for details: info@socialmedia.org.nz
