Summer 2026: Every Brand Is Getting In Consumers' Faces

Lately, scrolling through the marketing news, I've noticed one thing.

This summer of 2026, almost every brand you can name is doing the same thing — getting in your face.

What does "getting in your face" mean?

It means no more keeping their distance, no more waving at you through the TV screen. It means walking straight up to the places you pass every day, speaking the way you speak every day — and even pulling you into their stories.

Let me tell you about a few things that actually happened.

Walking Up to the Places You Pass Every Day

Degree, a brand that sells antiperspirant, renamed iconic New York subway stations.

"Lava Core." Yes, that's what the station was called. In the dead of summer, commuters drenched in sweat — the scene and an antiperspirant were a natural pair. They even brought in influencers to do street interviews at the stations, flagging down passersby to chat.

Picture it: you're squeezed into a sweltering subway, sweating through your shirt, you look up and the station is called "Lava Core," and someone shoves a microphone in your face asking how you feel —

Isn't that image a lot more memorable than that 30-second ad you'd watch on your TV at home?

Kia did something similar. They went after hot memes on Reddit, and even ran them during the WNBA All-Star Weekend. Reddit memes, as you know, are all young people entertaining themselves, cooking up whatever they find funny. A car brand daring to carry wild online memes into a major sporting event — that takes some nerve.

FX took it even further. To push their new series The Shards, they transformed an iconic mall into a full-blown 1980s scene.

Why the '80s? Because the show is set then. You walk into this mall, you walk into the world of the show. This isn't running an ad — this is building a world.

Turning a Viral Meme Into Your Own Face

The Liberty Mutual story is even better.

This insurance company had an ad clip go viral online. Instead of letting that buzz fizzle out, they rode it to create a brand-new character — Liberty Biberty, a fuzzy yellow puppet.

Who made it? Jim Henson's Creature Shop. Yes, the same people behind The Muppets.

An insurance company, now with its own mascot. This yellow puppet is going to show up again and again across their ads, social media, events. One viral moment, turned into a lasting face.

Oscar Mayer — yes, the hot dog people — went even wilder. They teamed up with the dessert brand Milk Bar to make a "hot dog cake."

The cake was topped with hot dogs, crowned with a Wienermobile (their iconic hot-dog-shaped vehicle) figurine. The moment this thing hit the internet, the shares took on a life of their own. The brand didn't even have to spend money buying traffic.

What does getting in your face look like? This. Not relying on a budget to hammer the message — relying on an idea so absurd people can't help but share it.

Letting Consumers Speak for You

Gap did something that surprised me.

They threw their company's "Creator Program" open to every single employee. Store clerks, warehouse workers, distribution-center staff — anyone could take part. The format was wide open: Newsletters, social media, branded content, product stories, whatever.

Think about what that means.

A warehouse picker snaps a photo of a shelf of clothes they just organized, captions it "this is my battlefield," and posts it to social media. A store clerk shares how she helped a customer put an outfit together. This kind of content is a hundred times more authentic than the polished ad films a brand produces.

Zevia brought in Cardi B. Yes, that Cardi B — the rapper who never minces words. They didn't have Cardi B read product talking points off a script. They let her "tell the truth" — in her unfiltered way, voicing what everyone is already thinking but won't say out loud.

Hanes, a 125-year-old brand selling basic underwear, also went all in this year. The new ad leans on a "pants-dropping" gag, edgy enough that you'd have a hard time believing a century-old brand would pull this.

But flip it around: a 125-year-old brand still hustling this hard — what does that tell you?

It tells you that playing it safe gets you ignored.

The Nostalgia Card Is Working Especially Well This Year

Spangler, the parent company of Dum Dums lollipops, carved out a whole market on "nostalgia."

Their VP said the company's strategy is to acquire "legacy brands with stories." Every brand carries decades of history — the moment consumers see the packaging, their childhood comes rushing back.

Kraft Heinz signed a long-term partnership with Disney. It covers advertising, digital content, theme parks, cruises, media — basically every touchpoint Disney can reach a consumer at, Kraft Heinz is there too.

Is this a co-branding deal? I'd call it a long-term lock-in. Two giants welding their family audiences, emotional memories, and consumption moments together.

Canada Goose did something counterintuitive. Their new brand platform is called "Natural Intelligence." Instead of chasing the AI wave, they looked backward — filming storm chasers, filming outdoor adventurers, reconnecting the brand and people with the natural world.

At a moment when every brand is scrambling to tell an AI story, someone turns around to tell a story about nature. That choice alone is worth thinking about.

The Real Question: Beyond the Spectacle, Has Anyone Done the Math?

After all this buzz, I want to talk about something that might make you uncomfortable.

51toCarbonZero ran a survey, and here's what they found: most marketers believe AI is increasing carbon emissions — but only 36% are actually tracking the full environmental impact of their own AI use.

What does that mean?

Everyone's using AI to make content, run ad placements, do analysis — it's a constant frenzy. But how much electricity, how much carbon — the vast majority of people have no idea.

Meta poured hundreds of billions of dollars into AI this year. Zuckerberg was brimming with enthusiasm. The market's reaction? Cold. Investors stared at that ballooning cost figure and started getting nervous.

Google's Q2 earnings, on the other hand, looked good — search and other revenue up 17%, helped by World Cup fever plus Gemini's improvements. But analysts eyeing the AI spending bill still frowned.

Netflix is wrestling with its own version of this. Live content brings in ad revenue and fan excitement, but underlying viewing hours are declining. You put on a wildly popular live event, and the total time people spend watching on the platform actually drops — how do you account for that?

This is the real position of brand marketing in 2026: the front end feels like a holiday, but the back-end ledger is full of question marks.

Back to That One Move

Why are brands collectively getting in your face?

Plain and simple: because shouting from a distance doesn't work anymore.

TV commercials, banner ads, that one post squeezed into your feed — consumers have built up the muscle memory of swiping past in a single second. Ad aversion is a real, measured data point, not a feeling.

Data from Hub Entertainment Research says two-thirds of viewers report they find ads less annoying now than they used to. But pay attention to the framing: it's "less annoying," not "I enjoy watching them."

Why less annoying? Research from Omnicom offers a clue: a better content experience lifts purchase intent.

In plain English: when the ad itself is good enough to watch, consumers will watch it.

So Degree builds a scene in the subway, Liberty Mutual turns a meme into a mascot, Oscar Mayer makes a hot dog cake, Gap lets employees be creators. Plain and simple, these brands are all making content worth watching. Running ads? That's almost an afterthought.

Behind all of it is the same judgment: consumers don't resist good content — consumers resist boring.

An Observation That Might Not Be Right

After watching this whole summer of marketing moves, I have a feeling. It might not be right.

The future of brand power will be about who dares to get closer — not who shouts louder.

What does getting closer mean? It means setting down the "authoritative voice" written into the brand playbook and learning to speak in the consumer's own language. Daring to be self-deprecating, daring to be absurd, daring to put employees on stage. Giving up a little control, letting consumers, influencers, random passersby help tell your story.

That's hard. Because the thing brand teams fear most is losing control.

But look at Liberty Biberty, that fuzzy yellow puppet — look at Oscar Mayer's cake piled with hot dogs —

None of this lives inside the "safe zone" of the traditional brand playbook.

But they got remembered.

Maybe safety is the biggest risk of all.

Here's hoping, in this buzzing summer, you find your own way to get in people's faces too.