South Africa, Feb. 19 -- For marketers to succeed in 2026, we must move past the data and reconnect with the human stories hidden beneath the spreadsheets. As such, I have identified a growing trend of marketers leading with metrics rather than insights, a practice I describe as a "backwards bad habit".

In 2026, South Africa's consumer patterns stare back at us with a haunting familiarity, but we seldom investigate the why. Numbers are excellent at telling you what is happening.

They track clicks and carts with surgical precision. But only people can tell you why those things happened.

If we continue to lead with measurement, we are essentially trying to read a book by only looking at the page numbers. The real shift ahead for 2026 is ...