Across a lot of marketing teams, the same headache keeps turning up. People are being pushed towards follower counts, posting frequency, channel debates, and quick-win lead pressure when the bigger problem is weaker fundamentals, reduced senior experience, and too little confidence to push back.

It also builds on Immediate Future’s recent work on practical AI for marketers and social search readiness, where the same pattern keeps surfacing: more tools and more activity do not save time when decision-making is weak.

That matters because the market has got harder, not easier.

Here is the backdrop worth using in the live:

· 74% of CMOs say they are under more scrutiny to prove marketing ROI. The money is watched more closely and every line of spend is being picked over.

· Marketing budgets are flat at 7.7% of company revenue, and 59% of CMOs say they do not have enough budget to execute their strategy.

· In the GTM Confidence Index FY26, only 9% of senior B2B leaders say they are highly confident in achieving their 2026 growth targets. 44% report fragmented stacks and 34% say lack of AI skills is the main barrier to making AI effective.

· In 6sense’s 2025 buyer research, buying groups average 10+ people, journeys take nearly a year, and buyers fill most of their shortlist on day one, then buy from that shortlist 85% to 95% of the time.

· Edelman and LinkedIn found 95% of hidden buyers say compelling thought leadership makes them more open to outreach, and 79% are more likely to champion a vendor during an RFP if that vendor consistently publishes quality thought leadership.

· Forrester says 94% of B2B buyers now use AI in purchasing. In a later 2026 note, it says buyers use AI to research product information (54%) and compare products (55%).

· Metricool’s 2025 study suggests LinkedIn is still a useful attention environment for B2B, with interactions up 122%, clicks up 99%, engagement up 51%, and average impressions up 33% year on year.

Put simply, marketers are under pressure to prove value while buyers are doing more of their homework before sales ever gets near them. That means the old lazy questions are actively unhelpful.

In this episode, Katy Howell, CEO at Immediate Future, sits down with Maxine Ashbrook, Marketing Director UK at Fujitsu, for a senior, no-nonsense conversation about the messy middle of modern B2B marketing.

Today’s buyers are shortlisting without you in the room. Boards want ROI yesterday. And marketing teams are under constant pressure to deliver more with less. So what actually needs to change?

Maxine shares a perspective leaders genuinely need. Instead of trying to outwork the chaos, she reworked the system reshaping team structures, redefining operating rhythms, and changing how marketing shows up internally. The result? Less time lost to friction, rework, and internal politics and more focus on what drives impact.

Social plays a key role in this approach. It acts as the fastest, most visible signal of whether your story, proof, and internal alignment are truly landing. But at its core, this episode is about something bigger: engineering marketing to fit the reality we’re all operating in.

If you’re navigating the pressure of modern B2B and looking for a smarter way forward, this is a conversation worth your time.

Marketing has become a constant stream of interrupts, opinions, and last minute requests.Most teams are doing “work about work” all day, and still being judged on growth.We don’t have time for this is a practical, senior series that calls out the real blockers, the loops, the handovers, the approval theatre, and gives you a cleaner way to run marketing so social stays sharp, trust stays intact, and your team gets time back.You should care because the tools keep changing, the pressure keeps rising, and budgets are not expanding. If the operating model does not get tighter, AI just becomes another thing to manage.This episode with Jack Stanley keeps it principle led, and a clear path that ensures you turnAI into measurable time back.

Hi everyone, I’m Katy Howell, CEO at Immediate Future.This is the first episode of we don’t have time for this. It’s for marketers who are doing more with less, while buying decisions get messier and social, search, content, brand, comms, all of it, keeps getting judged like it’s a nice-to-have.Today’s pain is simple. You’re marketing to three generations inside one buying group and half the time you’re guessing what will land, what will be trusted, and what will get forwarded internally without you looking daft. Tejal Patel is joining me. Tejal is a customer-first marketing leader with previous senior roles across Cisco, Microsoft, and Nokia. She helps teams get clear, get aligned, and stop wasting time on work that doesn’t travel, fixing the fundamentals so innovation works Tejal’s brilliant at bringing clarity when teams are drowning in noise. We’re going to talk about trust cues, channel choices, content formats, and how you build an insight system that stops your team wasting time.

In this live session, we explored how social media and AI are reshaping the way travellers discover and book their journeys. The discussion unpacked why social is now the first stop for discovery, with AI stepping in as the finisher and what that means for visibility, traffic, and trust. We covered the messy, non-linear nature of today’s traveller journey, the rising role of AI Overviews in search, and the practical quick wins brands can implement right now to lift performance.

Discover how AI and social media are transforming brand discovery in Financial Services.
Social expert Katy Howell and Remarkable’s James Gray explore how platforms like ChatGPT and social media are reshaping how consumers search, research, and connect with brands today.

When your dashboard says nothing and your boss wants everything

You’ve got dashboards, metrics, charts galore – but none of it tells a story. Join me and Barnaby Barron from Brandwatch, as we unpack why data storytelling is the skill every marketer needs in 2025.

Whether you’re trying to justify a campaign or win a budget battle, this live is for you.

You walk away with:
• New ways to visualise your data
• A better understanding of what your stakeholders need to hear
• Clear steps to turn insights into actions
• A bit of a laugh, because marketing is messy

First-time exclusive! We're sharing the groundbreaking Brilliant and Human Report with insights that will transform your marketing. Tune in as Katy Howell and Remeny Armitage uncover why trust is the ultimate marketing tool and how to build it through consistent communication, thought leadership, and proactive strategies. Discover how 62% of clients feel their agencies react rather than lead and what you can do to change that. This is the episode that will turn your marketing into a trust-building powerhouse.