How will you build your marketing budget for 2026?

As a retailer, you face difficult choices: where to focus, how much will go digital, and what remains non-negotiable? In this intimate roundtable discussion, you’ll talk with up to seven like-minded marketing executives working with the same reality. No slides—just honest approaches, bandwidths, and sanity checks that you can use tomorrow.
Naturally, we’ll do this with complete discretion and operate under Chatham House Rule.

What can you expect?

• Experience sharing: how peers build their budgets and where they emphasize.
• Peer benchmark (light): bandwidths and approaches (without traceable figures).
• Discretion: Chatham House Rule (no recordings).

Questions you’re probably asking yourself now (and which we’ll cover)

• What does the anatomy of my 2026 budget look like? What’s non-negotiable, and where’s the wiggle room?
• What will I do differently in 2026 versus 2025 (what will shift, what will grow, what will die)?
• What ratio of digital versus other channels aligns with our objectives and margin structure?
• Do I allocate an HR/training budget (AI, data, retail media)? How big is that realistic?
• Website & martech: does this belong to IT or marketing—and how do I split CAPEX/OPEX?
• Static planning or dynamic work with guardrails, scenarios, and reallocations?
• Which KPIs and decision rules will I use to make adjustments along the way?
• How do my choices compare to peers (without direct competitors at the table)?

Practical:

• Date: October 16, 2025
• Location: Hybrid, Rijnkaai 100 Unit B12, 2000 Antwerp
• Time: reception 9:30 AM • roundtable 10:00 AM–12:00 PM • followed by a light lunch
• Price: free, by invitation
• Language: Dutch
• Curatie: we avoid direct competition and match skill levels