As Brouha Marketing, one of the door and window sector’s original specialist comms agency celebrates its 20th birthday, Fiona Lund, Brouha’s managing director looks at what has really changed in marketing (and what hasn’t).

When I set up Brouha 20 years ago, marketing and PR were very different crafts. Apart from the inevitable need for Crisis PR, the pace was slower, more predictable, and often more forgiving.

Campaigns were planned in quarters, not sprints. Data was sparse. Creativity carried the day, partly because it had to. But then the world was a very different place.

With the birth of Facebook, Twitter and the landing of YouTube, 2006 was a pivotal year defined by this new world social media and big technological innovations that shape the world we live in today. (Well, and I say this affectionately, sadly the Blackberry didn’t make the cut).

Two decades later, marketing has evolved into something faster, more measurable, more fragmented and arguably more powerful. But beneath all the transformation, some fundamentals have remained stubbornly intact.

From campaigns to always-on
Twenty years ago, marketing revolved around campaigns. Big launches. Defined timelines. Clear starts and finishes. You “went live,” you measured results, you moved on.

Today, marketing is perpetual. Brands exist in an always-on ecosystem where attention is fluid and audiences expect constant relevance. Social media, search, content, paid media, CRM. It’s all interconnected and continuous.

We’ve moved from shorter term tactics to interrupt attention, to creating more sustainable strategies to earn and sustain attention. And the word ‘earn’ is critical with trust and ethics of brands vital.

From audience assumptions to real-time data
In the early 2000s, audience insight was often built on research snapshots and instinct. Focus groups and surveys gave direction, but rarely certainty.

Today, data is abundant and sometimes overwhelmingly so. Real-time behavioural analytics, granular audience segmentation, attribution models, predictive tools, AI-driven insights, as marketers our challenge is no longer access to data, but rather making sense of it. We need to distil signal from noise, translate insight into action, but above all, balance data with creativity. Because despite everything, data doesn’t replace judgment. It sharpens it.

From channels to ecosystems
Twenty years ago, channel planning was relatively straightforward. You picked your mix, print, radio, events, outdoor, TV and then optimised within those silos.

Today, there are no silos, only ecosystems and your customers and prospects, B2C and B2B move seamlessly between socials, search, email, web and physical experiences. They expect consistency at every touchpoint. The question is no longer, ‘where do we show up’ but ‘how we look when customers show up to us.’

From broadcast to participation
Marketing used to be largely one-way. Brands spoke. Audiences listened. But that world has gone. Today’s audiences respond in real time, co-create content, hold brands accountable publicly and expect dialogue does not monologue.

Brands are no longer the sole authors of their narratives.
The “big idea”, the creative thinking and delivery still matters, but it’s no longer enough on its own. Today, comms have to be modular, scalable and adaptable across formats and platforms.

The rise of AI and the acceleration of everything
No reflection on modern marketing would be complete without acknowledging AI.

We are entering a phase where content can be generated at scale, personalisation can happen dynamically and insights can be surfaced instantly. AI isn’t just a tool. It’s an accelerant which comes with a big warning: it amplifies good and bad marketing. Strong strategic becomes more powerful; weak thinking is exposed more easily and faster.

What hasn’t changed
AI reinforces a core truth: technology doesn’t replace differentiation. It makes it more essential. For all the transformation, some marketing fundamentals remain exactly the same:

Psychology: at its heart, marketing is still about human behaviour, motivations, emotions and decisions.
Clarity of message: complexity has increased, but clarity still cuts through.
Creative impact: communications that resonate emotionally still outperform work that merely informs.
Trust: more than ever, trust is the foundation of brand value and the easiest thing to lose.

Marketing has moved from a discipline of execution to a discipline of adaptation.
Twenty years ago, success came from getting things right before launch. Today, success comes from continuously getting better after it. The pace has increased. The tools have evolved. The stakes have risen.

But the core challenge remains the same: to connect meaningfully with people and to do so in a way that matters.

That hasn’t changed in 20 years. And it won’t change in the next 20 either.