Creative Is the New Targeting

And That’s Why the Best CPG Creative in 2026 Won’t Come From Holding Companies

For most of the last decade, CPG growth followed a simple formula: target better, and the creative would take care of itself.

More data. More segments. More precision.

That formula no longer works.

In 2026, targeting advantages have flattened. Signal loss is real. Retail media networks are crowded. CPMs are up across the board. And nearly every food, beverage, frozen, and household brand is bidding in the same auctions, using the same platforms, with access to similar datasets.

Which leaves one uncomfortable truth: You can’t buy your way out of weak creative anymore.

Creative is now doing the heavy lifting. And that shift is exposing structural problems in how CPG creative gets made.

When Targeting Becomes a Commodity, Messaging Becomes the Advantage

Today, differentiation rarely comes from media mechanics. It comes from what you say, how clearly you say it, and how fast you can adapt it.

Consider frozen food. A generic “easy weeknight dinner” message blends into the category instantly. But creative that dramatizes a real household tension — kids bored with the same meals, parents short on time — and resolves it clearly in six seconds performs differently at shelf, in retail media, and in social.

Or household cleaning. “Powerful clean” is table stakes. Showing the exact moment a product fails — or succeeds — against pet messes, grease, or real-life chaos builds trust faster than any claim ever will.

In beverage, where limited drops and flavor innovation move at culture speed, creative that can’t adapt quickly becomes irrelevant before the campaign even peaks.

The winning brands aren’t louder. They’re more specific.

CPG Creative Has a Speed Problem

CPG has always operated with thin margins and long planning cycles. But consumer behavior has accelerated while creative systems haven’t.

Most brands still rely on:

• One or two big ideas per year

• Long approval chains

• Creative optimized for internal alignment, not performance

• Limited flexibility once work is live

That approach struggles in a world of always-on retail media, algorithm-driven feeds, and rapid shifts in consumer behavior.

Creative that can’t evolve quickly becomes invisible. Or worse, it becomes expensive dead weight.

Why Holding-Company Models Struggle in This Environment

This isn’t about talent. It’s about structure.

Holding-company agency models were built to deliver scale, consistency, and efficiency. Those systems reward sameness and predictability.

But modern CPG growth rewards specificity:

• Specific occasions, not broad use cases

• Specific tensions, not generic benefits

• Specific retail moments, not abstract “funnels”

When creative has to pass through multiple teams, offices, and approval layers, speed disappears and specificity gets sanded down. By the time the work goes live, it’s polished, safe, and indistinguishable.

That’s a liability in today’s market.

Creative Is No Longer a Campaign. It’s a System.

The best CPG creative in 2026 isn’t a single hero idea. It’s a creative system designed to perform under pressure.

That means:

• Modular messages that flex by channel and retailer

• Faster testing and learning in-market

• Creative designed to close, not just introduce

• Clear feedback loops between performance data and creative decisions

Food, beverage, frozen, and household brands that win are building frameworks that allow ideas to evolve without diluting brand clarity.

This isn’t about making more content. It’s about making better decisions faster.

Why Independents Are Better Built for This Moment

Independent agencies aren’t better because they’re smaller. They’re better because they’re closer.

Closer to the business problem.
Closer to performance signals.
Closer to the creative decisions that actually drive results.

Without legacy systems or internal silos to protect, independents can collapse strategy, creative, and commerce into a single operating loop. They can move quickly when the market says something isn’t working—and double down when it is. (We’re thinking of you Doug Zanger and the members of Indie Agency News!)

In a world where creative is the new targeting, taste, speed, and accountability matter more than scale.

The Shift CMOs Are Already Making

Most CPG CMOs already feel this shift. They’re questioning legacy agency models. They’re demanding creative that survives the journey from scroll to shelf to cart. And they’re tired of buying “the big idea” only to discover it doesn’t perform where it matters most.

The brands that win in 2026 won’t be the ones with the most data or the biggest budgets.

They’ll be the ones who accept a simple reality: When targeting stops being the advantage, creative becomes the strategy.

And the agencies best equipped to deliver that future won’t look like the past.