10 Resolutions for Turbulence

I'm not a great flyer. Never have been. I catastrophize. I have anxiety. I overthink.

Which is unfortunate, because I've flown millions of miles. Every time, I'm gripping the armrest during turbulence, watching the wing flex and wave through the window, convinced this is the flight where the engine finally tears off.

But that terrifying flexibility is exactly what keeps us safe. They bend because they must, and are engineered to do so. The rigid wings of earlier aircraft snapped. Flexibility plus strategic rigidity, that's what survives turbulence.

And turbulence is getting worse. Climate change is increasing clear-air turbulence by 55% since 1979, with projections showing another 180% increase by 2050-2080. The atmospheric conditions that create sudden, severe turbulence are intensifying. We're not imagining it. The data confirms it.

The aviation industry's response isn't to stop flying. It's to adapt through three critical systems: better prediction to anticipate turbulence, better communication so pilots share real-time conditions, and better engineering so aircraft flex without breaking.

The marketing & advertising industry faces its own turbulence. And it's intensifying.

The five simultaneous pressures I've tracked all year: budget decline, platform disintermediation, AI automation, talent crisis, and margin compression, aren't easing in 2026. My predictions for the watershed year are sobering: the great job migration, structural elimination of roles, zero-click search crossing 40%, orchestration moving to platforms.

Your LinkedIn feed is drowning in advice right now. "Embrace AI transformation." "2026 is the year of authenticity." "X is dead, long live Y." Every platform and consultancy with a prediction deck telling you what's coming.

Most of it is noise. Too much of it is clickbaiting doom. Much of it will be irrelevant by March.

So for what it's worth, after a year of writing both the Brandflow book and 88 newsletters analysing what's actually happening beneath the announcements, here are the resolutions for marketing and advertising leaders that I suggest you consider.

Not because I've mastered them. I haven't.

But because the turbulence is real, it's intensifying, and we need the same three systems aviation uses: better prediction, better communication, and better engineering for flexibility without breaking.

You can't avoid turbulence you can't see. Aviation invested billions in prediction systems like Doppler radar, atmospheric modeling, real-time pilot reporting. Marketing needs the same clarity about compression ahead.

The middle is dying. Platforms capture one end (distribution, data, execution infrastructure). Specialists capture the other (deep expertise algorithms can't replicate). Everything between gets compressed into orchestration systems.

If your 2026 strategy assumes the 2025 structure persists, you're flying blind into turbulence. The resolution: scenario plan for structural transformation, not incremental optimization.

Adobe Experience Platform Agent Orchestrator, Google's Performance Max evolution, Meta's Advantage+ expansion, they all launch in 2026. These aren't tools that make human marketers more efficient. They're autonomous systems that replace human coordination entirely.

Waiting to see who wins means you start 2027 with an 18-month disadvantage. Like waiting to see if turbulence is real before learning to fly through it. The resolution: pilot one orchestration platform in Q1 2026.

Can your agencies demonstrate orchestration capability, or are they selling coordination you could get from platforms? Do they have first-party data infrastructure, or are they dependent on platforms they don't control?

The Omnicom-IPG merger eliminates 4,000 announced positions, I predict another 10,000-15,000 to follow. WPP uses it as cover for their own cuts. These aren't cyclical adjustments. These are structural eliminations.

Prediction means seeing the turbulence before you're in it. The resolution: honest assessment in Q1. Because your agency vulnerabilities become your vulnerabilities.

When pilots hit severe turbulence, they immediately report conditions to air traffic control. Location, altitude, severity. Not because it helps them, they're already in it. Because it helps everyone coming behind them.

Marketing turbulence requires the same collective intelligence.

71% of employees are concerned about AI displacement. But only 34% of organisations are actively reskilling their people to work with it.

The anxiety isn't about the technology. It's about feeling powerless while decisions that affect your future get made without you. Like passengers in turbulence with no information from the cockpit.

The resolution: don't implement AI to your team. Implement it with them. Communicate what you're seeing. Let them help navigate.

