Volatility: The New Normal

For years, marketing leaders were told to “wait out the cycle.”

But volatility is no longer episodic; it is structural. I went away for a two-week holiday during which time the DOJ opened a criminal investigation against the Federal Reserve Chair; the U.S. took out a sovereign nation’s dictator; Iranian citizens took to the streets; and domestic enforcement powers visibly expanded. That’s just page one.

There is no return to stability.

In this environment, a marketing leader’s focus must be on adaptability: commercially, culturally, and creatively. Not just on efficiency.

How did geopolitics and global economics become a marketing problem? Because marketing is where demand, trust, pricing, and perception collide. And all of them are being reshaped by a destabilized world order.

The forces rewriting how growth happens

1. The macro floor is lower (and shakier)

Global growth has settled into a slower, more fragile range than the pre-2008 era. Even in the U.S., recent GDP gains have been unusually narrow, driven largely by government spending and healthcare rather than broad-based private demand.

Marketing can no longer rely on macro tailwinds to mask weak execution. Growth now comes from sharper choices, faster learning, and tighter coordination, not from “the market lifting all boats.”

Stability is no longer the base case. It is the upside scenario.

2. Geopolitics has moved into the P&L

Trade policy, data sovereignty, industrial subsidies, and sanctions now shape pricing, availability, media, partnerships, and brand trust. Global trade restrictions have more than doubled since 2020 and now touch nearly 10 percent of world trade.

For many multinationals, country strategy has effectively become brand strategy, and these decisions now sit squarely at the board table. It may explain why geopolitical debate is increasingly visible on platforms like LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network.

Marketing is no longer downstream of these decisions. It is where the consequences surface first.

3. Climate and energy shocks amplify unpredictability

Physical disruption and policy disruption increasingly arrive together. Climate-related disasters now cause over $250B in global economic losses annually, and extreme weather accounts for more than 30 percent of supply-chain disruptions, up from under 10 percent a decade ago.

When costs spike or supply falters, marketing is often the first lever pulled. CMOs are increasingly forced to justify investment in real time, not just manage cuts. Those who cannot articulate the value of trust, continuity, and relevance under pressure lose the argument.

4. Supply chains are fragile again, and customers feel it

“Efficient” has proven brittle. McKinsey estimates companies now face a major supply disruption every three to four years, often capable of erasing 30 to 50 percent of a year’s EBIT if unmanaged.

Customers experience these breakdowns as brand failures long before they are labeled operational ones. Availability and reliability increasingly define trust. Marketing owns more of that risk than it may want, but not owning it is worse.

5. Consumer behaviour has broken old models

Consumers are stressed, skeptical, and inconsistent. Over 70 percent are trading down in some categories while splurging in others, breaking traditional demand patterns. Sentiment and spending no longer move together.

According to Gartner, demand forecast error in consumer goods and retail has increased 30 to 50 percent versus pre-pandemic norms. Forecast error is no longer an exception. It is the operating condition.

Marketing is now the company’s volatility navigator

In a volatile system, the organizations that win do not predict better. They reallocate faster.

That changes marketing’s role fundamentally.

Marketing is no longer just a demand engine. It is a shock absorber for the enterprise: a system for sensing change early, reallocating resources quickly, and protecting trust as conditions shift.

Four realities now separate leaders from laggards.

Speed of reallocation beats elegance of planning.

Long-term brand direction still matters, but advantage now comes from how fast talent, budget, creative, and inventory can move when signals change. Annual plans without pre-approved flexibility are liabilities.

Optionality matters more than efficiency.

High performers deliberately trade some efficiency for responsiveness. They build modular creative systems, diversify partners, pre-approve alternatives, and clarify decision rights before disruption hits.

Companies like Unilever and Zara have prioritized responsiveness over optimization, building faster decision loops and execution optionality. Even large advertisers’ recent moves to diversify agency relationships beyond single-network dependence reflect the same shift. Resilience and speed now matter as much as scale.

Trust is the scarcest asset, and the easiest to lose.

Customers are harder to win and quicker to abandon. Value perception, convenience, and credibility are moving targets. Marketing now owns more enterprise risk than it is comfortable admitting. Avoiding that ownership only accelerates failure.

Culture is a success metric, not a soft issue.

In volatile conditions, culture becomes the operating system. The World Economic Forum ranks resilience, adaptability, and leadership among the fastest-growing skill priorities globally. Decision speed depends on trust, clarity, and leaders who can operate under ambiguity without paralysis.

AI can support sensing. It cannot replace judgment.

The uncomfortable question CMOs must ask

If volatility is permanent, is your marketing organization built for a world that no longer exists?

Too many remain optimized for steady-state growth, annual budget cycles, and predictable consumer behaviour. That gap is now a material risk.

By 2030, 22 percent of all jobs globally are expected to be structurally transformed by technology, geopolitics, climate, and demographics. Stability is no longer a planning assumption. It is a downside scenario.

Practical moves for the next 90 days

If we were sitting across the table from a peer, we would suggest starting here.

Stress-test the business for instability.

Identify the few realistic ways volatility could damage performance. Define quantifiable risks, triggers, owners, and minimum responses executable within 30 days.

Shift from annual plans to rolling 90-day reallocation.

Keep long-term strategy, but pre-approve small “shock budgets” so teams can move without waiting for permission.

Remove obvious single points of failure.

Identify the suppliers, platforms, partners, or roles whose disruption would materially damage performance and reduce dependence now.

Strengthen early-warning signals.

Build a simple weekly executive dashboard tracking demand shifts, competitive moves, policy changes, and trust risk.

Pressure-test leadership capability.

If culture is the coordination system, ensure leaders have the skills to sustain it under stress. Under-skilled leadership compounds risk in volatile conditions.

If volatility is the system, speed is the advantage. Marketing’s job is to say less, decide faster, and act with conviction.

If building agility into your organization is challenge, I’d love to hear from you.