As we head toward the 2026 ANA Brand Masters | ICONS Conference this May, I’m feeling the kind of anticipation that only comes when a program meets a moment. At a time of intense pressure for marketers, we're going to answer the question, "What makes a brand truly iconic?"
Too often, we the word “iconic” to mean famous. Or big. Or beloved by marketers. But iconic brands are something more demanding than that. They are brands that endure. Brands that evolve without losing themselves. Brands that remain culturally relevant and commercially powerful.
That’s why this year’s Brand Masters | ICONS theme feels so timely.
This won’t be a conference about admiring brands from a distance. It will be a conference about understanding what makes them work -- and what today’s marketers can apply in their own businesses.
Here are the five things attendees can expect -- and the five things I’m most looking forward to.
1) A deeper look at what actually makes a brand “iconic” today
At Brand Masters | ICONS, we’re aiming to do something more useful than celebrate recognizable names. We’re focused on understanding the choices, systems, and principles that help brands earn enduring relevance and loyalty over time.
This year’s conference is built to explore what sets rarefied brands apart -- not only creative excellence, but also courage and operational rigor. That combination matters. Iconic brands don’t succeed because they have one great ad or one big year. They succeed because they build repeatable strengths that compound.
For attendees, that means leaving with more than inspiration. It means leaving with a sharper lens for evaluating your own brand:
- Where are we genuinely distinctive?
- Where are we too generic?
- What are we building that will still matter three years from now?
2) Real candor from leaders building brands in the real world
One of the things I love most about Brand Masters is that it is not a “theory-only” conference. It brings together leaders who are in the arena -- making hard choices, navigating constraints, and building brands while also delivering growth.
ANA and related conference materials point to a lineup featuring brand leaders from companies like McDonald’s, Canva, YETI, Rocket, and more -- exactly the kind of mix that makes for rich conversation: legacy brands, category leaders, and modern challengers.
What I’m especially looking forward to is the why behind the wins:
- How did they get internal buy-in?
- What tradeoffs did they make?
- Where did they hold the line on brand?
- How did they know when to evolve versus when to protect the core?
That level of practical honesty is what helps attendees go back to their own organizations with better judgment, not just better notes.
3) A strong emphasis on brand as a driver of measurable financial value -- not just “marketing” metrics
This is the one I care deeply about, and I believe it is one of the most important conversations in our industry right now.
For too long, too many brand conversations have been confined to soft or siloed metrics. Those indicators can be useful, but they are not sufficient. If we want brand to be understood as a strategic business asset, we must be able to connect brand investment and brand health to business outcomes -- growth, pricing power, margin, loyalty, customer lifetime value, and enterprise value.
At ANA, we have been working hard to elevate this conversation, and Brand Masters | ICONS is exactly the right stage for it.
Attendees should expect a more rigorous framing of brand’s role in the business:
- How strong brands create demand resilience
- How they improve the efficiency of performance marketing
- How they support premiumization and pricing
- How they influence retention and future cash flows
- How brand strategy earns credibility in the C-suite and boardroom
In other words: this is not about defending brand with sentiment. It is about proving brand with substance.
If we do our jobs right, attendees will leave better equipped to talk about brand in the language that matters most internally: financial impact.
4) A future-facing conversation about staying distinctive in a fragmented, AI-shaped marketplace
Brand leaders today are navigating a marketplace that is becoming more complex by the quarter. Consumer journeys are more fragmented. Discovery is changing. AI is reshaping how people search, decide, and buy. That creates both risk and opportunity for brands.
What excites me is that the Brand Masters | ICONS framing is not nostalgic. It is inherently forward-looking. The question is not simply “How did iconic brands become iconic?” It’s also: How do brands preserve distinctiveness and trust in an environment that is changing underneath them?
This matters tremendously.
Because in a world of:
- compressed attention,
- proliferating channels,
- algorithmic mediation,
- and increasingly fluid customer journeys
brand strength becomes even more important -- not less.
I’m looking forward to sessions that help marketers think through how iconic brand-building principles evolve in this new reality without losing their essence. The best brands won’t choose between timelessness and modernity. They’ll master both.
5) The energy of a community that believes brand building is still one of the highest-leverage jobs in business
There is something uniquely energizing about being in a room full of people who understand that brand is not a “nice to have.” It is one of the greatest multipliers of long-term business success.
What I’m most looking forward to may sound simple, but it matters: the conversations in the hallways, the shared language, the sharpened conviction, the practical takeaways, and the sense of momentum that comes from being with peers who are pushing the discipline forward.
In a period when marketing can easily become over-indexed on short-termism, this conference is a reminder that building an iconic brand is still one of the boldest -- and smartest -- growth strategies a business can pursue.
And that’s why I can’t wait.
Posted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership self-publishing platform.
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