With marketing teams under pressure to prove return and reduce waste, tighter budgets might be expected to limit experimentation. But Northern leaders say disruption and rising costs are, in some cases, prompting brands to actually test more.
When budgets tighten, marketing teams are often expected to focus on proven channels and reduce risk.
However, at Prolific North’s latest virtual news conference attended by leaders from across the North’s creative sectors, experts said the opposite may now be happening for some brands.
Rather than narrowing their approach, they said tighter budgets are pushing businesses to test new channels and reassess established strategies as familiar models become less predictable and more expensive.
“When you’ve still got huge price inflation from Google, just doing the same as you did last year is costing you 20% more than it did,” he said.
“That’s why organisations are trying to work out what other channels are available to us that might help, that might give support to it.”
Rob said this is leading some brands to explore channels they would not previously have considered.
“We took a client onto TV for the first time last year that I would never have considered would have been a candidate for it previously,” he said. “But the results that it gave with their online results was absolutely massive, and the price of moving on to TV nowadays is a fraction of what it used to be.”
As attribution models develop, brands are placing more emphasis on understanding how different channels work together, rather than viewing performance and brand activity separately.
Shaw said the challenge for many organisations is identifying the right mix.
“For some of those brands, they need to do more of that experimentation, because there’s no fixed measure as to what that mix of online and offline spend should be,” he said. “You then need to test.”
Other partners said tighter budgets are increasing scrutiny of performance rather than reducing creativity.
Miles Dagnall, business development manager at Manchester-based Edison Media, said: “We’re still expected to deliver the same sort of results, but what we can do to combat that is remove waste.”
“As budgets tighten, the margin for error reduces,” he said. “Agencies are moving toward experimentation because brands can no longer afford the ‘safety’ of traditional, unmeasured spend.
“At Buymedia, we believe this isn’t just about trying new things; it’s about rethinking the media landscape to focus on audience behavior over channel bias.
“By leveraging AI and predictive analytics, even SMEs can now access the econometrics previously reserved exclusively for global giants. Experimentation today is powered by synthetic customer personas and real-time feedback loops, allowing brands to model outcomes before a single penny is spent. The goal for 2026 isn’t just to spend less, but to ensure every euro or pound works harder by eliminating ad waste and focusing on minimum effective spend.”
The same theme was reflected in comments shared ahead of the meeting by Fiona Robinson at Print.com, who said budget pressure is often changing how money is spent rather than eliminating channels altogether.
The same theme was reflected in comments shared ahead of the meeting by Fiona Robinson at Print.com, who said budget pressure is often changing how money is spent rather than eliminating channels altogether.
“We’ll often see print budgets being cut, but those who are clever about it just spend what they have differently, less ‘blunderbuss’ and more targeted,” she said.
She added that exhibiting is often one of the first areas to be reduced, “usually due to the cost to attend and staffing, not the print and gifting part”.
However, she said brands that remain active in those channels are often more focused in their approach.
“Those who continue to exhibit, maybe with a downsized budget, focus on attracting the right people, being memorable, and following up, all of which print helps to do really well.”
Robinson said print can be particularly effective when integrated with digital and used in a more personalised way.
“Receiving something physical, personalised feels more meaningful and intentional,” she said. “It can be the catalyst to return online to purchase.”
The approach is supported by Marketreach’s Physically Irresistible report, which suggests campaigns including mail are more likely to report ROI effects and revenue uplifts. It also highlights a Toolstation campaign in which a more targeted, data-led mailing significantly outperformed previous activity.
