AI hype and a yearning for reality: The paradoxical recipe for success at OMR 2026
Reading time: 3 min
Two days of OMR feels a bit like three months of internet in one place. You’ve barely entered the OMR 2026 exhibition halls before you’ve stumbled from one groundbreaking AI tool to the next. It felt like every presentation, every masterclass and every exhibitor had the abbreviation “AI” in their slogan. And at the same time? Everyone was crying out for more reality. Welcome to the year of marketing, in which two worlds collide with full force.
The great OMR paradox: Generated vs. real
It is probably the most exciting irony of marketing: while we automate and artificially optimize our processes in the background to the maximum, we as consumers long for nothing more than the unfiltered in front of the screen.
The undisputed buzzword at this year’s OMR was quite clear: authenticity.
Staying true to yourself – it sounds like a nice calendar phrase at first, but it is now essential for survival in marketing. The trend towards showing more everyday life and genuine reality has been brewing for some time. However, the omnipresence of AI has accelerated this desire like a catalyst. When everything can be generated perfectly, the imperfect suddenly becomes a luxury good.
What does this mean for brands? (Spoiler: no cringe please)
For companies, this development means a radical rethink. Although the classic glossy advertising video for five-figure budgets has had its day, this in no way means that we as an agency are doing less. Quite the opposite: our creative output is shifting away from sterile perfection towards strategic, authentic storytelling that really sticks with the customer.
- Courage to be imperfect: Consumers smell fake perfection. Brands must learn to abandon the control mentality and have the courage to show rough edges.
- No blind copying: Just because every other content creator is now vlogging their life doesn’t mean that traditional brands should copy it one-to-one. Authenticity also means knowing who you are – and who you are not. A forced “Day in my Life” vlog by an employee can quickly backfire.
- Taking people with you instead of healing worlds: It’s not about holding the camera unflatteringly in the coffee kitchen. It’s about telling real stories. Take your target group on a journey, show the faces behind the brand and have the courage to show that sometimes things go wrong for you too. Nobody will buy your “perfect world” anyway.
- Creator relationships instead of individual campaigns: A key success factor is moving away from campaign-driven influencer use towards long-term creator partnerships. Instead of thinking of individual collaborations in isolation, this creates genuine relationships between brand and creator. This makes for much more credible content. They become recurring voices of the brand instead of one-off advertising media. It is precisely this continuity that creates trust with the audience and leads to brand messages being organically embedded in the everyday lives of the target group.
Conclusion: Efficiency in the back end, humanity in the front end
The future of marketing does not lie in choosing between technology and humanity. It lies in ensuring efficiency with AI in the background in order to be able to act all the more human, approachable and genuine on stage.
Use the tools to free up your time – and invest this time where no AI in the world can reach: in real, imperfect and honest stories.
In the end, we leave the trade fair with:
37 new ideas,
12 open tabs in our heads,
4 new LinkedIn contacts,
a half-empty battery and the feeling of being both completely inspired and completely overstimulated.
