In a media landscape where attention is fleeting, how can brands meet the challenge of truly standing out? Building and maintaining persuasive stories—campaigns that truly sway and influence consumers—is vital to ensure brands break through the noise.
From left: Swayable's James Slezak moderates our first Persuasion session with Axios' Kerry Flynn, Semafor's Max Tani, and Adweek's Kendra Barnett.
At Swayable's Persuasion 2026 event, some of the top minds in media, marketing, and insights gathered to examine how the rapid evolution of media consumption and AI is reshaping brand storytelling. Kendra Barnett, Senior Tech Reporter at Adweek; Kerry Flynn, Media Reporter at Axios; and Max Tani, Media Reporter at Semafor, joined Swayable’s CEO and founder, James Slezak, to examine how marketing teams are successfully cutting through the noise.
"As things fragment and the quality of content is threatened, there's increasingly a question: how can you trust what you're seeing?” said Slezak, kicking off the event. “In a world where trust is currency, there’s a good incentive for people to build it up and maintain it."
Keep scrolling for key takeaways for brand marketers to accelerate their storytelling approaches.
The creator economy represents one of the most powerful full-funnel opportunities available to brand marketers today, but capitalizing on it requires more than allocating budget. It requires genuine fluency in how creators build audiences and tell their stories on social media.
Flynn at Axios made the case for brand marketers to immerse themselves in the creator space by spending time on their go-to platforms, such as TikTok.
"Understanding where all the money goes and why people are spending time on TikTok requires spending time there yourself,” said Flynn.
Whether it's downloading TikTok, exploring Instagram Reels, or simply observing how top creators structure their content, firsthand immersion is one of the fastest paths to insight. Brands that skip this step risk investing in creator partnerships without truly understanding the storytelling dynamics that make these partnerships key drivers of brand lift.
Audiences are consuming more content than ever—YouGov data finds that more than half of Americans spend at least five hours on their phones daily. In this type of media environment, the instinct to chase trends can feel like a logical shortcut to increase visibility among target audiences. But as Tani at Semafor observed:
"We're consuming a lot of content that you are forgetting within 30 seconds,” he said. “That incentivizes creating good, memorable content, and a lot of times that's stuff that takes more effort."
For marketers, piggybacking on a trending social or cultural moment might generate a spike in impressions—but content that is truly distinct, intentionally crafted around a clear point of view, is what can have the most valuable impact in swaying audience perceptions.
According to the panelists, another important mindset shift for brand marketers is to understand that reach alone doesn’t always drive results. Attention, audience scale, and high view counts don’t automatically translate to persuasion or action.
"Audience ownership is more important than anything,” said Barnett. “You're not going to be everywhere at once—you have to be dominant somewhere, choose a niche, and own that audience."
Rather than defaulting to the largest possible audience, marketing teams should ask where their audience is most engaged, loyal, and likely to take action. Investing in niche communities, owned channels, and high-trust environments can often drive long-term, durable brand-consumer relationships.
The media landscape is poised to continue fragmenting and evolving. Our panelists shared that for brand marketers, staying ahead means investing in influencer platform fluency, prioritizing quality over volume, and building audiences where content is designed to drive favorability, consideration, and intent. These are some of the fundamentals that will define effective brand storytelling in 2026 and beyond.
Watch the full session below:
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