Gen Z watches how we handle this compression. They see the high burnout rate. They see careers eliminated overnight. They see us celebrating unsustainable heroics while claiming to value work-life balance.

They won't accept the "heroic" culture we built. They shouldn't have to. The resolution: model sustainable leadership now. Communicate honestly about challenges. Show them turbulence can be survived without sacrificing humanity.

Not "no, because..." Just "no."

Scope creep accelerates during turbulence. Clients ask for more with less. Platforms demand faster adoption. Leadership expects transformation without resources.

Clear communication about boundaries isn't being difficult. It's strategic leadership. The resolution: protect your team's capacity by communicating limits clearly.

Watch an aircraft wing during turbulence. It's flexing, bending, moving in ways that look terrifying. But that's exactly what it's engineered to do. The balance between flexibility and rigidity, that's what survives.

Too rigid? It snaps under stress. Too flexible? It loses structural integrity. The engineering is in finding the balance.

Your resolutions for 2026 need the same balance.

Flexibility: Projects require different intensities at different moments. Some deadlines matter.

Rigidity: Sustainable performance is the standard, not quarterly heroics. You stop rewarding the person who "saved" the impossible deadline through personal sacrifice.

Every time you celebrate unsustainability, you reinforce that sustainable excellence isn't valued. In 2026, the teams that survive are the ones their leaders protected.

Flexibility: You track multiple performance dimensions based on project needs.

Rigidity: Team health is a non-negotiable metric, measured as systematically as campaign performance.

Burnout is a leading indicator of structural failure. The marketing industry has a high burnout rate. You can't see turbulence coming if you only measure output. The resolution: build early warning systems.

Flexibility: You adapt to changing role requirements as orchestration platforms emerge.

Rigidity: Your worth isn't defined by being irreplaceable. It's defined by judgment, context, strategic perspective.

When platforms launch orchestration systems that eliminate coordination roles, being indispensable becomes being obsolete. Your value in 2026 is in knowing when to flex and when to hold firm.

Flexibility: What you produce evolves as AI handles execution.

Rigidity: Who you are remains constant regardless of what technology does.

When AI can produce 80% of what you currently produce, faster and cheaper, your value isn't in volume. It's in the judgment that comes from experience, context, understanding what the data doesn't capture.

The turbulence isn't going away. Climate change means aviation faces intensifying atmospheric disruption for decades. Marketing faces intensifying structural disruption as platforms, AI, and compression reshape the industry.

But we don't stop flying because turbulence is coming. We build better prediction systems to see it earlier. Better communication systems to help each other through it. Better engineering so we flex without breaking.

These ten resolutions aren't easy commitments. Some contradict what you've been rewarded for. Several require courage most performance review systems don't value.

But they're engineered for turbulence. The balance of flexibility and rigidity that lets you keep flying when others are grounded.

I'm still not a great flyer. But I've learned to trust the engineering. The wing that looks like it's about to snap is actually doing exactly what it's designed to do.

Your career in 2026 will look like that wing. Flexing in ways that feel alarming. The question isn't whether there will be turbulence. It's whether you're engineered to survive it.

This is the final Brandflow newsletter of 2025.

Thank you for flying with me this year. For reading 88 newsletters assessing what's actually happening beneath the announcements. For engaging thoughtfully in comments. For forwarding to colleagues who needed the perspective. For building this community of marketing leaders who deserve better than platitudes.

2025 was also the year I moved from analysing transformation to building it, by launching both the Brandflow book and Simbioniq. Neither happens without this community holding me accountable to the standards I advocate.

Brandflow returns in early January, bright and ready to lead and learn through the watershed year together.

Because the turbulence in 2026? We'll need each other to navigate it.

See you in 2026. Buckle up.

Justin

Brandflow is written by Justin Billingsley, who has spent his career on all three sides of the industry's table: senior client, global agency leader, technology founder. First published 18 December 2025 in the Brandflow newsletter on LinkedIn.