Nội dung
- Patriotism is no longer a short-term campaign, but a brand strategy
- Cannes Lions FOMO: Marketers need to look beyond the glossy moments
- Ulta shows the new challenge: brand building and omnichannel selling are no longer separate tasks
- Ranking in AI search is not just about SEO: brands need to track their presence in answers
- Campaign optimization in 2026: AI and automation are replacing purely intuitive work
- A perspective for the Vietnamese market
- References
Content marketing is entering a phase where “great creativity” is no longer enough; brands must also connect with cultural context, show up well in AI search, and run campaigns with real-time data. For Vietnamese marketers, the international signals below show how content is shifting rapidly from standalone campaigns to brand systems and multichannel distribution.
Patriotism is no longer a short-term campaign, but a brand strategy
Marketing Dive shows that “patriotism” — the spirit of national pride and symbols of national identity — is no longer used as a seasonal communications theme, but is being integrated by many brands into long-term positioning. This reflects an important reality: when consumers expect brands to have a clear stance and values, content must do more than tell a product story; it must also tell a story about belief, community, and identity.
For content marketing, this is a reminder that brand messaging needs to be consistent across content, visuals, language, and how it appears at each touchpoint. If handled poorly, the message can easily be seen as “borrowing a theme to sell”; but if done right, a brand can create long-term empathy and differentiation. Source: Marketing Dive.
Cannes Lions FOMO: Marketers need to look beyond the glossy moments
Marketing Dive’s article on “Cannes Lions FOMO” suggests that many marketers can easily get swept up in the glossy veneer of awards, trends, and success stories shared heavily during event season. But the real value lies in extracting lessons that can be applied: how brands build ideas, organize data, align creativity with distribution, and measure effectiveness.
This is a noteworthy perspective for content professionals: instead of chasing trends reflexively, marketing teams should use industry events as a reference point to reassess creative capabilities, content production processes, and the level of alignment between brand story and performance. In other words, Cannes Lions is not only a place to admire great campaigns, but also a place to examine your own content system. Source: Marketing Dive.
Ulta shows the new challenge: brand building and omnichannel selling are no longer separate tasks
In a conversation with Marketing Dive, Ulta’s CMO emphasized how the beauty brand combines brand building with omnichannel marketing. The notable point here is that content no longer stands alone as “the inspirational part”; it must go together with the shopping experience in stores, on the web, in the app, on social media, and across other digital touchpoints.
For retail brands, especially in categories with complex purchase journeys such as beauty, effective content must support both awareness and conversion. That requires content to be designed around the customer journey: inspirational content at the top of the funnel, comparison and advisory content in the middle, and action-driving signals at the final stage. Source: Marketing Dive.
Ranking in AI search is not just about SEO: brands need to track their presence in answers
HubSpot emphasizes that in the era of answer engine optimization (AEO), traditional SERP rankings no longer fully reflect brand strength. Instead, marketers need to track “brand presence” in AI search through metrics such as mentions, citations, and share of voice in AI-generated answers.
This opens up a new layer of measurement for content marketing. If the goal used to be ranking for keywords or driving traffic, the question now is: does your brand appear in the answer users actually see? For content teams, this is a signal to optimize information structure, source credibility, clarity of definitions, and the ability of AI to “understand” the content correctly. Source: HubSpot Marketing.
Campaign optimization in 2026: AI and automation are replacing purely intuitive work
HubSpot says most marketers are already using AI every day to support major decisions, while marketing automation has been shown to help increase leads and improve conversions. In a context where data keeps growing and media costs remain high, managing campaigns with scattered spreadsheets or gut instinct will become increasingly ineffective.
The core message here is not “use AI for the sake of it,” but to build a campaign optimization system that can continuously learn from data. Content marketing therefore needs to be more tightly linked with performance: which message works, which format retains attention better, which channel converts better, and how AI can shorten the testing loop. Source: HubSpot Marketing.
A perspective for the Vietnamese market
For Vietnamese marketers, the five signals above all point in one direction: content marketing is shifting from “creating content to be present” to “creating content to build brand position within the digital ecosystem.” That means brands must pay attention at the same time to content identity, multichannel distribution, visibility in AI search, and disciplined performance measurement.
As content competition in Vietnam becomes increasingly intense, the advantage no longer lies in publishing more, but in building a structured content system with a distinct point of view and the ability to adapt to new search behaviors. Businesses that can connect brand story with data, and data with customer experience, will have a better chance of going further in 2026.
Source roundup: Marketing Dive, HubSpot Marketing.
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This article focuses on content marketing 2026 with a perspective for the Vietnamese market.
References
- Patriotism is no longer a campaign — it’s a branding strategy
- A cure for Cannes Lions FOMO: What marketers might have missed
- Ulta’s CMO on blending brand building and omnichannel marketing
- How to track your brand’s presence in AI search
- Campaign optimization strategies that actually work in 2026
